Lara Rusch ~ 25
OPPORTUNITY AND EMPOWERMENT
The fundamental task of the Alinsky method is to build organizations of
organizations—not of individuals. Any individual’s role in community organizing is to
connect the their institution with the larger network. While this approach reflected
Alinsky’s instrumental view of community institutions, it has endured in part because it
resonates with the way non-elites think of themselves as political actors. Throughout
interviews and in their organizing work, lay people and clergy reflect a sense of shared
responsibility for their religious communities.
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Their self-described task is to represent
their congregation at meetings with organizers, public officials, and people from other
congregations. Both clergy and lay people perceive their congregation’s involvement in
organizing as a shared endeavor. This endeavor effectively puts clergy and lay people on
more equal footing in the secular public sphere, at the same time that it honors and
reinforces aspects of religious authority.
Influence in all directions
While clergy’s involvement in CBCO meetings and trainings is not wholly unlike
that for lay people, they are approached somewhat differently by organizers because they
are symbolic as well as active participants, and because they often act as gatekeepers.
Their approval is sought for access to work with lay people. One organizer suggested that
the best scenario for recruitment is when current member pastors recruit their peers, but,
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The tendency of people who are active within religious congregations to think of themselves as
community members first is so strong that organizing trainings purposefully encourage individuals to think
about their own self-interests and motivations in order to be reflexive political actors. That is, many people
need to realize, “I count” (Rogers, 62). Otherwise, civicly active religious people tend to be drawn toward
“selfless” thinking, which organizers believe leads people to avoid political action and positive definitions
of power. Community organizers define self-interest within a community context of shared experience:
“self-interest bridges individual interests and the common good” (Wood, 190).
Convention