The partisan posturing in the aftermath of the worst urban rebellion in over a century gives no reassurance of a fundamental unity in this country. Amidst the cacophony many wait for that single clear voice of guidance and compassion, that voice of hope in the face of despair. As people come together now to clean up the burned out ruins and littered neighborhoods in acts of genuine love and care, the spark of hopeful compassion glimmers tenuously. Slowly, recounted tales of heroism are emerging from the one-dimensional video images of frenzied looting and wanton destruction. Black helping white in moments of crisis, in moments of ultimate vulnerability are illustrations of compassionate aid that bleach out kaleidoscopic pluralism. In the end what will be retold and re-analyzed is that which we have known for decades, namely the extent of the anger and frustration in these peoples’ lives. Cries will be heard again, as if echoing from the distant past, “justice, social justice.” Democrats will berate Republicans; republicans will castigate Democrats. Band-aid measures will be applied when major surgery is indicated.

It is ironic to be struggling with a paper on aspects of social justice when something like this happens. On the one hand, it trivializes in an absolute way rarified academic pretensions; on the other hand, it motivates and invigorates one’s commitment to search and work for solutions, even if only tentative and partial. More than momentary reflection will convince one that any long-term solution must be a multi-leveled solution. Any attempt to look at this simplistically will not only preserve the status quo, but will illuminate, in a public fashion, brilliant simplemindedness, the likes of which has helped maintain these conditions.

But what is justice or social justice? What is and who constitutes the community? For that matter, what is democracy? Are any of these present? If not, how can we get them back? If yes, then why is not everyone benefiting from the promise implicit in these concepts? The answers to these questions are not simple nor are the solutions easy to the strife recently experienced. What is clear is that immediate practical remedies must be made as long as they are guided by some long-term vision.

Part of the solution is to organize these communities so that they will speak with a stronger, unified voice. Isolated, disenfranchised, powerless people are less than effective against massive government bureaucracies. Mobilized and organized into a movement consisting of thousands of residents, public actions are more visible and efficacious; isolated government officials within bureaucracies can be made to take notice.

But community organizing is not the only solution or the best means to accomplishing a kinder, more humane, and more democratic public; at least not in their typical organizational structure. What this rebellion has made clear is not only is there a need for economic and democratic reform, but for a movement that will infuse a sense of humanity, of human dignity into not only these neglected communities, but the middle and upper class communities as well. A moment of crisis evoked these feelings now. It is precisely these feelings in these moments of vulnerability, when a black hand reaches out to a white one offering sanctuary, that need to be captured and nurtured. Any social movement offering social justice as its goal must scrutinize how that goal is defined. Any goal that does not aim to radically alter the present interpersonal and emotional condition between people in general, and insider vs. outsider, in particular, is a movement that does not have the needs of the people in mind. In spite of economic reform or poverty programs, bureaucratic initiatives and simply throwing money at the problem, none provide adequate solutions. If the feelings of care, agape, are not engendered in each, one at a time, there will never be enough interest to ensure the long-term commitment needed to address these problems.

In light of these remarks, Michael J. Perry, in Love and Power: The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics, provides persuasive arguments to admit religious voices into the public discourse.[1] There is not sufficient time to review the whole book, but I will take freely of the wisdom that Perry proffers to the reader. This is germane to the above observations in the following way.

Our political system, self-defines as democratic capitalism, has failed and continues to fail those riot-torn communities and others like them across the country. No matter if it is a Democrat or Republican definition of democracy these people have been marginalized totally. Any attempt at a solution will need to include both bottom-up and top-down initiatives. Individuals must be strengthened to recognize interdependency. Through this recognition community is built. Organizers must tap religious and political traditions, myths and folklore, for the glue to effect this transformation. The underlying assumptions of liberal democracy have never been made explicit due to the fact that they themselves represent a multitude of different national and historical traditions. Put simply, paying lip service to democracy has not worked. It has not been a tradition that has embodied moral values along with its political vision. Perry’s well-taken suggestion is that we open up the public sphere, which has been deafened until this time with the monotonic monologue of democratic ideologues.

Opening up the public sphere to religion will result in an ecumenical politics. Perry champions the cause of ecumenical political dialogue, which will reinvigorate public discussion and acceptance of moral guidance. He assumes, like many writers, an underlying and undefined democratic context. However, I think that it is more useful, in a subtle way, to use the term ‘ecumenical democracy’. In several strokes of the pen two burning questions in political theory are eliminated.

First, the issue of democracy always raises the question of who constitutes the demos? Using ‘ecumenical’ as an adjective resolves that in its everyday meaning of ‘universal’, ‘general’, ‘world-wide’. In other words, everyone is part of the demos; otherwise, it is not a democracy. This issue has been taken up recently by Robert Dahl[2] and Michael Walzer.[3] The constituency of a democracy is central to Dahl’s exposition on the varieties of democratic authority. By examining what ‘the people’ means in a variety of historical contexts light is shed upon the exclusionary character of that phrase. It is illuminates the implicit power of those who define, casting long, dark shadows upon the undefined. Due to the complex nature of defining who constitutes the people, Dahl proposes a proposition of interests called The Principle of Affected Interests. It states that “[E]veryone who is affected by the decisions of the government should have the right to participate in that government.”[4] Though this proposition can be rejected on several grounds – the rule of competence and the differentiation of age-eligible persons being among the critiques – its greatest strength of inclusiveness is revealed in its simplicity.

