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| The Church in Social Movements |
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Do Not Steal: A Lutheran Vision of Practice of Economic Justice
Alexia Salvatierra
On January 27th, 2004, 200 clergy, lay leaders and workers participated in a 450 mile pilgrimage to the home of Steve Burd, the CEO of Safeway corporation, with the goal of appealing to him as a Christian to settle a strike and lock-out affecting 70,000 Southern California grocery store workers. The pilgrimage, which ultimately played a definitive and catalytic role in settling the strike, was organized by Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE). CLUE engages over 600 clergy and lay leaders from a wide variety of religious traditions throughout Los Angeles and adjacent counties in working together to support low-wage workers in their struggle for a living wage, health benefits and a voice in the decisions that impact them.
Placing Early Christianity as a Social Movement within its Greco-Roman Context
Brad Kirkegaard
Christianity has frequently been at the forefront of major social movements, challenging accepted practices and inviting social transformation. Christian beliefs were essential in such dramatic movements as the 18th and 19th century abolitionists with their challenge of slavery, in the political formation of the United States which built itself upon a religious and philosophical critique of the divine right of kings, and in the push for public education with the common school movement following the second awakening in the early 1800s. In each of these, and in many other social movements, Christianity played a decisive role. In its early history, however, the pattern of Christianity and social movements was quite different.
The Church in Socially Turbulent Times: The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s from the Perspective of an Urban Pastor
William E. Lesher
As I reflect on it from the vantage point of forty years, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in not so sleepy Selma, Alabama marked a decisive turning point in my ministry. I arrived at my second congregation, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Logan Square, Chicago, one of nine congregations in the newly formed Northwest Lutheran Parish, just weeks before the historic Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights.
The Civil Rights Movement of the '60s—A Personal Perspective
Robert Benne
As a student at Midland College in the late 50s, I became aware of the civil rights movement emerging in the South. The national news carried reports on sit-ins and demonstrations going on in a number of southern states. Though all this seemed very distant from northeast Nebraska, my readings of Reinhold Niebuhr—especially his Interpretation of Christian Ethics—enabled me to relate at least intellectually with this exciting movement, whose time had come in America.
The Power of One…Community
Rudolf Featherstone
The recent home-going celebrations relevant to the life and Christian witness of Mrs. Rosa Louise Parks makes available to us—her posterity—a reflective moment to seriously ponder her impact upon us, our progeny, and our own witness to the Christian gospel.
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© 2006, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
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