Restoring right relations among privileged and poor people: A case study of the Center for New Creation

Abstract

Privileged people can work for restorative justice in their relations with poor and oppressed people. They do this by circumventing their class insulation through mutually respectful new relations with those struggling for their liberation. The author of this article argues for public spaces where oppressed and privileged people come together in conscious ways, to rebalance power relations, learn to bridge differences and work together for social justice. Faith‐based organisations, rather than an impediment to democracy, can be a significant site for building such political solidarity. The case study presented here examines an upper middle‐class faith community in the 1980s, the Center for New Creation, as it developed a culture based on democratic relations between the powerful and the poor. Its success was rooted in a conscious ‘caring for difference’ and a sense of personal and collective empowerment and responsibility among its privileged members. Out of this process evolved a new and radical approach to solidarity, called the ‘theology of accompaniment’.

Keywords:

• solidarity
• faith‐based politics
• social justice organisations
• social movements
• accompaniment

Notes

1. There are many interests shared by middle‐class and poor people that suggest working in coalitions. The corporate welfare policies designed by those with disproportionate power to keep the wealth at the top, or the plundering of our planet are two examples. In this article, I am examining the nature and potential of middle‐class solidarity in relation to the specific political struggles of poor and oppressed people as they confront imbalanced power relations and demand what they need.

2. I attended some CNC events in the early 1980s. The university peace and justice group co‐sponsored several events, and I grew more involved in the mid‐1980s. I became an Advisory Board member in the late 1980s, along with a Jesuit priest, a Head Start supervisor working in a Hispanic community, a life‐time peace activist elder, a homemaker/artist who traveled to the Nevada nuclear test site every year to commit civil disobedience, and three younger activists deeply involved in organising Central American solidarity.

3. Critics argued that the solidarity movement failed; it is true that the American government continued its overt and covert interventions in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, and, ultimately, squashed revolutionary movements in all three countries. Many activists believe, on the other hand, that the solidarity movement’s strength inhibited direct military invasion, especially of Nicaragua. The pressure included the Call to Action from the Catholic community, the massive mobilisation of mainstream citizens, and the Pledge of Resistance that thousands of citizens signed, promising civil disobedience in the face of an American invasion in Central America.

4. Faith‐based organisations have organisational weaknesses, of course. Epstein (1993, p. 266) found in her study that both secular and faith based groups had ‘brilliant but brief trajectories’. These groups adopted a community‐ based style of organisation and ‘consensus decision making’ that hindered longevity. The Center suffered a similar fate, with little institutionalisation by which to pass on the organisation when the original co‐founders left. Their commitment to relinquishment also meant that staff worked for a pittance and devoted little energy to fundraising. Strategically, the pre‐figurative politics of the Center, as well as other solidarity groups, meant that participants modeled egalitarian relations and nonviolent ways of living, rather than attempting to take over the reins of power. The long‐term outcome is more nebulous, harder to assess.