Similar to our definition of ‘ecumenical’, Dahl is suggesting that within the geographical boundaries of a polis, everybody has a right to participate. This is problematic on a number of points including immigrants and foreign nationals. Also problematic is the universalism implicit in Dahl’s proposition and my definition of ecumenical democracy. Micheal Walzer addresses these issues in detail in Spheres of Justice, but not in a totally satisfactory way. Unfortunately, there is not sufficient space to give a detailed account of Walzer’s presentation apart from saying that the difficulties lie in bridging different levels of analysis. Walzer masterfully details the sphere of life at the ‘local’ level without seeing the need for ‘state’ level analysis with the interconnections and disparate differences between them.

Returning to the definition of ecumenical, the second aspect of it connotes ‘pertaining or having a religious dimension’. Consequently, we arrive at a term, which embodies the concept of religion in democratic politics in a very unassuming and non-threatening way. In Perry’s words:

Ecumenical politics institutionalizes a particular conception of “the place of religion in American life” and of “how we should contend with each other’s deepest differences in the public sphere.” The aim of ecumenical politics is, “neither a naked public square where all religion is excluded, nor a scared public square with any religion established or semi-established.” The aim, rather, “is a civil public square in which citizens of all religious faiths, or none, engage one another in continuing democratic discourse.”[5]

The horrific images of urban rebellion and carnage, rural impoverishment, and a national tradition built on the pursuit of loneliness[6] compels us to consider seriously non-traditional or alternative ways to addressing these injustices. Implicit in the discussion above and in the problems’ pointed out here is the absence of ‘community’ and the individual’s lack of feeling for one. Moreover, there are severe deficiencies in the dimension of civic responsibility, the results of which have been the inattention to citizenship and civic responsibility in public life. Might it not be possible that the sense of obligation to one’s community lessens as the perceived obligations of the community to its members are bureaucratically reduced? To renew the dialogue concerning these mutual duties and obligations, Perry advises that we take ecumenical political dialogue seriously.

First, he intimates that community is made possible and strengthened through ecumenical dialogue. Second, the commitment to ecumenical dialogue produces knowledge of ourself and of our communities. Useful knowledge is produced from internal dialogue – meaning with in the community. More importantly, this knowledge gives rise to the awareness that no matter how robust the internal dialogue, not all issues can be settled from within. Analogous to “no man is an island”, likewise, no community stands on its own. Consequently, external dialogue plays a primary role in establishing and maintaining broader support for political communities.[7]

Central to our essay here, as to Perry’s argument, is the relation between religion and politics. More specifically, Perry is interested in religious beliefs as religious morality and politics. The need for the public expression and support of a moral system is evident. He admits the extreme difficulties of getting this accepted into public discourse, but his arguments are persuasive. First, to disarm the threatening connotations of ‘religious’, he defines “a religious vision...is a vision of final and radical reconciliation, a set of beliefs about how one is or can be bound or connected to the world – to the ‘other’ and to ‘nature’ – and, above all, to ultimate reality in a profoundly intimate and ultimately meaningful way.”[8] Second, more problematic to some is religious morality. However, viewed in relation to the previous definition, religious morality is simply a set of rules – necessarily real and practical, but ultimately indefinite – for a person who finds ultimate meaning to life. “For the ‘religious’ person – to live a ‘moral’ life, a ‘truly, fully human’ life, a life as deeply fulfilling as any which she is capable, is, above all, whatever else it is, to live a meaningful life: a life oriented by and to the way in which life is trusted and believed to be ultimately meaningful...”[9]

A question arises immediately as to the normative value of these definitions. David Hollenbach has pointed out that not all religious groups would accept these definitions.[10] But acceptance of these two aspects in not an either-or condition.. There is no suggestion that there are absolute conditions for religious feelings in the world. If that is the case, I find it hard to accept that fundamentalist Protestants, conservative Catholics, or orthodox Jews will find these propositions problematic. Simply being in the world, consciously carrying and accepting an identity like Protestant, Catholic, or Jew with further qualifications adjectivally expressed as fundamentalist, conservative, or orthodox, represents deep structures of reconciling one’s humanity and ultimate concern. An individual believer may not always be aware of the embeddedness of her belief, but that does not and should not detract from the connectedness to a specific category appropriate to these two aspects.

