Organizing Community

There's a story about President Abraham Lincoln, that one day he was in the White House with a rag and some polish, working away on the leather of his boots. As the President was shining them up, in strode William H. Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State and one of his erstwhile competitors for the presidency -- indeed, a man who seemed to have felt entitled to the office and a worthier candidate for the job than the railsplitter from the Illinois frontier during the race of 1860, and whom some believe to have wanted to be the real power pulling the strings behind the gangly, rough-hewn lawyer from Springfield. Seward -- sufficiently partician never to have condescended to such a menial task -- is supposed to have said, "Mr. President, I don't believe you should be polishing your own boots." To which Lincoln, with quick wit and an even sharper assessment of character, is supposed to have replied, "Well, then, Mr. Seward, whose boots do you think I should be polishing?"

It is one of the sad staples of human behavior, that we attach lofty ideals to unworthy intentions, and never more so than when it comes to neutralizing the dreams and aspirations of others, and maintaining the status quo ante.

Rev. Ken Phelps, rector of All Saints' Episcopal Church in Sunderland, deserves kudos and support for his efforts at organizing the congregations of Calvert County for action in the hopes of breaking down the dividing lines and barriers of race, class, and interest, and using the political muscle represented by the members of Calvert's religious community creatively for the benefit of the wider society. He is not alone: in numerous churches up and down the Route 2-4 corridor that marks the femoral artery within Calvert's boot-shaped territory, like-minded leaders and volunteers are beginning to emerge with the intention of overcoming the divisions and inertia which keep the current state of affairs, the state of affairs for tomorrow. This, while issues like affordable housing, environmental health, and the effective disenfranchisement of minorities through a refined tokenism, hold sway in our midst.

Organizing is a third tier of community ministry response for congregations, Christian and otherwise.

1. The first and most basic level is the provision of direct services. In Wesleyan theological language (representing my tradition), these can be described as "works of mercy". Jesus directed His disciples to feed the malnourished, clothe the ill-clad, and minister to the sick and jailed (Mt 25). He also made statements along the lines of Mt 10:42, to the effect that those who give even a cup of cold water will find a reward.

In Calvert, direct services by the religious community assume many forms, from the provision of foodstuffs through about 8 pantries up and down the county, to emergency housing with Project ECHO and Safe Nights, to the medical care offered through the ministrations of the Lutheran Church, to name three examples. These are important works, and not to be neglected. They also tend to be the most congenial for religious communities, and least threatening -- even with the odd voice which will condemn such ministries as mere band-aids that help to aid and abet the systemic evils which make them necessary in the first place. It is hard to imagine a bona fide religious community not engaging in such efforts, without being totally moribund. Some churches, indeed, are largely organized around them.

2. The second level of social ministry is advocacy: becoming a voice for the voiceless, defending the weak and becoming the empowered proxy for the powerless "widows, orphans, and sojourners" among us. When Catholic Charities or ECHO apply for grants to continue and expand their work, or when testimony is given at meetings of the Commissioners or state government on behalf of the poor or the homeless, when pregnancy care centers plead the cause of children saved from abortion and their mothers, we are in the realm of advocacy. Still fairly congenial because of the social distance often entailed between provider / advocate and client, advocacy still sometimes threatens the tranquility of some minds by crossing over into making a case in the political realm, or drawing on public monies to expand the work. We begin to hear comments like: "The church shouldn't get mixed up in politics." The separation of church and state is held up as an ideal for the church to follow, even negating its first-amendment rights (and therefore responsibilities) -- an abuse of the concept never envisioned by the Founders.

Still, advocacy is a Biblical concept, though we must often seek for it, not in the guise of our western democratic traditions, but the patronage and power structures of ancient societies. When Luke, for instance, makes an appeal to the mysterious "Theophilus" (a person? anonymous "lover of God"? powerful Roman? or the emperor himself?), he is pleading the case for a group falsely charged with subversive activity and dangerous sedition against the principate -- i.e., he is engaging in advocacy.

3. The third -- the most political and therefore the most potentially troubling to the good folks in our pews and sanctuaries -- is organizing. Here we are, again in Wesleyan terms, engaging in "acts of justice" or "works of righteousness", seeking to embody and march with the power of God in history as a sign and foretaste of the Kingdom. Organizing brings people together, not only ecumenically across confessional divides, but on an interfaith basis as faith in God and obedience to the revealed truth of God (however that is held) becomes a motivator for bringing people of faith together to demand accountability and enact positive change. When public officials, understanding that in smaller jurisdictions an election may turn on a few votes, begin to turn out and responsively answer questions from the faithful gathered together, and when injustices long endured whose remedies have been long delayed are suddenly and satisfactorily addressed after the people loving God have banded together, we see evidence of organizing.

The rise of Senator Barack Obama to become the 44th President has, among his political opponents, somewhat tarnished the gleam of community organization in their eyes. This is to be expected. Still, for all that, organizing is also a New Testament concept. We see it in the spiritual realm with St. Paul's call to prayer in Ephesians 6:18. But we also see it throughout the Book of Acts, in the collective community support for Paul as he makes his way to Rome for the purpose of giving testimony before no less than Caesar himself, in the leveraging of the city leadership of Ephesus for his own exoneration of the charge of sedition (Acts 19), and in Paul's use of the resurrection doctrine to leverage a division between Pharisees and Sadducees (Acts 23). The circumstances and institutions are different; however, the skilled use of political leverage through influencing the body politic is constant.

"Keeping the church out of politics" is a perennially-popular cry. It even has some resonance within certain branches of the Protestant Christian family (notably, the Anabaptists, such as the Amish). Recent studies have shown (e.g., David Kinneman's "UnChristian", that young people are turned off by what is seen as the politicization of church life. But this refers to partisanship, not the effective use of civil process. It is a robust social witness within the majority tradition. It was, moreover, precisely through the political action of the faithful that many of the great evils of past centuries have been addressed, such as slavery and prison reform. Organizing is not a weapon to be left idle in the arsenal when great, or even moderate, goals are to be attained.

As with Seward's question to Lincoln, sometimes resistance to the idea of people using their own abilities and power to make positive changes in their lives and others may mask as an appeal to purity, but it is actually a trap that holds the unwary in the thrall of an unjust status quo.

You never know whose boots you may then find yourself polishing.

Providence; Prince Frederick, 24 February 2010