Posted by Karen on: 08.02.2007 /
Keith asked me to post about the Christian Community Development Association, a group I belonged to and worked with during the 1990s. Here’s some background on the CCDA.
Keith asked:
Please share how your perspective on CCD has changed since you became an atheist and how it has remained the same.
I liked a lot of things about the CCDA as a Christian and I still like a lot of things about the group today, although I no longer share its evangelical goals.
In my experience, I found the leadership to be genuine, loving, outside-the-box thinkers who are committed to admirable goals. They’re also lively, funny and fun to be around. This could be something of a contrast to the rather staid, conventional leadership that I typically encountered in conservative evangelical churches (sorry - I don’t mean to insult - but that’s my experience).
The main philosophy and goals of the group that I admired were the need for community development to come from within urban neighborhoods, rather than being imposed from the outside; that the focus should be on listening to the urban poor and supporting their own grassroots solutions, rather than telling them what to do and wastefully duplicating their own efforts; and the imperative for racial reconciliation.
I think that last goal was probably the one I saw most success on: The leadership was easily the most integrated - in terms of race and gender - of any Christian organization I worked with or knew about.
Some things I would now disagree with the CCDA on:
It holds the belief that transformation in urban neighborhoods will only truly come about if initiated from within the Christian church:
“… nothing other than the community of God’s people is capable of affirming the dignity of the poor and enabling them to meet their own needs,” the group’s philosophical statement says.
While the group is nondenominational and nonpolitical, it holds to conservative Christian doctrine (or did when I was involved) and most of its members espoused conservative political goals, such as vouchers for religious schools, opposition to abortion and gay marriage, and faith-based funding.
Keith asked about how I thought the group could be more effective:
I would like to see more cooperation between the CCDA and other, more liberal Christian traditions that are well-established with similar goals, such as Episcopalians, Quakers and Catholics. I would even be thrilled to see the CCDA partner with non-Christians congregations such as Jews or Buddhists, both of which have serious philanthropic goals and organizations. When I was involved, the group would likely have rejected such cooperation, fearing that it would dilute the effectiveness of the gospel message, which the CCDA puts at the heart of its transformational process.
One more thing that bothered me a bit: While looking over the website I saw that Howard Ahmanson is now on the CCDA advisory board. I don’t recall his being involved before. Ahmanson is a wealthy and influential member of the religious right who has bankrolled projects that have been linked to the dominionist movement. I oppose the kinds of theocratic goals he seems to espouse, and would probably have been bothered by his involvement in the past as well.
Keith also asked:
I’m also curious whether CCD shed positive or negative light on Christians in the opinion of other atheists besides yourself.
I have a feeling most atheists probably haven’t heard of the CCDA. It tends to fly under the radar and get very little mainstream publicity, especially as compared to groups like Habitat for Humanity. I also looked up “faith-based community development” at Wikipedia and did not find any information at all.
Many non-Christians may have heard of secular community development, which has been traced back to 1880 in the United States. There are 4,000 community development corporations around the country (not sure how many are church-affiliated and how many are secular).
One of their big supporters and long-time participants is Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who has pledged to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone in 20 cities around the country if he is elected.
Overall, it seems to be unclear how successful community development has been in lifting residents out of poverty in troubled neighborhoods. While there have been local successes, the concept has not been tried on a large scale.
Comment by: Jim Henderson
1I agree - More Cs should join exsiting social service agencies and work to make them successful
I also agree about the part that these ideas have not been tried on a wide scale- probably because white people have not yet suffered enough to get these ideas into their neignorhoods and black people lack the levers of power to get word out about wonderful orgs like CCDA
Also- One CCDA influenced church I really think that gets it is Lawndale CC in Chicago
Comment by: Karen
2Oh yeah. Lawndale is their signature project and Wayne Gordon, who founded it 20+ years ago, is an awesome guy.
I never got to visit it, but I heard a lot about it. I did get to visit a similar community in Atlanta that was started by another CCDA founder, Bob Lupton.
All those guys are just terrific. I’d definitely recommend their annual conference to Christians here. It’s coming up in St. Louis in October. I think all of you would enjoy it tremendously.
The worship alone is terrific, because you get the music of the African-American church, plus all the other ethnic groups usually do some singing or performance - in Spanish, Vietnamese or Chinese, etc. It’s really cool. :-)
Comment by: Keith
3Karen,
Thanks so much for posting this. You brought up a number of concepts … let me do my best to bring some of them together in a question.
Racial reconcialiation and community development on a large scale would make the world a better place. No doubt, CCDA believes that, you believe that, I believe that, others believe that. However, large scale anything requires multiple organizations/perspectives working toward the same goal. At the heart of these issues are questions of how we work together and with whom we will work together.
