Waiting for a Glacier to Move: Practicing Social Witness

by Jennifer R. Ayres

Overview

When asked about his work for social change, one Presbyterian elder and activist sighed, "You always have the feeling that you're attacking an iceberg with an ice pick. . . . But still, some people do listen, and it does some good. As they say, even glaciers move every now and then." The work for social change is long, arduous, and yields only the smallest of results. What sustains religious social activists while they chip away at social change? This book examines the practice of social activism from the inside out, exploring how activists are affected by their participation in the public sphere. Drawing on the fields of practice theory, social movement theory, and theologies of sin and hope, this book presents an interdisciplinary look at a complex phenomenon, and concludes with proposals for the nourishment of social activism within the church.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621891048
Publisher:	Wipf & Stock Publishers
Publication date:	10/26/2011
Series:	Princeton Theological Monograph Series , #170
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jennifer R. Ayres is Assistant Professor of Religious Education and Director of the Program in Religious Education at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia. She is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Waiting for a Glacier to Move 1

part 1 Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Social Witness Practice

2 Seeking Excellence: Social Witness as a Religious Practice 21

3 Goods Internal: Social Movement Theory and the Construction of Identity 63

part 2 Theological Perspectives on Social Witness: Sin, Hope, and Social Change

"Bound Together in a Delicate Network of Interdependence": The Complicated Character of Social Life 190

4 Entangled in the Curse: Sin and Social Action 97

5 With an Urgency Born of This Hope: Hope and Social Action 127

part 3 Toward the Nourishment of Social Witness Practice

6 Thinking and Expressing: Theological Reflection in Social Witness Practice 161

Appendix: Ethnographic Sample, Research Methods, and Themes 189

Bibliography 197

Subject Index 203

Author and Name Index 207