Talk to explore faith-based organizing
Princeton professor to speak at Cal Lutheran event
Author Jeffrey Stout will present “Congregations for Justice: Why They Join the Struggle, How They Do It, and What They are Aiming For.”
(THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Nov. 6, 2014) A Princeton University professor will discuss the role of religious congregations in grassroots democracy at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, at California Lutheran University.
Author Jeffrey Stout will present “Congregations for Justice: Why They Join the Struggle, How They Do It, and What They are Aiming For” in Lundring Events Center.
Stout will describe how grassroots democracy works, highlight some of its successes and failures, and explain why religious communities are still at the core of it. Throughout history, great social movements have mobilized religious communities. Today, congregations are involved in coalitions that seek economic and civic justice at the local level.
Stout has written four books including “Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America.” He received the 2004 American Academy of Religion Award for Book Excellence for his book “Democracy and Tradition.”
The religion professor joined the Princeton faculty in 1975 and received the university’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2010. He serves on the editorial boards of Theology Today and Contemporary Pragmatism and is a former president of the American Academy of Religion. He is a graduate of Brown University and holds a doctorate from Princeton.
Stout has been involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements. While at Brown, he chaired a student strike in 1970, ran the Rhode Island Draft Information Center and founded an opinion journal called Issues. At Princeton, he co-sponsored a faculty resolution on divestment in support of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
Cal Lutheran’s Center for Equality and Justice (CEJ), Segerhammar Center for Faith and Culture, Office of Campus Ministry, Political Science Department and Religion Department are sponsoring the free lecture.
Lundring Events Center is located in the Gilbert Sports and Fitness Center on the north side of Olsen Road near Mountclef Boulevard on the Thousand Oaks campus.
For more information, contact the CEJ at cej@callutheran.edu or 805-493-3694.