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Congregation-based Community Organizing
Community organizing describes a wide variety of efforts to empower residents in a local area to participate in civic life or governmental affairs. Most efforts that claim this label operate in low-income or middle-income areas, and have adopted at least some of the tactics and organizing techniques pioneered by Saul Alinsky and his Industrial Areas Foundation. Other organizations in this tradition include PICO National Network, Gamaliel Foundation, and Direct Action and Research Training Center (DART). They focus on building political power in the hands of an organization of local residents, and using that power to influence issues the organization defines as important. Congregation-based Community Organizing (CBCO) works through local synagogues, churches, and mosques as the primary institutional sponsors of this work. Common characteristics: *Faith-based: They ground their organizing in the moral values and traditions that stem from religious faith, to varying degrees and o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Community Organizing
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other or share some common problem come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. Unlike those who promote more-consensual community building, community organizers generally assume that social change necessarily involves conflict and social struggle in order to generate collective power for the powerless. Community organizing has as a core goal the generation of ''durable'' power for an organization representing the community, allowing it to influence key decision-makers on a range of issues over time. In the ideal, for example, this can get community-organizing groups a place at the table ''before'' important decisions are made. Community organizers work with and develop new local leaders, facilitating coalitions and assisting in the development of campaigns. A central goal of organizing is the development of a robust, organized, local democracy bringing community me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saul Alinsky
Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 – June 12, 1972) was an American community activist and political theorist. His work through the Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation helping poor communities organize to press demands upon landlords, politicians, bankers and business leaders won him national recognition and notoriety. Responding to the impatience of a New Left generation of activists in the 1960s, in his widely cited ''Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer'' (1971) Alinsky defended the arts both of confrontation and of compromise involved in community organizing as keys to the struggle for social justice. Beginning in the 1990s, Alinsky's reputation was revived by commentators on the political Right as a source of tactical inspiration for the Republican Tea Party Movement and, subsequently, by virtue of indirect associations with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as the alleged source of a radical Democratic political agenda. While criticised on the poli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrial Areas Foundation
The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) is a national community organizing network established in 1940 by Saul Alinsky, Roman Catholic Bishop Bernard James Sheil and businessman and founder of the '' Chicago Sun-Times'' Marshall Field III. The IAF partners with religious congregations and civic organizations at the local level to help them build organizations of organizations, referred to as broad-based organizations by the Industrial Areas Foundation, with the purpose of strengthening citizen leadership, developing trust across a community's dividing lines and taking action on issues identified by local community leaders. The Industrial Areas Foundation consists of 65 affiliates in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, with the US projects organized into two regionsWest / Southwest IAFanMetro IAF IAF provides training, consultation and organizers for its affiliated organizations. The Industrial Areas Foundation does not provide direct services, but through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PICO National Network
Faith in Action, formerly known as PICO National Network, is a national network of faith-based community organizations in the United States. The organization is headquartered in Oakland, California, with additional offices in San Diego and Washington, D.C. The organization believes in a society free of economic oppression, racism and discrimination. Its stated mission is "to increase access to health care, improve public schools, make neighborhoods safer, build affordable housing, redevelop communities and revitalize democracy." Faith in Action supports full citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The organization also supports universal health care. History Faith in Action was founded in 1972 by John Baumann, as the Pacific Institute for Community Organization (PICO), headquartered in Oakland, California. In the late 1960s, Baumann had worked with community organizing projects in Chicago, where he became familiar with Saul Alinsky's ideas. During the 1970s, Faith in Action worke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gamaliel Foundation
Gamaliel Foundation provides training and consultation and develops national strategy for its affiliated congregation-based community organizations. As of 2013, Gamaliel has 45 affiliates in 17 U.S. states, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, and claims to represent over a million people. History The Gamaliel Foundation was founded in Chicago in 1968 to assist the Contract Buyers League, which worked to assist African-American home buyers in the city’s West Side. Gamaliel was reoriented to focus on community organizing when Gregory Galluzzo was hired as executive director in 1986. Seeing its basic function as training and developing leaders in low-income communities, Gamaliel’s goal is "to assist local community leaders to create, maintain and expand independent, grassroots, and powerful faith-based community organizations" that have the power to influence political and economic decisions that impact cities and regions. The name " Gamaliel" refers to the Biblical wise m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Action And Research Training Center
