The Supreme Court recently reversed California’s discriminatory ban on indoor worship in a case brought by two churches against Governor Gavin Newsom. The churches claimed the state’s extreme prohibitions on all indoor religious services discriminated against religious institutions while permitting other large indoor venues to open, like Hollywood soundstages and large, nonessential department stores.
In this second article of a two-part series, Dr. Gus Reyes shares how Hispanic congregations and ministries can draw on their faith-based values to shape their actions toward a hopeful civic engagement. In this article, Dr. Reyes takes up this theological notion of la familia as a unifying theme in the common faith walks of Hispanic congregations, and apply the idea of family to how our Hispanic faith communities are living into their spiritual commitments around civic engagement during the dual challenges of a global pandemic and heightening tensions around the pursuit of racial justice. Dr. Reyes states that it can be challenging for Hispanic congregations to engage civically: “Hispanic faith leaders see they have a role to play in shepherding their co-religionists’ understanding of the importance of speaking and acting thoughtfully in the public square. And yet, it is not easy to show Hispanic Christians one definitive way to carry out the Lamb’s image in this nuanced moment. For some, civic engagement may look like finding one or two issues at the local government level that they can meaningfully engage in with a public official. For others, it may mean encouraging voter registration, exploring serving as a volunteer commissioner at the municipal or county level, or simply starting with praying for our public leaders.”
In this first article of a two-part series, Dr. Gus Reyes shares how Hispanic congregations and ministries have been impacted by COVID-19. Dr. Reyes explores the distinct spiritual strengths of these organizations and how their faith calls them to seek out innovative, creative solutions in the face of a global pandemic. Dr. Reyes unpacks the ways in which our current public health crisis has posed unique challenges and opportunities for Hispanic faith communities. Hispanic congregations draw on their distinct Christian practices related to their conception of family to navigate how to flourish during COVID-19. Dr Reyes shares: “The motivation for this community-centered, service-oriented spirit in Hispanic congregations is our common understanding of family, or la familia. We know that Hispanic faith communities and leaders operate in a very familial and relational way."
(OPINION) Questions and conversations surrounding structural racism and how to address it have risen to national attention, particularly in the disparate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color and in recent incidents of violence against Black people. Chelsea Langston Bombino interviewed Pastor Cheryl Mitchell Gaines, founder and senior pastor of ReGeneration House of Praise, also known as the Church in the Field, in southeast Washington, D.C., to explore her vision for the role of community-based, Black congregations and faith-based nonprofits in advancing solutions relevant to structural racism.
On Friday, June 19th, the Small Business Administration (SBA) introduced a resource specifically created for small businesses and nonprofits to help them find lenders in the Payroll Protection Program (PPP). The SBA’s Lender Match tool was developed to address the ongoing needs of small businesses and nonprofits, which may have experienced barriers finding a lending institution. SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza stated: “The SBA is focused on assisting eligible borrowers in underserved and disadvantaged communities and connecting them with forgivable PPP loans, especially before the June 30, 2020, application deadline.” This tool is available online and serves as a pairing agent between nonprofits, including faith-based and community-based organizations, and financial lending institutions that may be better positioned to serve them, including: Certified Development Companies (CDCs), Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs), microlenders, and other entities. The new Lender Match tool is a significant step forward in addressing a challenge Sacred Sector staff have heard about, anecdotally through many faith-based leaders, especially those serving in rural and urban communities, and those led by and serving people of color.
Like you, we follow the headlines. Of course, the headlines have been dominated the last few months with news and updates about the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on our communities, country and world. We’ve been keeping up with the infection rates, the numbers of deaths and recoveries, and the situations related to stay-at-home orders and news on re-opening. Most recently, we’ve been overwhelmed and profoundly saddened by the headlines about systemic racism, life-threatening situations faced by people of color, and the demands for justice and equity.
In this time when we are all struggling with so many issues related to the pandemic, some of the more “regular” issues (tasks that we typically address annually as part of the regular flow of business) also surface as unexpected challenges. We know that for many nonprofits, the spring is the time when important onboarding takes place for incoming board members. Can this occur in the midst of the pandemic with stay-at-home orders and no in-person meetings? It is an interesting question, to be sure.
In the midst of the current coronavirus pandemic, many nonprofits are faced with tough choices related to raising the necessary resources to meet their missions and support the great needs of the communities they serve. The Standards for Excellence: An Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit Sector provides guidance for how organizations should act when planning resource development and states, “An organization’s resource development program should be maintained on a foundation of truthfulness and responsible stewardship. Its resource development policies should be consistent with its mission, compatible with its organizational capacity, and respectful of the interests of donors, prospective donors, and others providing resources to the organization.”
The government can both provide robust protections for religious employers so as to not ask them to violate their sacred precepts and the government can, if it chooses, work to provide alternative means for women to access contraceptive services. This is especially relevant now because many institutions caring for the elderly most vulnerable to COVID-19 are faith-based.
The national conversation regarding religious freedom right now is largely focused on the question of public, in person gatherings for worship services. This public conversation and its nuances have been relatively well covered. And yet, it is important to recognize that this is not the only element of the institutional religious freedom discussion that needs to be had at the moment. In the weeks to come, this column will take up in detail emerging public policies that impact the freedom of faith-based organizations. This column will focus on making visible the right now largely invisible, untold and often surprising elements and stories of how institutional religious freedom advances human flourishing during COVID-19 and beyond.
In such a short amount of time, COVID-19 has changed our whole way of living. As we look forward to a time when the virus will be gone, it’s hard to imagine anything could go back to the way it was before. While there has been substantial coverage on how the virus is evolving, predictions on “flattening the curve” and increased public education hygiene and social distancing, minimal attention has been given to how COVID-19 is impacting organizations that support individuals with developmental needs. Ryan Slaughter, a 2018 Sacred Sector Fellow, shares how he learned, through serving, employing and advocating for people with disabilities, the ways that faith-based nonprofits can holistically live out their faith in the ways they engage with people with disabilities. Slaughter shares how this work is even more important amid the health and economic impacts of COVID-19, and how faith-based organizations can creatively partner with government to better serve this community.
The President signed into law on April 24 a bill providing extensions and modifications of the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the EIDL emergency loan and grant program. This action gives nonprofits, including churches, small businesses, and self-employed individuals and independent contractors another opportunity to receive federal support designed to counteract the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Organizations and individuals needing this help should act quickly. The PPP program is likely to begin again on Monday, April 27.
Public justice holds that each sphere of life has an accompanying institution or community and that government ought both affirmatively live out its distinct roles while preserving space for all other distinct civil society organizations to fulfill their unique responsibilities. Public justice is a concept closely tied to the act of embodying theological ideas in institutional contexts. As someone who had spent the last few years primarily studying ideas, this framework provided a way for Sacred Sector Fellow David Tassell to see those ideas come to life. Tassell shares how this public justice framework provided a means to see theology inform the structure of organizations and institutions, as well demonstrate how the mission and purpose of a faith-based organization is a means for theological notions of justice to become embodied in entities that actively make society more just.
In this editorial response to a Berkley Forum post, Chelsea Langston Bombino responds to the questions, “What weaknesses in the American social welfare system have been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic? How can religious ethics inform continuing debates on social welfare, especially in light of the coronavirus crisis? How can faith leaders mobilize their religious communities in action on policies that protect workers and ensure access to affordable health care? What are the broader challenges and possibilities of incorporating religious perspectives in policymaking on social welfare?”
In this editorial response to a Berkley Forum post, Katie Thompson responds to the questions, “What weaknesses in the American social welfare system have been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic? How can religious ethics inform continuing debates on social welfare, especially in light of the coronavirus crisis? How can faith leaders mobilize their religious communities in action on policies that protect workers and ensure access to affordable health care? What are the broader challenges and possibilities of incorporating religious perspectives in policymaking on social welfare?”
Reverend Harold Dugger shares about how his congregation, First Baptist Church of Capitol Heights, is navigating the impacts of COVID-19. Pastor Dugger’s church, a historically black congregation, is a Sacred Sector Community participant organization, and has a long history of serving its local community. In this article, Pastor Dugger reflects on how Sacred Sector’s learning community has helped his congregation understand how public policy, even during COVID-19, impacts the sacred sector and civil society as a whole. Pastor Dugger emphasizes that it is vital for congregations to understand that government, in times like this, has a distinct role to play.
Victory Church, a 2018-2019 participant in Sacred Sector Community, has a longstanding, mutually-beneficial relationship with the Center for Public Justice. In this interview with pastor(s) Jamé Bolds and Mark Shanks, Sacred Sector Director Chelsea Langston Bombino talks with both pastors about how they see Victory Church and CPJ’s Sacred Sector initiative strengthening each other as they seek, in community with other congregations and faith-based organizations, to live out their sacred animating beliefs, in every area of their organizational lives. In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, Pastor Bolds sees the health crisis as an opportunity to live into his congregation’s faith-based commitments in everything they do, with respect to how they engage their own faith community, how they serve the broader community, how they coordinate with other churches and community-based organizations, and how the church interacts with government. This principled pluralist, public justice framework shapes Victory Church’s approach to living into God’s good purposes as a congregation, and recognizes that each institution in society must live into their God-given strengths and innovate based on those strengths, while at the same time, encouraging and working with other social institutions and government to live into their right roles.
The Center for Public Justice’s animating framework of public justice offers something unique to the global conversation surrounding COVID-19. The virus has dramatically impacted the institutions within which we live our lives – the institutions that make up the fabric of our daily lives. Institutions like our families, schools, hospitals, workplaces, houses of worship, museums, and our government are all impacted. The very relationships and institutions that provide meaning, livelihood, connection, and joy to our lives are disrupted and leave us collectively wondering: what’s next? This article will focus specifically on how people of faith and their institutions can rise to the challenge of loving their neighbors during this unprecedented challenge by instituting thoughtful and positive organizational practices. This will require diverse faith-based organizations to be both proactive and adaptive.
