Civic Action

This is a web page of resources intended to augment the work of EL4550: Civic Action and Pastoral Leadership, a course that is taught at Luther Seminary.

Civic Websites

• Healing the Heart of Democracy resources (this is Parker Palmer’s work)
• Everyday Democracy (a site chock full of useful exercises and other tools for supporting grassroots learning and engagement)
• “One small step conversations” from StoryCorps
• “Holy discontentment” booklet from the PCUSA
• Center for Religion and Civic Culture
• The Daily Yonder (a newsletter about rural issues in civic life), and the Center for Rural Strategies
• The Civic Imagination Project (run by Henry Jenkins at USC)
• Reimagining worship: Liturgies in the context of empire
• Facing History and Ourselves (particularly this lesson on voting rights)
• Center for Civic Reflection (hosted by Salisbury University in Maryland)
• Rural Health Information Hub
• KAIROS (a Canadian multi-faith organization that is home to the Blanket Exercise, and many other transformative pedagoghies)
• Citizens for Public Justice (a Canadian organization with great examples)
• Searching for Democracy (a site developed by the California Humanities project)
• Citizen University (a program with lots of educational opportunities for youth and adults)
• The Council of Canadians
• Neighborland (a software project supporting collaborative design and project implementation)
• The Institute for Digital Public Infrastructure
• Braver Angels’ “intellectual humility” creed
• Building Better Digital Civic Signals (particularly their presentation on the 14 signals)
• An introduction to sociocracy
• Center for the Study of Law and Religion

Economics Websites

• My collection of resources on universal basic income
• IRS resources on tax issues for churches and religious organizations (please note that tax policies change rapidly and are not always clear, even to CPAs)
• Nonprofit basics (from NOLO)
• Differences between churches and religious organizations (as of 2019)
• Sustainable Economies Law Center
• Class Action (a website on class and classism)
• The Center for Popular Economics
• “Public money” (a PBS short film)

Nonviolence and Restorative Practice Websites

• Fearless Dialogues (Gregory Ellison’s project on convening discussions that transform)
• The Civil Conversations Project (this is Krista Tippet’s effort, begun in the OnBeing ecosphere)
• Essential Partners resources (the successor to the Public Conversations Project)
• Living Room Conversations (a project which offers a simple model for engaging people in challenging conversations in their immediate neighborhoods)
• RestorativeJustice.org
• The Global Nonviolent Action database
• The MLK, Jr. King Institute at Stanford

Reports, Papers, and Articles

• “Can a priest or a member of a religious order publicly endorse a political candidate?” (an explainer from America Magazine)
• A collection of reports and articles that focus on the intersections of data, race, and labor issues
• Laudato Si’ (Pope Francis)
• “Government and Civic Engagement in the United States: Discipleship in a Democracy” (an ELCA social statement adopted on June 24, 2020)
• Everyday use: A history of civil rights in Black churches
• Economic justice, for people and the land (a discussion of land trusts and supporting smaller farms)
• A series of reports on possible impacts of a $15 federal minimum wage
• Civil Resistance Against Coups: A Comparative and Historical Perspective (by Stephen Nunes)
• MN House Select Committee on Racial Justice Report to the Legislature
• 100 Days to Inspire Respect & Hope (a project of the USC Shoah Foundation)
• A field guide to Christian nonviolence”
• “Why the moral argument for nonviolence matters”
• “From banks and tanks to cooperation and caring: A strategic framework for a just transition” (an economic plan)
• Our Common Purpose: Reinventing Democracy for the 21st Century (a report from the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship)
• “Betraying your church — and your party” (a piece in The Atlantic about Adam Kinzinger, an evangelical Republican, wgi decided to vote for impeachment—and started calling out his church)
• A lengthy annotated bibliography on classism
• “Mapping the civic data universe: Ten ways to improve access to government information through expanded interstellar connections” (report from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, published in March of 2020)
• Contemplation and Political Action: An Ignation Guide to Civic Engagement (a study guide)
• “The cognitive biases tricking your brain” by Ben Yagoda, The Atlantic, September 2018
• “Democratising Knowledge: Transforming Intellectual Property and Research and Development” (a report from the Next System Project)
• A Guide to Historic Trends in Income Inequality
• “How to safely and ethically film police misconduct” (published in TeenVogue, with information from the human rights organization Witness)
• Advancing civic learning and engagement in democracy: A road map and call to action (published by the US Dept. of Education in 2011)
• Connecting People to Place: How Digital Maps Advance Civic Engagement in the Cultural Sector
• “Racial equity in co-ops: 6 key challenges and how to meet them”
• “How to start a co-op”
• African Americans and Religious Freedom: New Perspectives for Congregations and Communities (a Freedom Forum book funded by Luce)
• Center the Margins

Blogs

• OnBeing, particularly Omid Safi’s piece on “The disease of being busy”
• Day1, especially Eric Barreto’s blog “545 children”
• Building Belonging, especially “From cancel culture to collective accountability” by Brian Stout
• Mapping social media (a project of Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University)

Films and Webinars That are Useful

• “All faiths and none: An expansive moral vision of religious freedom” (a webinar hosted by Auburn Seminary)
• A history of public imagination
• Harvard Divinity School’s youtube channel on Leading towards justice
• Combining nonviolent communication with sociocracy

Other Resources

• Getting Free: Hip Hop Civics Ed (a multi-media hip hop civics curriculum for youth and young adults)
• Civic Online Reasoning curriculum resources (from Stanford History Education group)
• Bridging Differences Playbook (useful learning tools for authentic dialogue)
• Civic Imagination Project toolkit (great free learning resources)
• Religion and Civics project at NYU (full of learning modules and other resources)
• Vote by Design (a civics curriculum for young people)
• Teaching for Democracy curriculum
• The Debunking Handbook (a guide to responding to misinformation)
• Advocacy 101 for Young Adults (an ELCA resource)
• ELCA Civic Engagement guide
• “A field guide to working with US faith communities during crises, disasters, and public health emergencies” from the National Disaster Interfaiths Network
• Immigration resource map in Minnesota is a good example of digital resource
• “Finding steady ground: Strengthening our spirits to resist in and thrive in these times” (a resource created by a collaborative of activists and healers)
• One Nation, Many Beliefs: Talking about Religion in a Diverse Democracy (a handbook)
• Hold the Line: A guide to defending democracy (written in the time shortly before the 2020 presidential election in the US)
• Citizen Literacy (an online toolkit built by the University of Louisville Libraries)
• Planetary Social (a new kind of social media network)
• Alexis de Toqueville’s “Democracy in America”