Can a faith community serve as a community of resistance?

Nurturing communities of resistance requires first nurturing relationships, relationships where those involved are invited to bring their whole selves, this includes being aware and helping others to be aware that we all “bring vastly different histories and experiences, but at the same time, ….experience grief and love in some of the same ways.” Nurturing these communities also requires carving out spaces for people to care for themselves and one another. Some of the ways that was done in communities and activists’ lives that we explored this semester include through storytelling, art, music, food, meditation, exercise, and spending time outside enjoying the environment. Some other important factors in nurturing a community of RESISTANCE for the long haul include creating space for everyone’s voice and paying attention to the voices that are not being heard, shared decision making (I appreciated the consensus model developed by CUAV), and actively attending to the places and ways my justice and anti-oppression work intersects with the work of other oppressed peoples and groups.

I appreciated the interview with Ruby Sales because it affirmed what I have been personally exploring throughout this class… faith communities can serve as a locus for a community of resistance but many institutional faith communities probably can not. Ruby emphasized that the Southern Freedom Movement grew out of congregations rooted in black folk religion, faith communities organized by, for, and around “ordinary people” where “everybody in the community had access to the theological microphone”. This was possible in Southern Baptist congregations in part because the Southern Baptist Convention has always valued the autonomy of local Southern Baptist congregations. Can more institutionalized denominations foster such congregations? I have serious doubts.

One month and six months from now I want to ask myself what new relationships I have intentionally developed with local activists and groups that are different than me. I have made a list of faith communities and associations around Houston that prioritize the voices of LGBTQ black and latino/a voices and I’d like to visit each to see how they do community and how they do justice work. Hopefully I’ve gotten through that list by the end of the year. Questions to ask myself: If they are part of a denomination, how do they balance community and justice with the institution? Who has a voice? How is decision-making handled? How does the faith community work with other organizations doing justice and anti-oppression work? How do they nurture one another for the long haul?