In what sense have you personally found it easier or harder to work with people of different beliefs since you became an atheist?
Also IMO, a key element of grass-roots change is individual determination to break with the past and embrace a different future. This kind of break involves being forgiven and forgiving … it involves repenting and developing new habits/lifestyle changes. In what ways does the gospel instill these tools in the lives of the poor so that resulting changes are seen? In what ways have you seen grassroots change begin without the gospel? If so, were similiar elements of forgiveness and repentance present (even if identified by other terms)?
What, in your opinion, does it take to see grassroots change on a large scale? Are those terms oxymoronical?
Finally, have you ever witnessed God’s impact in a community where you felt compelled to give Him credit in some way for that change. If so, how do you look back on that experience now? Not only that it can be explained without Him - I’m sure it can, but how do you remember what it was like for you personally to see a prayer answered … how it felt to see someone change their life and to have a hand in that. How do you look back on those moments/feelings now?
Thanks for posting about this, Karen. Hope the questions aren’t too personal or weighty. All are sincere, and - I trust you know from our time of blogging together - I’m not setting you up for some sort of counter-punch or anything. Thanks for being open. I respect you for it.
Comment by: Eliza
4Keith, you were asking Karen (not me), so I hope you will forgive my jumping in with a comment. This sentence in your post really struck me, one of those “aha” moments pointing out a key difference in our worldviews:
This question assumes such a different outlook that it’s almost a different world from mine! (Strikes me as intriguing…) I haven’t ever witnessed something that I felt suggested to me the hand of God - so far, there has seemed to be a “natural” explanation, whether it’s human or not. Even a group of enthusiastic people, inspired by faith, who work hard to accomplish a major positive change against all odds for a community in need - for me, the hard-working, positive-thinking people were the cause of the change. Their belief in God (& in the importance of doing good) may have been behind their efforts & accomplishments, but that doesn’t mean God necessarily has to be behind it.
It seems like God gets the blame more often than the credit for changes in a community, in “popular culture”, via “acts of God” (natural disasters, etc)…
Comment by: Karen
5You’re welcome, Keith. Please don’t apologize for asking questions! I feel like I “know” you well enough not to question your motives. :-)
I’m a pretty easy person to work with or be friends with, actually. That hasn’t changed, I don’t think.
I probably don’t put up with quite as much crap as I used to. My self-esteem is a whole lot better now, and I’m more comfortable standing up for myself and saying something like, “No, I won’t do that or That’s not going to work for me.” I might not have said no in the past because I was worried about having the “perfect witness” for the Lord.
Also, it’s easier and much more comfortable to work with non-Christians when you’re not worried about their eternal salvation or feeling like you need to be witnessing to them, inviting them to church, praying for their conversion, etc.
I think the conversion experience - not just in a Christian context, but in any religious context - can indeed be a powerful change agent for people who are struggling with life issues. Then again, I’ve seen people make massive changes in their lives without a religious conversion, or even while de-converting.
Many poor people do have those personal issues and need to change, others (in my experience) simply haven’t had things in their lives like education, job training and middle-class expectations. The latter group can be helped tremendously by practical programs that any group - secular or religious - can provide.
How you motivate people in the first group without offering them a spiritual reason, I don’t know because I haven’t been involved in non-religious community development.
Oh sure. I think forgiving yourself and apologizing to others is often necessary. AA uses those principles and a couple good friends of mine have had complete life turnarounds through that program. It does refer to a “higher power” but neither of the women I’m referring to believe in god. Still, the program worked for them and it’s 20+ years later, so the principles are good ones.
Boy, if I knew the answer to that question, I’d write a book or something!! ;-)
Just my hunches: There are some ‘best practices’ that can be shared from local community development projects across to the larger arena of community development. I think the CCDA has hit on some of them, like answering ‘felt-needs’ in a community, not duplicating effort, and listening before rushing in to impose an outside solution.
But I do think each community is unique and faces unique challenges, so the programs probably have to be tailored individually. Which of course makes it more difficult to replicate.
Of course when I was a Christian, I attributed the change I saw in poor neighborhoods to god. However, I also saw a lot of sincere people give their lives to Christ and then find that they were still unable to escape from under their problems of addiction, lack of work experience or work ethic, or what have you.
I felt badly because we offered them a spiritual solution and told them if they were sincere, and prayed enough, and joined the church and went to bible study, their problems would be solved with god’s help. And it just didn’t always work that way. Which of course made them feel they were at fault, they weren’t praying enough, they weren’t “good enough” to join the church, or whatever.
The change seemed inconsistent when we promised that god was consistent. There was some kind of disconnect there that always troubled me.
