What Is Black Organizing?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent W. Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Community Organizing ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Theological Critique ◽  
Scholarly Attention

There has been much scholarly attention paid to faith-based community organizing. Such organizing efforts often understand themselves as “broad-based,” drawing support from a range of religious communities, racial groups, and neighborhoods. In doing so, these organizing efforts often elide the specificity of racial and religious difference. This chapter draws on feminist critiques of community organizing traditions to develop a black theological critique—and the beginnings of an alternative approach to community organizing that draws on the longstanding organizing traditions already present in black communities. By bringing together secular and religious traditions of black organizing, and by coupling black organizing with black theological reflection, this chapter shows how black community organizing can move beyond pragmatic appeals that sideline racial and religious identity.

Prophetic Redemption

2018 ◽  
pp. 43-67
Author(s):  
Edward Orozco Flores
Keyword(s):  
Social Integration ◽  
Community Organizing ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Gang Members ◽  
Formerly Incarcerated ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
The Social

This chapter builds upon a gap in the field of criminology by investigating how CRS and LA Voice, as umbrella faith-based community organizing groups, shaped the social integration of former gang members and the formerly incarcerated. CRS and LA Voice’s contrasting religious traditions shaped how they facilitated members’ participation in community organizing. LA Voice leaders drew from Catholic theologies and practices and a relationship-based model of community organizing to foster members’ civic participation. This approach is termed pastoral prophetic redemption. By contrast, CRS leaders drew from the historical Black Protestant church’s theologies and practices and an issue-based model of community organizing to foster members’ civic participation. This approach is termed insurgent prophetic redemption.

"Jesus Saved an Ex-Con"

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Orozco Flores
Keyword(s):  
Social Integration ◽  
Community Organizing ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Formerly Incarcerated ◽  
Community Renewal ◽  
National Network ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
Formerly Incarcerated Persons

This book presents two cases of faith-based community organizing for and among the formerly incarcerated. It examines how the Community Renewal Society, a protestant-founded group, and LA Voice, an affiliate of the Catholic-Jesuit-founded PICO National Network, foster faith-based community organizing for the formerly incarcerated. It conceptualizes the expanding boundaries of democratic inclusion—in order to facilitate the social integration of the formerly incarcerated—as prophetic redemption. It draws from participant observation and semistructured interviews to examine how the Community Renewal Society offered support for the Fighting to Overcome Records and Create Equality (FORCE) project, while LA Voice offered support for the Homeboy Industries–affiliated Homeboys Local Organizing Committee (LOC), both as forms of prophetic redemption. Both FORCE and the Homeboys LOC were led by formerly incarcerated persons, and drew from their parent organizations’ respective religious traditions and community organizing strategies. At the same time, FORCE and Homeboys LOC members drew from displays learned in recovery to participate in community organizing. The result was that prophetic redemption led to an empowering form of social integration, “returning citizenship.”

Challenges and Opportunities of Community Organizing in Suburban Congregations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Geraty
Keyword(s):  
Workforce Development ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Community Organizing ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Fair Housing ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Suburban Environment

Kristin Geraty’s chapter focuses on a faith-based community organizing coalition that mobilizes congregations for progressive action around issues of fair housing, education, and workforce development, but in which many participants are registered Republicans and consider themselves theological conservatives. The chapter shows how the coalition struggles to construct a call to action that resonates with members, and to negotiate how their religious identity is communicated and interpreted in an affluent, suburban environment where the intersection of religion and politics is almost always conservative.

Leavening Public Life

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-53
Author(s):  
Larry Abbott Golemon
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Theological Education ◽  
Public Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Social Discourse ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Theological Schools

From the beginning of theological education in the United States, pastors, priests, and rabbis have been educated as leaders in public life by being producers of culture. This chapter describes how theological schools prepared clergy for leadership in five social arenas: families, congregations, schools, voluntary societies, and published media. Families were the seedbeds of religious identity and character, congregations became charismatic communities of piety and action, schools developed cultural capital and moral practices, voluntary societies mobilized resources and mass movements to reshape society, and popular media built national communities of religious identity and reform. These five social arenas also operated in harmony for clergy and religious communities to influence public morality and social discourse. Through their leadership in family life, educating youth, writing and publishing, and leading voluntary associations, the clergy mobilized aspects of their religious traditions to shape public narratives, symbols, and practices. In turn, this wider social engagement helped expand and renew the religious traditions they represented.

scholarly journals Empty Selves and Multiple Belonging: Gadamer and Nāgārjuna on Religious Identity’s Hidden Plurality

Open Theology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Hustwit
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Second Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Per Se

AbstractThe reaction to multiple religious belonging has been fraught with anxiety in the monotheistic traditions. Nevertheless, increasing numbers of people report belonging to multiple religions. I propose that it is most useful to think of multiple religious belonging not so much as an expression of choice, but just the opposite. Multiple religious belonging is best explained as the ontological condition of two or more religious traditions constituting the self, so that the self’s possibilities are constrained by those religions. Furthermore, I argue that multiple religious belonging per se does not threaten traditional religious communities. Threats are by definition future possibilities, and ontologically speaking, we always already belong to multiple religions. We belong to multiple religions because every religious tradition is an amalgam of earlier distinct traditions. There is nothing new about multiple religious belonging. It is nearly unremarkable. Two philosophers in particular-one a twentieth-century German phenomenologist, the other a second-century Indian Buddhist-have given particularly careful examination of the phenomenon of belonging. Hans-Georg Gadamer’s concept of Wirkungsgeschichte [history of effects] and Nāgārjuna’s teaching of śūnyatā [emptiness] both imply that multiple religious belonging is the ontological condition of all human beings, and that producing any monolithic religious identity requires significant mental gymnastics.