The parallels to political philosophical discourse are striking. Where religious moral beliefs depict how to live a fulfilling life and of being in the world, political discourse refers to such conceptions as ‘a conception of the good’. But rather than establish a translation mechanism between parallel universes – religion and secular – Perry asserts that religion and religious visions of the moral life are essentially and undeniably political. “Religions – religious visions – and the theologies, including the moral theologies that attend them, have an essentially political character...”[11] This echoes the pre-Nazi writing of Carl Schmitt:

All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development – in which they were transferred from theology to the theory of the state, whereby, for example, the omnipotent God became the omnipotent lawgiver – but also because of their systematic structure, the recognition of which is necessary for a sociological consideration of these concepts. The exception in jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology. Only by being aware of this analogy can we appreciate the manner in which the philosophical ideas of the state developed in the last century.[12]

This is not totally unrelated to our central concerns for it reinforces the philosophical position presented here through the history of ideas and the sociology of a concept. Schmitt is interested in uncovering the development of the concepts of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘legitimacy’. Tracing their development historically, in effect, documents the socio-cultural and political changes in western civilizations, which heralded the transformation from theistic conceptions of power to monarchical concepts to deistic and the concept of ‘the people’. But true to the embeddedness of culture and knowledge, implicitly acknowledging massive cultural inertia rooted in millennia of human development, Schmitt recounts the analogous interrelatedness of theology and jurisprudence. He was more intent on showing how these developments affected political theory in the conceptualization of theories of the state.

To the conception of God in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries belongs the idea of his transcendence vis-à-vis the world, just as to that period’s philosophy of the state belongs the notion of the transcendence of the sovereign vis-à-vis the state. Everything in the nineteenth century was increasingly governed by conceptions of immanence. All identities that recur in the political ideas and in the state doctrines of the nineteenth century rest on such conceptions of immanence: the democratic thesis of the identity of the ruler and the ruled, the organic theory of the state with the identity of the state and sovereignty...[13]

Schmitt suggests further that as this development proceeds “conceptions of transcendence will no longer be credible to most educated people, who will settle for either a more or less clear immanence – pantheism or a positivist indifference toward any metaphysics.”[14] Historically, this development illustrates the loss of theistic concepts and conceptions of transcendence. It has ushered in a new form of legitimacy – democracy.[15]

Schmitt’s discussion substantiates the hegemonic character of the concept of democracy in the West today. For the work here its importance lies in the realization that change, no matter how radical, must be presented for the possibility of acceptance by ‘the people’, in democratic terminology. Schmitt also brings negative evidence in support of the contention posited here of the importance of religion through the developmental process. The fact that one can still draw on relationships between theology and philosophies of the state shows that no transformation is total. The religious residue remains as religious belief in people while the structures and concepts of the state preserve a tenuous separation.

A final, but crucial point argues by Perry is that his conception of ecumenical politics implies tolerance, even as it presupposes it. Only through a commitment to tolerance can an ecumenical political dialogue be successful. Implicit intolerance are the keys to that success: listening and understanding. Tolerance also implies risk-taking. The implication rests on the fact that by being tolerant one is left open to other ideas – the Other’s ideas – the risk of conversion. But it is not simply passive exposure, for listening presumes an active appropriation of the Other’s thought, mediated through one’s own, with the chance that they might change. It forces critical reflection, which is subsumed in a process of dialectical understanding. For to understand the Other requires an increased understanding of one’s self – individually and collectively. The ramifications of concerted efforts in these newly defined directions remain poorly understood, unforeseen and severely understated. However, by alluding to the rebellion of the past week, many connections emerge naturally.

At this juncture, it may be worthwhile to summarize up to this point. Against the immediate background of civil and racial strife, regret and reconciliation, and bipartisan shutdown, the need for caring, compassion, and community responsibility stands in sharp relief. It has been intimated that the present circumstances are symptomatic of larger and deeper social political problems. Regardless of the cause, whether it stems from liberal democracy, the advanced technological capitalist society, or a combination of both and several others, it has been suggested that part of the solution lies in appropriating a moral/social ethical system. Furthermore, since most people rely on religious beliefs as the foundation for their conception of living a moral life, the case has been presented to open up the public sphere to ecumenical political dialogue.

Initiating ecumenical politics, though not without its problems, offers the best long-term solution to a variety of social problems. In the context of community organizing it was suggested that an ecumenical politics will actually build and strengthen communities. This will evolve through the acceptance of a key element in this dialogue, namely, tolerance. But the emphasis is not strictly on communities. Rather, without a dialectical relationship between the individual, qua citizen, and the community, qua collectivity of citizens living in multiverses, the whole program will collapse. The assertion is that ecumenical political dialogue, implicitly consisting of religious-moral values, affects the critical self-awareness of the individual, and of the community itself. More importantly, it stresses the interdependency with the external – on the Other and Nature.

These are elements of a new vision: essentially, a transformative vision, in that democracy, as we know it, even our society, will be transformed completely. It is non-utopian in the sense that at the grass-roots level, in community organizing, it is a vision that can be implemented on a daily basis. At this point, however, with the recognition that it has not been implemented, the question arises as to why? Certainly, there are objections based on political traditions that cannot be ignored. In the following section I will present on e of the most successful models of community organizing – the ACORN model. By looking at a successful model and critiquing from the viewpoint presented above, I think that these organizing efforts will stand or fall on their own merits.