Listening to the Spirit

Broad-based community organizing (BBCO) is perhaps the most widely used form of political participation supported by American religious institutions today. As organizing groups become more religiously diverse, however, so do the conceptions of sacred value that ground organizing in the first place. In today’s political climate what we hold most dear, those sacred values such as human life, a land, or a natural resource may seem to only further entrench us in our enclaves and threaten the solidarity of any constituency. This book tells a different story. People organize to protect and fight for what they hold most dear. Using auto-ethnography from over a decade of interfaith 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. Listening to the Spirit is a work of Christian social ethics in the tradition of the radical social gospel and draws on discussions of racial capitalism, radical democracy, feminist theory, and philosophical theology. By exploring the political role of sacred values in BBCO, the role of religion in organizing becomes clearer and a new political and ecclesiological terrain opens for Christians to understand these practices in ways Christians have traditionally understood through the Holy Spirit.