Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social-Movement Activism

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Summary: Interesting Insights for Religious Change Agents
Review: A Review of the Book Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social-Movement Activism Review by Rev. Bruce Bouchard For those of us in the church seeking to bring positive social change, the task can often be frustrating. Members of the congregation can be quite enthusiastic in caring about others in one to one relationships. They can spend hours volunteering to visit the sick and the lonely, feed the hungry, or even to share faith with those who despair. However, when it comes to standing back from the picture of individual hurts and looking at the larger panorama of systematic injustice such as poverty, human rights abuse, or war as a means of international conflict resolution, the faithful often do not seem to see the problem. Seldom is it a matter of not caring about the pain of others, rather it is a difficulty in comprehending human hurt on a systematic level. Those who try to motivate the faithful on to bring justice and responsible conflict resolution to a larger world often feel that their pleas fall on deaf ears and all their efforts are ineffective. One might be left asking the question: "Should one even bother to try?" Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social-Movement Activism, (New York and London: Routledge , 1996) an anthology edited by Christian Smith, offers an encouraging and inside look at how religious faith has influenced social change in such differing scenarios as the civil rights movement, the election of Hitler, the anti-apartheid movement, the Iranian revolution, and workers strikes in communist Poland. Unlike many works that apply the same formula to all social problems and turn the crank, the sociologists who author these essays seek insight into the special role that religion plays in each particular situation. The essays are further arranged into five topics area that help to keep the reader focused on the various ways that religion effects the outcome of a specific social change. For example, the first topic area describes how religious groups can often be the only ones in a repressive society with the organization and leadership structure to act on behalf of the oppressed. We see this dynamic demonstrated through Aldon Morris' essay "The Black Church in the Civil Rights Movement: the SCLC as the Decentralized Radical Arm of the Black Church." A second essay by M. M. Salehi reveal a similar dynamic in a very different social setting in "Radical Islamic Insurgency in the Iranian Revolution of 1975-1979." Other topics include religious ritual as providing a setting for the development of insurgent consciousness, the church as having the capacity to mobilizes against repression, and the symbolic world of faith providing an activist identity. The final section addresses religious ideology and disruptive tactics. An article by James Aho yields some surprises as to why certain individuals join hate groups. Finally, a professor from Mount Saint Mary's College, Ron Pagnucco, compares secular and faith-based groups. He demonstrates an amazing tenacity among faith groups to persevere against defeat and discouragement. The books is well worth the reading on many levels. For the social change agent, the essays provide many well proven strategies. It is also encouraging to see that people of faith have been successful and significant in many important social movements of the late twentieth century. For the curious mind, we receive an insiders view of some of the dynamics in social change that the media missed in these one time, front page, news stories. As an added bonus: almost all of the essays are reader friendly which is not to be always expected in a scholarly work.