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People organize to protect and fight for what they hold most dear. Using auto-ethnography from over a decade of interfaith Broad-based Community Organizing (BBCO) experiences,
Listening to the Spirit makes a case for the political role of sacred values in BBCO, especially as they show up in two organizing practices: the "listening campaign" and the "relational meeting." Aaron Stauffer argues that by centering sacred values in democratic politics, these organizing practices can be seen as religious practices, and that BBCO can build deeper solidarity through sacred values and relational power. Stauffer offers a social ethical, social practical account of religion and grounds democracy in our diverse religious values.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Part I: Sacred Values and Organizing for Power
- Introduction: Inductive Christian Social Ethics: The Method of the Radical Social Gospel
- Chapter 1: Religion, Secularism, and Sacred Value in Counterpublics
- Chapter 2: Organizing Religious Practices
- Part II: Why Sacred Values Matter
- Chapter 3: Our Political Relationship with Sacred Value
- Chapter 4: Radical Democracy and Sacred Value
- Part III: Now What? How Organizing and Theology Can Change Going Forward
- Chapter 5: On Organizing as Practice
- Chapter 6: On Black Organizing: Capitalist Exploitation, Racial Expropriation
- Chapter 7: On Churches
About the author
Aaron Stauffer is the Director of Online Learning and Associate Director of the Wendland-Cook Program at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, working with the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice. He earned his PhD in social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and has organized with the Industrial Areas Foundation in San Antonio, Texas and Religions for Peace. His work has appeared in Tikkun, Sojourners, The Other Journal, Political Theology, and CrossCurrents, as well as other scholarly and popular publications. He lives in Nashville with his partner, Lauren, and their children Julian Emerson and August Lynn.
Summary
People organize to protect and fight for what they hold most dear. Using auto-ethnography from over a decade of interfaith Broad-based Community Organizing (BBCO) experiences, Listening to the Spirit makes a case for the political role of sacred values in BBCO, especially as they show up in two organizing practices: the
Additional text
With intellectual agility and wisdom born of experience and faith, Stauffer develops a political ecclesiology of organizing based on God's call to cultivate relationships of liberation and love. He argues that community organizing, at its best, begins with listening for the Spirit's graceful movement in the world. Through organizing centered in sacred values, churches may build relational power for deepening democracy and countering racial capitalism. Organizers and faithful people seeking a more just world will relish Stauffer's vibrant continuation of the radical social gospel tradition.