The Direct Action and Research Training Center (DART) is a national network of 23 local faith-based community organizing groups across nine states. DART provides training and consultation for local leaders and professional organizers, giving local communities the skills they need to uncover and take action on pressing local problems. As of 2007, DART is the fourth largest congregation-based community organizing network in the United States. History In order to address the unfair treatment of seniors in Miami in 1977, a gathering of religious leaders founded Concerned Seniors of Dade. The organization developed a reputation for being able to quickly and consistently bring together hundreds of people to press city officials around the fair treatment of senior citizens. Following the eruption of a three-day riot in the city of Miami in response to the police killing of Arthur McDuffie in 1980, leaders from Concerned Seniors of Dade decided to expand their focus and establish Peop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synagogues
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worship. Synagogues have a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels), where Jews attend religious Services or special ceremonies (including Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs or Bat Mitzvahs, Confirmations, choir performances, or even children's plays), have rooms for study, social hall(s), administrative and charitable offices, classrooms for religious school and Hebrew school, sometimes Jewish preschools, and often have many places to sit and congregate; display commemorative, historic, or modern artwork throughout; and sometimes have items of some Jewish historical significance or history about the Synagogue itself, on display. Synagogues are consecrated spaces used for the purpose of Jewish prayer, study, assembly, and read ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Church (building)
A church, church building or church house is a building used for Christian worship services and other Christian religious activities. The earliest identified Christian church is a house church founded between 233 and 256. From the 11th through the 14th centuries, there was a wave of church construction in Western Europe. Sometimes, the word ''church'' is used by analogy for the buildings of other religions. ''Church'' is also used to describe the Christian religious community as a whole, or a body or an assembly of Christian believers around the world. In traditional Christian architecture, the plan view of a church often forms a Christian cross; the center aisle and seating representing the vertical beam with the bema and altar forming the horizontal. Towers or domes may inspire contemplation of the heavens. Modern churches have a variety of architectural styles and layouts. Some buildings designed for other purposes have been converted to churches, while many ori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mosques
A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, including outdoor courtyards. The first mosques were simple places of prayer for Muslims, and may have been open spaces rather than buildings. In the first stage of Islamic architecture, 650-750 CE, early mosques comprised open and closed covered spaces enclosed by walls, often with minarets from which calls to prayer were issued. Mosque buildings typically contain an ornamental niche ('' mihrab'') set into the wall that indicates the direction of Mecca ('' qiblah''), ablution facilities. The pulpit ('' minbar''), from which the Friday ( jumu'ah) sermon ('' khutba'') is delivered, was in earlier times characteristic of the central city mosque, but has since become common in smaller mosques. Mosques typically have segregated spaces for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religion And Peacebuilding
Religion and peacebuilding refer to the study of religion's role in the development of peace. Nathan C. Funk and Christina J. Woolner categorize these approaches into three models. The first is “peace through religion alone”. This proposes to attain world peace through devotion to a given religion. Opponents claim that advocates generally want to attain peace through their particular religion only and have little tolerance of other ideologies. The second model, a response to the first, is “peace without religion”. Critics claim that it is overly simplistic and fails to address other causes of conflict as well as the peace potential of religion. It is also said that this model excludes the many contributions of religious people in the development of peace. Another critique claims that both approaches require bringing everyone into their own ideology. The third and final approach is known as “peace with religion”. This approach focuses on the importance of coexistence ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecumenism
Ecumenism (), also spelled oecumenism, is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjective ''ecumenical'' is thus applied to any initiative that encourages greater cooperation and union among Christian denominations and Christian Church, churches. The fact that all Christians belonging to mainstream Christian denominations profess faith in Jesus as Lord and Saviour over a believer's life, believe that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant and inspired word of God (John 1:1), and receive baptism according to the Trinitarian formula is seen as being a basis for ecumenism and its goal of Christian unity. Ecumenists cite John 17:20-23 as the biblical grounds of striving for church unity, in which Jesus prays that Christians "may all be one" in order "that the world may know" and believe the kerygma, Gospel message. In 1920, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interfaith Dialogue
Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions (i.e. "faiths") and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels. It is distinct from syncretism or alternative religion, in that dialogue often involves promoting understanding between different religions or beliefs to increase acceptance of others, rather than to synthesize new beliefs. The Archdiocese of Chicago's Office for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs defines "the difference between ecumenical, interfaith, and interreligious relations", as follows: *"ecumenical" as "relations and prayer with other Christians", *"interfaith" as "relations with members of the ' Abrahamic faiths' (Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions)," and *"interreligious" as "relations with other religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism". Some interfaith dialogues have more recently adopted the name interbelief dialogue, [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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