Blessed Are The Organized

How ordinary citizens band together to bring about real change In an America where the rich and fortunate have free rein to do as they please, can the ideal of liberty and justice for all be anything but an empty slogan? Many Americans are doubtful, and have withdrawn into apathy and cynicism. But thousands of others are not ready to give up on democracy just yet. Working outside the notice of the national media, ordinary citizens across the nation are meeting in living rooms, church basements, synagogues, and schools to identify shared concerns, select and cultivate leaders, and take action. Their goal is to hold big government and big business accountable. In this important new book, Jeffrey Stout bears witness to the successes and failures of progressive grassroots organizing, and the daunting forces now arrayed against it. Stout tells vivid stories of people fighting entrenched economic and political interests around the country. From parents and teachers striving to overcome gang violence in South Central Los Angeles, to a Latino priest north of the Rio Grande who brings his parish into a citizens' organization, to the New Orleans residents who get out the vote by taking a jazz band through streets devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Stout describes how these ordinary people conceive of citizenship, how they acquire and exercise power, and how religious ideas and institutions contribute to their successes. The most important book on organizing and grassroots democracy in a generation, Blessed Are the Organized is a passionate and hopeful account of how our endangered democratic principles can be put into action.

How ordinary citizens band together to bring about real change In an America where the rich and fortunate have free rein to do as they please, can the ideal of liberty and justice for all be anything but an empty slogan? Many Americans are doubtful, and have withdrawn into apathy and cynicism. But thousands of others are not ready to give up on democracy just yet. Working outside the notice of the national media, ordinary citizens across the nation are meeting in living rooms, church basements, synagogues, and schools to identify shared concerns, select and cultivate leaders, and take action. Their goal is to hold big government and big business accountable. In this important new book, Jeffrey Stout bears witness to the successes and failures of progressive grassroots organizing, and the daunting forces now arrayed against it. Stout tells vivid stories of people fighting entrenched economic and political interests around the country. From parents and teachers striving to overcome gang violence in South Central Los Angeles, to a Latino priest north of the Rio Grande who brings his parish into a citizens' organization, to the New Orleans residents who get out the vote by taking a jazz band through streets devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Stout describes how these ordinary people conceive of citizenship, how they acquire and exercise power, and how religious ideas and institutions contribute to their successes. The most important book on organizing and grassroots democracy in a generation, Blessed Are the Organized is a passionate and hopeful account of how our endangered democratic principles can be put into action.

Confronted with the uncertainties of living in a modern liberal society, many are tempted toward moral paralysis: a hesitation to judge or act on those judgments. Reinhold Niebuhr’s paradoxical conception of the self allows for a deeper interpretation of this plight and, in this insightful book, Daniel Malotky shows that Niebuhr’s work holds out a potential solution to it: a framework for a measure of moral certainty without ideological blindness. The paradox of freedom and finitude demands that though endeavors to reach a meaningful totality will always be limited in some fashion, grasping this totality must still be attempted. Using Niebuhr’s thought as a guide, Malotky conceives of a framework that provides the parameters of justification as defined by the pragmatists, while also opening the door to the critical appropriation of the moral wealth of Christian tradition. Malotky follows Niebuhr’s example in a defense of the traditional Christian concepts of sin, love, and grace. He engages in immanent criticism, shaping a response to the violently disposed, focusing on the issue of gun violence in particular, and defining what our own attitude should be to the use of force. Readers will be engaged by the way this this concise book models a properly Christian pragmatism on questions of violence.