When I deconverted, that process involved re-thinking a lot of those presumptions I had made, and examining those uncomfortable “disconnects” like I mentioned above. This is why so many former Christians talk about how painful the process is - it’s like you have to strip away many years of cherished and unquestioned assumptions that you’ve based your whole life upon.
As I’ve no doubt said many times, it’s a long, drawn-out thing that can take many years, much questioning and a whole lot of emotions, such as anger, sadness, etc. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that most of what I’d been taught was incorrect, and much of the change I’d seen occur could be attributed to personal motivation and hard work on the part of the poor, and sincere desire to help and good organization on the part of the believers working in that community.
I don’t think we really offered anything “magic” beyond a helping hand, a listening ear and some money and expertise, which were what was sorely needed.
Comment by: Kimberly
6I am actually headed to the CCDA conference this year for the first time. I did a lot of independent research on CCD in college (mid-90’s), and even traveled to Boston to learn more about the Christian Economic Coalition (not sure if they’re still around).
One of the things that stood out strongest for me on that trip was this need for cooperation that you mentioned. I saw the need on two fronts.
The first was when Roger Dewey took me outside the CEC office and had me look up and down the street at all of the social service agencies lining the storefronts. He explained to me how much time and effort is lost to duplicating and overlapping services, and that his heart is to see the agencies working together to inact real change rather than simply competing for funding.
The second was when I stopped into ABCD (Action for Boston Community Development), an independent (not faith-based) service agency. I was picking up information and brochures from the front desk, when a lady walked by and started asking me about myself and what I was doing in Boston. She invited me to join her downstairs on her smoke break, and began to explain to me how difficult it was to get the religious agencies and the “normal” (her words) agencies to work together. She explained to me that there was too much money going to overlapping and duplication of services.
As a young student from a small Southern Baptist college, I felt like I had been let in on a secret that only wise, caring people were privy to. Scandalously, it was a secret that crossed the divide of sacred and secular. Selfishness doesn’t meet people’s needs, and organizations can be selfish. Whether you’re Christian or Atheist or Jewish or Agnostic or Muslim or Baha’i… people tend to think they have the right way to do something, and that they can do it better on their own.
I have worked in the non-profit world off-and-on for years, and I can say quite certainly that the secret still has not been widely shared. People still don’t get that change will never come as long as we’re convinced it has to come our way and we have to receive the clear credit for it. Luckily, a lot of grant agencies (I had the priviledge of working on a grant through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) are beginning to require evidence of agency collaborations.
I’ll keep an eye out for signs of extended collaborations at the conference this year, and I’ll try to remember to update you with my findings. My hope is that they are emerging.
Comment by: Karen
7Cool! I hope you have a great time. I’d be very interested to hear how the group is progressing and where they are at now (I haven’t been involved for several years).
Yup, I definitely saw that.
For instance, when my conservative evangelical church started doing community outreach in the early 90s, we partnered with other conservative churches in the area on several projects.
But there is a very large, influential Episcopal church in the same city that has done community development work for probably 30 years. They’ve established low-income housing in conjunction with other faith communities, founded a homeless shelter, etc.
They certainly could have told us a lot about what we were getting into, how to deal with public agencies, how to apply for grants, etc. But because they do things like affirm gay unions and take a non-literal view of the bible, we never had anything to do with them. Not only did we not consider partnering with them, we didn’t even consider meeting with them for advice! They were sort of like “the enemy,” to be honest.
It seems in retrospect to be a very nonproductive attitude.
Comment by: Keith
8I don’t think that’s changed :-). And I’m glad you don’t mind standing up for yourself.
I agree. I have many times wished that in my conversations here I did not care about others’ relationship with God … still haven’t been able to shake it, but I try not to let it dominate me or our conversations. Life as an atheist seems like it must be simpler.
This is a good question. I suppose it has an answer, but I’ve never heard it and I would like to at some point. How does this unanswered question interact with your thoughts that what you saw in the past was primarily due to the hard work of the poor and the organization of the believers? In what sense is the spiritual motivation not a credit to someone other than the believers or the poor? When those involved give credit to God, might they be saying in some sense that they would not be motivated to do this without Him. So his credit isn’t for organizing it, or for making the decisions that lift one out of poverty, but rather His credit is for motivating all involved with the hope that they could change/make a difference. I know that you understandably would not credit “God” for this motivation, so what do you feel is the actual source of this spiritual motivation they credit to “God”?
LOL. I hear you on that.
I wrote earlier that life as an atheist seems simpler … however, I don’t think that becoming an atheist is simple at all. I respect you greatly for going through the painful process of examing your beliefs, and admire you for continuing to examine your beliefs even after becoming an atheist.