scholarly journals Serbs in Romania relationship between ethnic and religious identity

Balcanica ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 117-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Djuric-Milovanovic
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Western Romania

The paper looks at the role of religion in the ethnic identity of the Serbs in Romania, based on the fieldwork conducted in August 2010 among the Serbian communities in the Danube Gorge (Rom. Clisura Dun?rii; loc. Ser. Banatska klisura), western Romania. A historical perspective being necessary in studying and understanding the complexities of identity structures, the paper offers a brief historical overview of the Serbian community in Romania. Serbs have been living in the Banat since medieval times, their oldest settlements dating back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Today, they mostly live in western Romania (Timi?, Arad, Cara?-Severin and Mehedin?i counties), Timi?oara being their cultural, political and religious centre. Over the last decades, the community has been numerically declining due to strong assimilation processes and demographic trends, as evidenced by successive census data (34,037 in 1977; 29,408 in 1992; 22,518 in 2002). The majority belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church (Diocese of Timi?oara), but a number of neo-Protestant churches have appeared in the last decades. The research focuses on the role of the Orthodox religion among the Serbian minority in Romania and the role of new religious communities in relation to national identity. The role of the dominant Serbian Orthodox Church in preserving and strengthening ethnic identity is looked at, but also influences of other religious traditions which do not overlap with any particular ethnic group, such as neo-Protestantism. With regard to the supranational nature of neo-Protestantism, the aim of the study is to analyze the impact of these new religions on assimilation processes among the Serbs in Romania and to examine in what ways different religious communities influence either the strengthening or the weakening of Serbian ethnic identity.

Governing Diversity: Reflections on the Doctrine and Tradition of Religious Accommodation in Islam

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Muhammad Mushtaq ◽  
Muhammad Riaz Mahmood
Keyword(s):  
Power Sharing ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Peaceful Coexistence ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Religious Accommodation ◽  
Pluralistic Approach ◽  
Inclusive Governance ◽  
Multicultural Policies ◽  
Islamic Values

The problématique of governing diversity has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention but literature has largely overlooked the challenges appertaining to growing religious diversity in many places. The contemporary power sharing models and multicultural policies which are of a secular nature fall short of the expectations to foster peaceful coexistence in multi-religious societies. The primary concern of this paper is to manifest how religion can help us to lessen faith based violence. It is argued that religious traditions may offer valuable insights to design more inclusive governance. In this backdrop, the current paper evaluates the Islamic values of religious accommodation to gauge how helpful they are for designing inclusive policies in religiously diverse societies. The analysis illustrates that Islamic doctrine contemplates the politics of accommodation and forbearance. The pluralistic approach of Islam offered religious autonomy to non-Muslims in the state of Madinah. The ‘millet system’ established by the Ottoman Empire is widely admired for granting non-territorial autonomy in the matters related to religion, culture, and personal laws to non-Muslims. This display of an Islamic pluralistic approach at different junctures of Muslim history attests the capacity of the Islamic values of accommodation to nurture peaceful coexistence in modern societies. However, it requires a more unbiased and rigorous analysis to convince the global audience in this regard.

Dialogue or Confrontation?

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ringo Ringvee
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Neoliberal Governance ◽  
Religious Associations ◽  
Liberal Attitude

The article focuses on the relations between the state , mainstream religions and new religious movements in Estonia from the early 1990s until today. Estonia has been known as one of highly secular and religiously liberal countries. During the last twenty years Estonian religious scene has become considerably more pluralist, and there are many different religious traditions represented in Estonia. The governmental attitude toward new religious movements has been rather neutral, and the practice of multi-tier recognition of religious associations has not been introduced. As Estonia has been following neoliberal governance also in the field of religion, the idea that the religious market should regulate itself has been considered valid. Despite of the occasional conflicts between the parties in the early 1990s when the religious market was created the tensions did decrease in the following years. The article argues that one of the fundamental reasons for the liberal attitude towards different religious associations by the state and neutral coexistence of different traditions in society is that Estonian national identity does not overlap with any particular religious identity.

Ritualizing Iconic Jewish Texts

2020 ◽  
pp. 239-255
Author(s):  
James W. Watts
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Bibles and parts of bibles are themselves used as ritual objects in Jewish and Christian worship. Their display and manipulation, oral performance, and semantic interpretation have been ritualized by synagogues and churches since antiquity. The origins of these practices are rooted in the Bible itself. Their influence has shaped every Jewish and Christian tradition and reaches beyond them to Muslims, Manicheans, and other religious communities. This chapter and its companions in this volume on Christianity and Islam focus mostly on how the iconic dimension of scriptures gets ritualized, because the iconic dimension has received less scholarly attention than the ritualization of scripture’s oral performance, artistic illustration, and semantic interpretation.

Standardization, Bureaucratization, and Convergence: The Transformation of Governance of Religion in Urbanizing China

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Xiaoxuan Wang
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Urban Transformation ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Contemporary China ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
State Initiatives ◽  
Chinese State ◽  
Scholarly Attention

This article explores critical shifts in the governance of religion amid massive urbanization and technological advances in contemporary China. Since the turn of the millennium, along with rapid urban transformation, the Chinese state has greatly expanded its reach into and surveillance of religious communities. At the same time, tensions between state initiatives and religious communities have come to the forefront of public attention. So far, scholarly attention has mostly focused on the repression of religious communities, especially Christians. The goal of this article is to highlight broader transitions in the ways religion is governed in China and to reflect on how these transitions should be understood alongside the government's social and political agendas. The advancement of technologies and the extension of the bureaucratic system to maintain control of a rapidly urbanizing society, I argue, have brought about a “technological turn” of secularism in China, which will have a far-reaching impact on religious life.

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