Faith in Politics

Lina Jamoul and Jane Wills
Additional contact information
Lina Jamoul: United Power for Action and Justice, P.O. Box 11865, Chicago, IL 60611, USA, l_jamoul@hotmail.com
Jane Wills: Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK, j.wills@qmul.ac.uk

Urban Studies, 2008, vol. 45, issue 10, 2035-2056

Abstract: Civil society is often seen as providing a social foundation from which to combat injustices perpetuated by the state and the corporate sector. Faith institutions are an integral and often overlooked component of this abstract civil society. In this paper, it is argued that faith has an important role to play in offering answers to the challenges posed by increasing inequalities and urban injustice. The major faith traditions share a commitment to `looking out' to the wider community and testing faith through action. While this is often expressed as charity, service provision or interfaith dialogue, there is also the potential to politicise this impetus to engage. At present, faith institutions have been encouraged to get involved in `community cohesion' and `regeneration' schemes in urban areas, but it is argued that there is scope for faith organisations to develop a much more independent form of political engagement within their local communities. Using the example of London Citizens, a broad-based organisation, it is suggested that there is an alternative political route for faith institutions with an emphasis on the battle for justice. London Citizens is an alliance of about 90 civil society institutions, predominantly from the faith sector, but it also includes labour, educational and community-based organisations. It now has a decade of organising experience and the paper explores the basis on which people of faith join the alliance, how they work together and the effects this politicisation has on the institutions and people involved.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098008094872 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:45:y:2008:i:10:p:2035-2056

DOI: 10.1177/0042098008094872

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().