Should Progressive Organizers Lean More on the Church?

"The New Yorker staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the role that the church has played in sustaining protest movements-and whether effective political dissent in the United States is possible without involvement from religious institutions. They talk about how churches have historically provided moral authority, infrastructure, and community to movements for social change, why those qualities have been difficult to replicate in the age of social media and mass protest, and what is lost when dissent becomes sporadic or primarily digital."

"They also examine whether churches still have the widespread credibility and organizing capacity to anchor protest today, and what it would take for religious institutions to once again embrace a central place in modern political life."

Churches have provided moral authority, physical infrastructure, and community networks that sustain long-term protest movements. Those institutional qualities enabled organized, continuous dissent and mutual accountability. Social media and mass protest have made mobilization faster but more sporadic, weakening sustained organizing and the communal bonds that undergird durable movements. The shift toward primarily digital dissent reduces stable moral leadership and local organizing capacity. The current credibility and capacity of churches to anchor protest is uncertain. Reestablishing a central role for religious institutions in political life would require renewed institutional commitment, trust-building, and investment in on-the-ground organizing.

Read at The New Yorker