Prophetic Activism Is Not Dead in the U.S.

In case you are wondering what progressive Christian communities are doing to promote justice in the United States and the world, the book Prophetic Activism is for you.

The author Helene Slessarev-Jamir is the Mildred M. Hutchinson Professor of Urban Studies at the Claremont School of Theology. She worked as a union and community organizer in Washington, D.C. and Chicago prior to graduate school. She is familiar with congregation-based community organizing and activism in support of worker justice and immigrant rights.

I came across this book when I searched in Amazon.com for a book that gives me a history of American churches’ involvement in social movements. This book does not so much tell me the past, but it provides a snapshot of the present.

The author notes that prophetic activism has arisen as a response to globalization of capital and production and the huge gap between the rich and the poor in wealthy countries and the deepening economic crises in poorer countries. This is in direct opposite to the Christian Right who gained national power by vilifying the welfare queens, urban black and Latino men, gays and lesbians, undocumented immigrants, and Muslims.

Prophetic activism is characterized by: 

• A commitment to nonviolent social change: influenced by Gandhi’s concept of satyagraha or active nonviolence and Martin Luther King Jr’s civil rights movement.
•  The incorporation of aspects of liberation theology, especially among the Catholics. 
• The openness to diverse spiritual practices and to working with people of other faith traditions. 
• The use of popular education and bottom-up organizing to bridge the gap between the marginalized and the privileged. 
• A concern for the well-being of the marginalized and for upholding basic human rights for all.

After elaborating on how prophetic activism is grounded in the Hebrew Bible and Jesus’ teachings, Slessarev-Jamir discusses five arenas of prophetic activism in the United States: congregational community organizing influenced by Latin American liberation theology, religious worker-justice work, immigrants rights (activism along the border with Mexico and the new sanctuary movement), religious peacemaking, and finally global justice.

As I am working on a book on the Occupy movement, I find the chapter on global justice particularly illuminating.

Slessarev-Jamir uses the examples of Bread for the Word, Witness for Peace, Jubilee 2000, ONE campaign against global poverty, Save Darfur and Invisible Children in this chapter. She provides the background of these organizations and interviews staff and workers to offer a rich narrative.

Last Monday we had a U2 Eucharist at our school and we were introduced to the ONE campaign. A student from Iowa brought a quilt for the altar made by the young people in her church depicting the vision for the ONE world and the presider wore a similar stole. It reminded us that congregations can be important sites for mobilizing for action and worship can unleash the power of prophetic activism.

The Occupy movement can be seen as a continuation of the global justice movement: the linkage of the local and the global, the use of the Internet and social networking sites, the creation of songs, symbols, and popular culture, the horizontal organization, and networking with religious communities (e.g. the use of church space for meetings after the tent-cities were raided).

The book gives us a lot of hope, knowing that activism is alive and many churches and organizations are heeding the call to prophetic justice. At a time when cynicism runs deep and many people have lost much faith in political and economic institutions, I hope the churches can continue to signal to the world that God’s people are not frozen. They are still at the frontline, fighting for a better world.

The book concludes: “prophetic activism greatly enriches religious life in America by creating meaningful opportunities for religious people to connect their spirituality to a variety of just causes.” Faith without action is dead, the liberation theologians have taught us.

Asian Americans Should Care about Immigration

The public faces of undocumented people in the U.S. are people from central and South America. The Latino group has been leading the effort to demand a path to citizenship and to challenge legislation that would discriminate undocumented immigrants.

Where are the Asian faces? Among the 12 million undocumented people in the U.S., about 1.5 million are Asians. They have come from different Asian countries. Many don’t speak English and work in jobs that others don’t want.

At the annual meeting of Pacific, Asian, North American Asian Women in Theology and Ministry (PANAAWTM) held in Norcross, Georgia, from March 24 to 26, 2011, participants discussed the theme “Immigration, Borders, and Boundaries.”

Anne Joh, a professor at the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary set the context by discussing border and boundaries in globalization and the neo-liberal economy. She pointed out scholars such as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have argued that contemporary Empire is increasingly de-territorialized, with capital and labor moving across national boundaries. Yet, Joh said, walls have been constructed to keep people out and to maintain national boundaries, such as the walls in Israel and along the U.S. border.

Among the Asian undocumented immigrants, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people face double marginalization. Elizabeth Leung of the Pacific School of Religion talked about the invisibility of Asian LGBTQ people and the difficulties for them to come out to their community. Since they are undocumented, they cannot access supportive systems and ask for help when they are in need. Leung reminded us that there are more than 2,100 verses in the Bible about caring for the poor. The aliens are included in the category of the poor, and we should be concerned about their welfare.

Helen Kim Ho, a Korean American lawyer who left her practice of corporate law to become the Executive Director of the Asian American Legal Advocacy Center, Inc., challenged the participants to be involved in immigration issues. As a person of faith, she said churches and faith communities have very important roles to play to stand up for the voiceless and to shape the values of society.

Ho said Asian Americans should not remain silent on immigration issues. As a group Asian and Pacific Islanders were the first to be stigmatized in the nation’s immigration law. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act, signed by President Chester A. Arthur, effectively stopped Chinese immigration for ten years and prohibited Chinese to become U.S. citizens. It was the first major law restricting immigration to the U.S.

The Chinese Exclusion Act foreshadowed the other acts restricting immigration in the 1920s. In 1929 the National Origins Act capped overall immigration to the U.S. at 150,000 per year and barred Asian immigration.

It was not until the Immigration Act of 1965 that the national-origin policy was eliminated. Since then more and more Asians immigrated to the U.S. to join their families and to work in various professions. Today, Asian Americans make up 4.6 percent of the population (about 14.6 million people). We are one of the fastest growing racial/ethnic groups (in terms of percentage increase) in the U.S.

Asian Americans have been seen as perpetual foreigners in the U.S. because of the history of racism. The myth of “model minority” and internalized racism make it difficult for some of the Asian Americans to speak up for undocumented Asians. The sense of shame surrounding the issue of illegality and undocumented status further compounds the problems of mobilizing the Asian American community.

Yet speak we must. These undocumented workers work hard, pay their taxes, and contribute to our society. The Bible teaches us to care for those aliens and strangers among us. In a parable in Matthew 25, Jesus said that whatever you did for the least of these, you did it to me. Let us heed the call and stand in solidarity with those who are voiceless and afraid to speak.