How Moral Talk Connects Faith and Social Justice

Todd Nicholas Fuist’s chapter examines the complicated ways in which participants in progressive religious communities use religious language to talk about politics. The chapter shows that the communities Fuist studies use three models for understanding the connection between faith and politics: the Teacher Model, where religious exemplars are understood as promoting progressive action; the Community Model, where groups promote specific, progressive understandings of what it means to be a community; and the Theological Model, where existing beliefs are creatively applied to contemporary politics. Through the combination of these three models, these communities create pathways to understanding and action by sacralizing progressive ideologies and practices about social justice.

Strategic Storytelling by Nuns on the Bus

Ruth Braunstein’s chapter examines the Nuns on the Bus campaign, launched by a group of Catholic Sisters in 2012 to raise awareness of the harm that federal budget cuts would cause struggling American families. The chapter focuses on the Nuns’ use of storytelling during this campaign. Through their storytelling performances, the Nuns framed religious communities as morally superior carriers of knowledge about the effects of cuts in government spending; framed vulnerable people and the programs that serve them as morally worthy beneficiaries of government spending; and asserted the moral necessity of taking stories seriously alongside other forms of more abstract and impersonal data that inform the policymaking process. Overall, the chapter argues that this communications strategy helped the Nuns overcome challenges they faced as progressive religious actors seeking to influence public policy debates.

Religion and Progressive Activism—Introducing and Mapping the Field

This chapter introduces readers to the often-overlooked field of progressive religious activism in the United States, and maps its contours. First, it traces the history and continued relevance of progressive religious activism in American political life. Second, it argues that progressive religion should not be conceptualized as a category of social actors, but rather as a field of action defined by participants’ commitment to progressive action, progressive values, progressive identities, and/or progressive theology, as well as through participants’ efforts to distinguish themselves from the activities of religious conservatives and/or secular progressives. Finally, it assesses the varied ways that attention to progressive religion challenges common political binaries (like Right/Left and progress/tradition), and prompts a reconsideration of long accepted theories of religion and social movements as well as the role of faith in democratic politics and civic life.

Challenges and Opportunities of Community Organizing in Suburban Congregations

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.

Progressive Religious Activists and Democratic Party Politics

Rebecca Sager’s chapter focuses on a broader ecology of progressive religious organizations and actors working at the national level, and their relationship to Democratic Party politics. Drawing on participant observation of the 2008 and 2010 political campaigns of Democratic candidate Tom Perriello of Virginia for Congress, she demonstrates how Democratic Party activists used this campaign as means of exploring how a progressive candidate could reach out to religious voters. She also shows how the group of activists who led this effort were connected to a variety of new progressive religious movement organizations that had emerged as a loosely coordinated force to offset the power of the religious Right in the public sphere.

Religious Beliefs and Perceptions of Repression in the U.S. and Swedish Plowshares Movements

Sharon Erickson Nepstad’s chapter hones our understanding of how religion can shape activists’ interpretations of repression. Through a comparative analysis of the Plowshares movements in the United States and Sweden, this chapter argues that long prison sentences did not harm the U.S. Plowshares movement in part because activists’ Catholic beliefs and identity led them to view repression in religious terms that deepened their commitment, motivation, and unity. The chapter contrasts the U.S. case to the experience of the secular Swedish Plowshares activists, who interpreted their repression in ways that made them susceptible to internal disputes, waning commitment, and co-optation.

Cultural Challenges for Mainline Protestant Political Progressives

Paul Lichterman and Rhys H. Williams’s chapter focuses on theologically liberal Mainline Protestants, who have historically been at the forefront of many progressive religious actions. First, the chapter outlines some of the distinctive cultural challenges Mainliners face when they try to bring a specifically religious voice to progressive political advocacy. It then shows how Mainline Protestant identity and communication style, as well as the larger reputation of vocal conservative Christianity in public, all create cultural gaps that politically progressive Protestants must confront and engage.

Collective Identity and Movement Solidarity among Religious Left Activists in the U.S.

Drawing on datasets that examine ideas and attitudes of religious activists on both the Left and the Right, Laura R. Olson’s chapter asks whether religious progressives share a collective identity as activists and whether they are committed to specific social movement organizations within their fields of action. She finds that when compared to religious conservatives, progressive religious activists are less committed to specific organizations and are less mobilized behind a coherent public agenda. Finally, Olson discusses the extent to which this difference may affect movement efficacy in political arenas.

Reviving the Civil Religious Tradition

Philip S. Gorski’s chapter provides historical context for progressive religious groups’ use of civil religious rhetoric. Through an analysis of Barack Obama’s efforts to resurrect the civil religious tradition during his two campaigns and terms as president, this chapter revisits and reconstructs the vision of American civil religion that was originally advanced by Robert Bellah in 1967. The chapter shows that the American civil religion is woven out of two main threads: the prophetic religion of the Hebrew Bible and an Anglo-American version of civic republicanism. It also distinguishes the civil religious tradition from its two main rivals: religious nationalism and radical secularism.

Progressive Activism among Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims in the U.S.

Grace Yukich’s chapter observes that most of the research in the field (including in this volume) focuses on activism emerging out of Christian congregations, and on the ways their efforts are positioned in relation to the religious Right and/or secular progressives. Yukich argues that this focus limits the field’s understanding of progressive political action by Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim groups. The chapter further notes that these faith traditions may be overlooked in part because they are not necessarily “congregational” in form and do not orient themselves toward these U.S.-centric political reference points. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims in the U.S., the chapter discusses alternative paths through which members of these groups understand and engage in social change.