Charity, Justice, and Development in Practice: A Case Study of the Daughters of Charity in East Africa Meghan J. Clark Appropriation, Australia's Drinking Problem, and the Cost of Resistance in Catholic Health Services Daniel J. Fleming White Church or World Community? James Baldwin's Challenging Discipleship Jean-Pierre Fortin The Moral Impact of Digital Devices Marcus Mescher Life in the Struggle: Liturgical Innovation in the Face of the Cultural Devastation of Disaster Capitalism Daniel P. Rhodes From Indifference to Dwelling in Difference: Catholic-Muslim Marriages and Families and the Non-Hegemonic Reception of Muslim Migrants Axel Marc Oaks Takacs Augmented Reality and the Limited Promise of 'Ecstatic' Technology Criticism Luis G. Vera Book Reviews Tom Angier, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics Daniel A. Morris Gerald A. Arbuckle, SM, Abuse and Cover-Up: Refounding the Catholic Church in Trauma Kimberly Humphrey Jennifer Ayres, Inhabitance: Ecological Religious Education Steven Bouma-Prediger Hannah Bacon, Feminist Theology and Contemporary Dieting Culture: Sin, Salvation and Women's Weight Loss Narrative Stephanie C. Edwards Richard Berquist, From Human Dignity to Natural Law James Carey Brian Brock, Wondrously Wounded: Theology, Disability, and the Body of Christ Emily S. Kahm John J. Collins, What Are Biblical Values? What the Bible Says on Key Ethical Issues Patricia M. McDonald, SHCJ M. Shawn Copeland, Knowing Christ Crucified: The Witness of African American Religious Experience Stephen Okey Robert J. Daly, SJ, Sacrifice in Pagan and Christian Antiquity Chelsea King Asle Eikrem, God as Sacrificial Love: A Systematic Exploration of a Controversial Notion William P. Loewe Kevin L. Flanner, SJ, Cooperation with Evil; Thomistic Tools of Analysis Michael P. Krom Gifford A. Grobien, Christian Character Formation: Lutheran Studies of the Law, Anthropology, Worship, and Virtue Keyle Schiefelbein-Guerrero Ron Haflidson, On Solitude, Conscience, Love, and Our Inner and Outer Lives Kim Paffenroth Roger Haight, SJ, Faith and Evolution: A Grace-Filled Naturalism Taylor Wilkerson Raymond Hain, ed., Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture Christopher Denny Danielle Tumminio Hansen, Conceiving Family: A Practical Theology of Surrogacy and Self Kathryn Lilla Cox David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation Daniel Waldow Kristin E. Heyer, James F. Keenan, SJ, and Andrea Vicini, eds., Building Bridges in Sarajevo: The Plenary Papers from CTEWC 2018 Eli S. McCarthy Grant Macaskill, Autism and the Church: Bible, Theology and Community Jill Harshaw Graham James McAleer, Erich Przywara and Postmodern Natural Law Philip John Paul Gonzales Arthur J. McDonald, A Progressive Voice in the Catholic Church in the United States: Association of Pittsburgh Priests, 1966-2019 Jens Mueller Neil Messer, Theological Neuroethics: Christian Ethics Meets the Science of the Human Brain Amanda R. Alexander Michael J. Naughton, Getting Work Right: Labor and Leisure in a Fragmented World Stephanie Ann Puen Martin Schlag and Mele Domenec, eds., A Catholic Spirituality for Business: The Logic of Gift William J. Hisker Richard S. Vosko, Art and Architecture for Congregational Worship: The Search for a Common Ground Andrew Julo Jeremy D. Wilkins, Before Truth: Lonergan, Aquinas, and the Problem of Wisdom Jeremy Blackwood Curtis Paul DeYoung, et.al, Becoming Like Creoles: Living and Leading at the Intersections of Injustice, Culture, and Religion Ramon Luzarraga Christiana Zenner, Just Water: Theology, Ethics, and Fresh Water Crises. Rev. Ed. James W. Stroud 218

One of the most persistent slogans of Reformed theology is that it is "reformed and always being reformed." But what does this slogan mean? This volume gathers thirteen essays written by a younger generation of Reformed theologians who teach and write on five different continents, who together offer this work in Christian systematic theology. Unlike many other works of Reformed theology, however, this book is framed by pressing contextual issues and questions (instead of traditional loci). Each chapter engages classical doctrine, but does so through the lens of contemporary, lived experience in particular contexts. The result is not a theology where doctrines are "applied" to contexts, but an approach where doctrine and context mutually shape one another. The contributors take seriously the notion that theology is "always being reformed" and is always partial, ever on the way--hence it requires conversation partners beyond the Reformed family of faith. The result is a study in Reformed theology that is thoroughly ecumenical.

Our global community desperately needs overt awakening to an age of reason and faith. Reasonable Faith for a Post-Secular Age meets this need by interpreting faith not in terms of belief in propositions but in terms of living surrender to having been seized by agape for every Face, including one's own. Virtually all faith traditions, from Buddhism to Humanism to Wiccan, are rooted in agape and therefore share considerable spiritual and ethical common ground (a truth long veiled). In contrast to ethically feckless secular rationality--over which a devastating, global social Darwinism currently runs roughshod--faith qua living surrender to agape grounds moral realism, awakens us to love for all creatures, and inspires struggles for justice. Inspired by the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and Christian spirituality, Greenway engages, on the one hand, intellectuals like Stanley Hauerwas, Richard Rorty, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jeffery Stout, Charles Taylor, and Bernard Williams, and, on the other, contemporary debates over consciousness, free will, evil, and metaethics. He details the character of secular rationality's devastating scission from moral reality and clarifies the promise of understanding faith and spirituality in terms of agape.

"While various democratic theorists have looked at particular instances of recent social movements (Occupy or the Arab Spring, for example), none have yet attempted a more general theoretical take on what it is that relates all of these movements (if there is a thread), and what that running thread can tell us about democratic theory. This book argues that there is a commonality to these movements as well as a striking lesson about the nature of democracy, sovereignty, agency and solidarity today: in that these movements all highlight the ordinariness of neoliberal regimes and the ways in which citizens find solidarity and a sense of freedom in the marketplace. Aslam argues that neoliberalism is more than a set of policies, ideological principles, or a distinct phase of capitalism--rather it constitutes the ways in which citizens think about their everyday lives. Conceived as common sense, it also governs what is permitted or forbidden in public discourse. Mass movements call attention to the effects of neoliberalism, providing a way to contest its acceptability; in doing so they help to contextualize the impasse that marks a language of civil empowerment and inclusion on one hand, and feelings of powerlessness, diminished agency and impassivity on the other. Looking in particular at Idle No More, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Sandy, the Egyptian Revolution, and Strike Debt, Aslam takes what may be a more sobering, but still hopeful, view toward the potential of mass movements: to resist the normalization of conceptions of solidarity and citizenship under neoliberalism"--