God And Government In The Ghetto

In recent years, as government agencies have encouraged faith-based organizations to help ensure social welfare, many black churches have received grants to provide services to their neighborhoods’ poorest residents. This collaboration, activist churches explain, is a way of enacting their faith and helping their neighborhoods. But as Michael Leo Owens demonstrates in God and Government in the Ghetto, this alliance also serves as a means for black clergy to reaffirm their political leadership and reposition moral authority in black civil society. Drawing on both survey data and fieldwork in New York City, Owens reveals that African American churches can use these newly forged connections with public agencies to influence policy and government responsiveness in a way that reaches beyond traditional electoral or protest politics. The churches and neighborhoods, Owens argues, can see a real benefit from that influence—but it may come at the expense of less involvement at the grassroots. Anyone with a stake in the changing strategies employed by churches as they fight for social justice will find God and Government in the Ghetto compelling reading.

At long last, the reissue of the classic book by the late, great William ¿Bill¿ Augustus Jones. The original volume featured essays on urban ministry and sermons on social justice, and this new edition has been updated by the late author¿s younger daughter and expanded to add several never-before-published sermons from the preaching giant. The book also features new essays reflecting on the legacy and influence of Dr. Jones and his work, from notable leaders including James Forbes, Frederick Haynes, Otis Moss III, J. Alfred Smith Sr., Al Sharpton, Jacqueline Thompson, and more!

Since at least the high point of the civil rights movement, African American Christianity has been widely recognized as a potent force for social change. Most attention to the political significance of Black churches, however, focuses on domestic protest and electoral politics. Yet some Black churches take a deep interest in the global issue of Israel and Palestine. Why would African American Christians get involved—and even take sides—in Palestine and Israel, and what does that reveal about the political significance of “the Black Church” today? This book examines African American Christian involvement in Israel and Palestine to show how competing visions of “the Black Church” are changing through transnational political engagement. Considering cases ranging from African American Christian Zionists to Palestinian solidarity activists, Roger Baumann traces how Black religious politics transcend domestic arenas and enter global spaces. These cases, he argues, illuminate how the meaning of the ostensibly singular and unifying category of “the Black Church”—spanning its history, identity, culture, and mission—is deeply contested at every turn. Black Visions of the Holy Land offers new insights into how Black churches understand their political role and social significance; the ways race, religion, and politics both converge and diverge; and why the meaning of overlapping racial and religious identities shifts when moving from national to global contexts.

This book examines the political consequences of growing religiosity in countries where politics are repressive and religious freedoms are in flux. The study compares how two authoritarian regimes - Russia and China - manage religion and how religious communities navigate restrictive political environments to pursue their own spiritual and economic interests.

The John Coltrane Church began in 1965, when Franzo and Marina King attended a performance of the John Coltrane Quartet at San Francisco's Jazz Workshop and saw a vision of the Holy Ghost as Coltrane took the bandstand. Celebrating the spirituality of the late jazz innovator and his music, the storefront church emerged during the demise of black-owned jazz clubs in San Francisco, and at a time of growing disillusionment with counter-culture spirituality following the 1978 Jonestown tragedy. For 50 years, the church has effectively fought redevelopment, environmental racism, police brutality, mortgage foreclosures, religious intolerance, gender disparity and the corporatization of jazz. This critical history is the first book-length treatment of an extraordinary African-American church and community institution.

In this fresh and biblical look at poverty in America, Joe Ader confronts us with a basic question: How did mankind start out in a garden that was perfect in every way and end up in the worldwide ghetto that we know as poverty? And how do we find our way out? To answer this question (and many more) the author takes us on a personal journey of discovery, introducing us to the residents of Middle Classburg, America and Povertyville, USA (which town do you call home?). Along the way, he challenges us to see poverty differently as he explains:¿How President Lyndon Johnson committed America to a War on Poverty at a time the United States Government had never defined "poverty"¿How an obscure government analyst named Mollie Orshansky became "The Mother Of Poverty" in America¿Why currently accepted definitions and explanations of poverty are fatally flawed¿Why poverty is about more than our economic status; it's about our relationship with God¿How the gospel brings us all out of the spiritual ghetto we all share while transforming our understanding of poverty and how to fight it¿How Jesus didn't come to make poor people into middle class people, but to make all people God's people¿How "The Iron Rule" needs to work alongside "The Golden Rule"¿How a handful of practical tools can help pastors, Christian workers and all of us better serve those struggling in the grip of generational poverty¿And these are just a few of the reasons why every Christian in America needs to read this book.

From marriage equality, to gun control, to immigration reform and the threat of war, religion plays a fascinating and crucial part in our nation's political process and in our culture at large. Now in its seventh edition, Religion and Politics in the United States includes analyses of the nation's most pressing political matters regarding religious freedom, and the ways in which that essential constitutional freedom situates itself within modern America. The book also explores the ways that religion has affected the orientation of partisan politics in the United States. Through a detailed review of the political attitudes and behaviors of major religious and minority faith traditions, the book establishes that religion continues to be a major part of the American cultural and political milieu while explaining that it must interact with many other factors to influence political outcomes in the United States.