Listening to the Spirit

Aaron Stauffer is the Director of Online Learning and Associate Director of the Wendland-Cook Program at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, working with the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice. He earned his PhD in social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and has organized with the Industrial Areas Foundation in San Antonio, Texas and Religions for Peace. His work has appeared in Tikkun, Sojourners, The Other Journal, Political Theology, and CrossCurrents, as well as other scholarly and popular publications. He lives in Nashville with his partner, Lauren, and their children Julian Emerson and August Lynn.

• AcknowledgementsPreface Part I: Sacred Values and Organizing for PowerIntroduction: Inductive Christian Social Ethics: The Method of the Radical Social GospelChapter 1: Religion, Secularism, and Sacred Value in CounterpublicsChapter 2: Organizing Religious Practices Part II: Why Sacred Values MatterChapter 3: Our Political Relationship with Sacred ValueChapter 4: Radical Democracy and Sacred Value Part III: Now What? How Organizing and Theology Can Change Going ForwardChapter 5: On Organizing as PracticeChapter 6: On Black Organizing: Capitalist Exploitation, Racial ExpropriationChapter 7: On Churches

“Listening to the Spirit is state of the art and cutting edge, making a rich argument that interfaith community organizing works by evoking and creating sacred value, not by marginalizing faith. The pages of this luminous book radiate Aaron Stauffer's many years of justice organizing and his fusion of social ethics, social theory, political theology, and the burgeoning scholarship on organizing.” Gary Dorrien, Author of American Democratic Socialism: History, Politics, Religion, and Theory