Articles

Faith And The City: Growing Atlanta's Religious Leadership and Witness

By James W. Fowler, Ph.D.
Faith And The City E-Letter
Volume 3, Issue 1
January 8, 2004

Faith And The City has grown out of a partnership between a major private foundation and the collaboration of three schools of theology in the Atlanta area. As it grows, it shows some resemblances to several earlier Christian based social justice and community renewal movements in American history.

One could point to the Social Gospel Movement from the 1890s to the 1920s, which sought to lead the country in the direction of Christian witness through working for social justice. In the period from the mid 1950s through the 1970s, the Civil Rights Movement mobilized churches, government and citizens in the breaking down of barriers based on color and race. In the 1980s and 1990s conservative Christians mobilized to push back the forces of secularization and to mobilize a new evangelicalism that has exerted direct political influence and change.

Perhaps the vision that most clearly anticipated the shape of Faith And The City is that of the "Public Church" that emerged in the 1980s-1990s. Martin Marty, Parker Palmer, and Richard John Neuhaus wrote books that urged our churches to reclaim "Care for the City" as central to their missions. They called for the following qualities:

• The witness of clear Christian commitment, combined with active care for the common good

• Balancing Christian nurture and formation with preparation and practice for serious involvement and leadership in public life

• Extending Christian witness through effective action for social justice and compassion

• Offering evangelical witness that combines the call to discipleship with the call to care for the City's well-being

With support from a private foundation and through cooperation among three institutions of Christian Theological Education, in three years Faith And The City has shaped a mission that gives vital expression to the vision of a public church. With the leadership and influence of public theologians, Andrew Young and James T. Laney, Faith And The City began, and continues, as a Christian initiative. It has effectively linked the theological seminaries, their faculties, students, and administrators. Faith And The City has reached out in partnership with the broader Christian and Interfaith communities. It engages in community ministries where faculty and students work with churches and communities around strategic areas of need and challenge. It calls forth a new generation of prepared urban and community ecclesial leaders. It leads for an ecumenical and inter-religious association of civic leaders, clerical and lay. It offers a religiously grounded parallel to "Leadership Atlanta" by developing a network of lay and professional religious leaders in the region committed and equipped to offer vision and leadership for faith-based public witness and influence. It partners with a strong new city administration that is proving to be a willing and able to partner with Faith And The City.

James W. Fowler, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Ethics and the C.H. Candler Professor of Theology and Human Development, Emory University. Dr. Fowler, an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, serves on the Faith And The City Steering Committee. This article is excerpted from an executive summary for an evaluation of the program.