RESEARCH AND WRITING

See current projects for writings under development, including new book manuscript, articles, and chapters.  

Most requested past writings: 

On faith-based community organizing:

1. •Faith in Action: Religion, race, and democratic organizing in America (University of Chicago Press 2002) analyzed the role of social capital and cultural dynamics in enabling and constraining the success of grassroots democratic organizing, via a comparative case analysis of faith-based and racial identity-based community organizing. The book won the 2003 outstanding book award from the Sociology of Religion section of the American Sociological Association. See Introduction and Table of Contents for more information. Available via University of  Chicago Press or Amazon.
   

1. •On how social movement structure and culture combine to determine the strategic capacity of an organization, based on a case study of the PICO National Network’s “New Voices” (national) and California Project (state-level) projects: 
   

2. •“Higher Power: Strategic Capacity for State and National Organizing,@ in Transforming the City: Community Organizing and the Challenge of Political Change, Marion Orr (ed.); Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press: 162-192 (2007).
   
   

3. •On the Latino presence in community organizing efforts nationwide:
   

4. •“Fe y Acción Social: Hispanic Churches in Faith-Based Community Organizing,” in Latino Religions and Civic Activism in the United States, Virgilio Elizondo and Jesse Miranda (eds.), London and New York: Oxford University Press (2005).
   

1. •A general overview of the field of congregation-based community organizing:
   

2. •“Religion, Faith-Based Organizing, and the Struggle for Justice,” in The Cambridge Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, Michele Dillon (ed.). London and New York: Cambridge University Press; 385-399 (2003).
   

1. •Only national profile of the field of faith-based community organizing:
   

2. •“A Different Face of Faith-Based Politics: Social Capital and Community Organizing in the Public Arena,” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 22:11/12, 6-54 (2002, with Mark R. Warren).
   

On political culture and democratic reform in the United States:

1. •"Thinking Culturally about Politics: Habits 20 Years Later and 20 Years Hence,” Sociology of Religion 68:2 (Summer 2007).
   

2. •“Religious Culture and Political Action,” Sociological Theory, 17:3, 307-332 (November 1999).
   

On the impact of public engagement on religious congregations:

1. •Renewing Congregations
   

2. •Short, accessible writing from a national study of civic engagement in 44 congregations in thirteen cities in the United States, including liberal Protestant, Roman Catholic, historical African American Protestant, Latino and Black Pentecostal, Jewish, Unitarian, and Unity congregations.
   

Image: renewingcongregations.pdf 

1. •Faith and Public Life [hyperlink to LoboVault archive of this article]
   

2. •Longer research report from the same study.
   

Image: faith&publiclife.pdf