Social Justice
Acting for social justice is the core of the Congregation for Reconciliation’s mission. It unifies members as a practice of faith and conscience. We work together for social, economic, political and environmental justice. We identify and counter systemic injustice through research, study, direct action and reflection.
Gideon's Gang, a heritage
In 1974, Jeff Hadden and Charles F. Longino, Jr. wrote a book about the congregation called Gideon’s Gang. The Congregation for Reconciliation now has a 40-year history as a church mandated to carry forth a social justice mission.
From the foreword to Gideon’s Gang, A Case Study of the Church in Social Action, by Jeffrey K. Hadden and Charles F. Longino, Jr., Pilgrim Press, 1974, p. 9:
Today in Dayton, Ohio, the Congregation for Reconciliation stands for the best that the 1960s had to offer: clear analysis of racism as a basic form of social evil, intelligent and concerted action, and a faith that human life can be lived in wholeness and equality. It also stands squarely within the Western tradition of religious dissent. It combines degrees of rationalism and enthusiasm, anti-institutionalism, and institutional seriousness, work and play. It has lived longer than many other social-activist attempts to counter racism from a biblical basis. We need to ask why from two perspectives. One is the perspective of social scientific curiosity. How does a small congregation manage to meet its own needs and still confront the principalities and powers of the surrounding community? The other perspective is that of mission strategy. How is the drive for social justice, with its multitude of motivations and expectations, given an ongoing framework?
The modern phenomenon of religious dissent has both Greek and Hebrew antecedents. The followers of Pythagoras, rebelling against stultifying conformity in the Greek city-state, set up their own community built upon the mathematical representation of cosmic order. The history of the Hebrews as a people summoned to be a light unto the nations is one of continual tension between establishment, in the name of order, and prophecy, in the name of compassion. The early church, born of both traditions, sought to embody a new alternative to prevailing political and economic practice. Its survival is the result, in large measure, of its ability to live in, but not of, the world — to accept the limits of its cultural environment only with the faith in the promise that wholeness and peace would one day be established throughout the earth.
Theodore H. Erickson, Jr.
United Church of Christ
Board for Homeland Ministries
From the foreword to Gideon’s Gang, A Case Study of the Church in Social Action, by Jeffrey K. Hadden and Charles F. Longino, Jr., Pilgrim Press, 1974, p. 9:
Today in Dayton, Ohio, the Congregation for Reconciliation stands for the best that the 1960s had to offer: clear analysis of racism as a basic form of social evil, intelligent and concerted action, and a faith that human life can be lived in wholeness and equality. It also stands squarely within the Western tradition of religious dissent. It combines degrees of rationalism and enthusiasm, anti-institutionalism, and institutional seriousness, work and play. It has lived longer than many other social-activist attempts to counter racism from a biblical basis. We need to ask why from two perspectives. One is the perspective of social scientific curiosity. How does a small congregation manage to meet its own needs and still confront the principalities and powers of the surrounding community? The other perspective is that of mission strategy. How is the drive for social justice, with its multitude of motivations and expectations, given an ongoing framework?
The modern phenomenon of religious dissent has both Greek and Hebrew antecedents. The followers of Pythagoras, rebelling against stultifying conformity in the Greek city-state, set up their own community built upon the mathematical representation of cosmic order. The history of the Hebrews as a people summoned to be a light unto the nations is one of continual tension between establishment, in the name of order, and prophecy, in the name of compassion. The early church, born of both traditions, sought to embody a new alternative to prevailing political and economic practice. Its survival is the result, in large measure, of its ability to live in, but not of, the world — to accept the limits of its cultural environment only with the faith in the promise that wholeness and peace would one day be established throughout the earth.
Theodore H. Erickson, Jr.
United Church of Christ
Board for Homeland Ministries
© 2013 Congregation for Reconciliation of Dayton
A Just Peace and Open and Affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC)
A Just Peace and Open and Affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC)