Congregational Based Community Organizing
Books
California Interfaith Coalitions
More Resources

Welcome to the rapidly-developing collection of Justice Resources for UULMCA.

Faith-Based Advocacy

Legal Guidelines for Religious Involvement in the Political Process

Can candidates for election speak from your pulpit? Can your congregation take a position and/or organize around a ballot proposition that involves issues that are important to your community?

The following publications offer information to guide congregations as they seek to engage their congregations in the democratic process, advocate effectively for justice, while being sure to avoid being involved in party politics.

The Real Rules: Congregations and IRS Guidelines on Advocacy, Lobbying, and Elections

From the Unitarian Universalist Association Washington Office
www.uua.org/uuawo/new/article.php?id=314

Politics and the Pulpit: A Guide to the Internal Revenue Code Restrictions on the Political Activity of Religious Organizations

From the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
http://pewforum.org/publications/reports/IRCbrochureBIG.pdf

Congregation Based Community Organizing (CBCO)
From the UUA Website

Congregation Based Community Organizing (also called Faith-Based or Broad-Based) is a movement that seeks to establish inter-faith, cross class, multi-ethnic and multi-racial grassroots organizations for purposes of increasing social integration and power in civil society and for making civic, regional and state-wide changes for social improvement. By "civil society," we mean the voluntary sector, including religious institutions.

CBCO groups see their "primary role to develop participants' leadership skills, build a strong web of relationships through congregations and other institutions, and turn those relationships into civic power capable of making changes to promote the public good." (Interfaith Funders, 2001).

Three CBCO Networks Currently Organizing in California:

• PICO California
• Gamaliel Foundation
• IAF (Industrial Areas Foundation)
  

California UU Congregations involved in Congregation Based Community Organizing Networks

A few UU congregations in California are active parts of these networks, and can speak to the opportunities, benefits, and challenges of CBCO style interfaith organizing.

PICO California networks:

UU Church of Long Beach
Member of ICO ( Interfaith Community Organization)

UU Church of Palo Alto
Member of PIA (Peninsula Interfaith Action)

First UU of San Diego
Member of SDOP (San Diego Organizing Project)

UU's of San Mateo
Member of PIA (Peninsula Interfaith Action)

First Unitarian Church of San Jose
Member of PACT (People Acting in Community Together)

Gamaliel Foundation networks:

First Unitarian Church of Oakland
Member of OCC (Oakland Coalition of Congregations)

Industrial Areas Foundation networks

UU Society of San Francisco
Member of BAOC (Bay Area Organizing Committee)
Phone Number: 415-751-6174 or 415-474-0508

Books

If you could recommend a book to fellow Unitarian Universalists that would help us in the efforts to understand out times and bring our values and principles into the public square, what would it be?

To send suggestions for books to review or to inquire about doing a review for these pages, please contact admin@uulmca.org

Book Reviews

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It by Jim Wallis
Text in current newsletter.

Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think
by George Lakoff
Reviewed by the Rev. Doug Kraft,
Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento

“All language is metaphor. When conservatives talk about politics, they use words like character, virtue, discipline, toughness, self-reliance, authority, heritage, and hard work. Liberals use words like social responsibility, human rights, concern, care, help, health, dignity, and diversity.

George Lakoff is a linguist who has studied political discourse in America. He concludes that conservatives are often an enigma to liberals and liberal are an enigma to conservatives because they use different language and metaphors. They might as well be from different planets..."
Read the whole review.

Beacon Press
The mission of Beacon Press is to publish works that promote UU principles and to promote the importance of literature and the arts in democratic life.

California Interfaith Coalitions

California Council of Churches
www.calchurches.org

PICO California
www.picocalifornia.org

CA UU Justice History

In development: content coming soon.

Other Links

Tikkun
www.tikkun.org

Faithful Democracy
www.faithfuldemocracy.org
 
League of Women Voters
www.lwv.org
 
Defending Democracy
Including on-line audio via the UU Service Committee
www.uusc.org

Sojourners
www.sojo.org

Worship Resources

Beatitudes for Justice Builders
(32K PDF) by the Rev. Lindi Ramsden.

There is no power greater than a community
discovering what it cares about. (6K PDF)
Ask "What's possible?" not "What's wrong?" Keep asking...

From "Turning Toward One Another"
by Margaret J Wheatley

Top of the page.

Propositions 98 and 99