The disconnect you spoke of is real, IMO. Anytime someone talks about the gospel, there are differences between what some preacher says will happen and what happens. If God existed, do you think each of his relationships with people would look exactly the same? If not, wouldn’t it be reasonable to say that the mistake of standard expectations is with someone other than God … like the over-promising preacher (I can be one) for example.
You noted that the group didn’t really offer anything “magic.” I agree. But can’t a God who cares more about others than His personal credit (and He does regardless of what preacher wants to paint Him as a glory hog) work through common means like helping hands, listening ears, sacrificially donated money, and devoted expertise. Wouldn’t God focus more on what is sorely needed than on a light show? I think you would agree that if God exists He should do that (if not, I apologize), what I don’t understand is why - when what was sorely needed is provided without the light show - you don’t feel like He can be credited with that.
Thanks for posting about this. You are bettering my understanding of ministry to the poor, and confirming the necessity of broad coalitions working together. Thank you.
Comment by: Karen
9This is just a suggestion, and it may be way off base, but rather than try to “shake off” caring, would it be easier to do what we conservative evangelicals used to call ‘let go and let god’? In other words, if god is sovereign, won’t he take care of your atheist friends just as you believe he’ll take care of you?!
Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s great that you care. I care about people too. But I just hope you’re not worrying or feeling sad about people like me. You have lots of much better uses for your energy! :-)
Ummm, I don’t know about that! Yes, it’s a big burden lifted not to have to evangelize. On the other hand, we have the whole cosmic significance thing to wrestle with. Not to mention looking forward to the possibility of eventual oblivion. ;-)
Like I said, I really don’t know. I feel like you want me to second-guess these people and their motivations, but I’m not comfortable doing that. I’d rather accept them on face value and live with the ambiguity, I’m fine with that.
All I can say is that, looking back from where I am now, I don’t think we delivered any “magic.” I saw determination to change coupled with people who were willing and equipped to facilitate that change. And it worked - oh, I dunno - 30-40% of the time? in the long term.
What makes people change? That’s probably the most fascinating question of all, as far as I’m concerned. I ask it all the time of the new people joining the ex-fundy support group, and I haven’t gotten the same answer twice. I’ve seen change occur in religious people and in secular people (such as the women I mentioned who went through AA successfully) and it seems like the motivation is pretty unique and pretty personal. I suppose if we could bottle it, we could solve a whole lot of problems!
Well, as Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living, right? And thanks for voicing your respect, I absolutely appreciate it and I find it quite unique. We know we atheists don’t get enough respect! :-)
It’s not that I expected every case to conform to standardized expectations. More that I expected people to have better success overall than they really did. Yes, there were cases of big turnarounds, but there were lots more that fizzled out. Overall, I’d be surprised if our “success rate” was any better than a secular program’s would have been - though I haven’t seen any studies on that, and it would be interesting to see if anyone has studied it.
People who want to give god credit for the change in their life get no argument from me. I don’t feel qualified to tell them that their personal history is inaccurate. That’s arrogant and presumptuous - two things I try to shy away from whenever possible. ;-)
Comment by: Keith
10Thanks for the response, Karen.
You are rarely if ever arrogant or presumptuous. I wasn’t trying to put you in a tough spot … I’m just trying to understand. If at the time you accepted people’s assertion that God was motivating them, and now at this time you no longer believe that He exists, wouldn’t it be natural to interpret their actions as springing from some other motivations. Said differently, if I said I am posting this because the Flying Spaghetti Monster inspires me to do so, you would be polite, humble, and unpresumptuous toward me - but you would also consider my stated motivation to be inaccurate, right?
I know that you would not walk up to someone who credits God for helping them improve their life and tell them they are deluded. You are too kind and considerate for something like that. However, I’m not asking you do that, I’m just asking how you personally interpret this change. If you once credited the motivation to God, and you haven’t seen anything other than spiritual motivation work in this area, how do you process this motivation. Was it from God or not? If not, where was it from? Again, I’m not asking you to criticize someone, just help me understand how you think about those experiences now.
Yes, with a new baby at home I have less energy to waste than normal :-). I’m not worrying, it’s just that concern for others’ relationship with God is still a factor. I thought I could compartmentalize enough that I could come here and just learn without being emotionally engaged (I’m a guy). But I find that I still care, even though I want to just learn. It’s not a worry, or even a negative experience, it’s just an unexpected one. “Letting go and letting God” is good advice. I’m never good at letting go, but honestly, I don’t think He’s good at letting go either. So, like Father like son, huh? Are you ever intellectually suprised when you care about whether or not a Christian lets go of certain behaviors or thinking. If so, that’s probably real similiar to what I’m feebly trying to describe.
Thanks for the dialogue, Karen. I don’t know if this is benefitting you, but it is benefitting me greatly. So again, thank you.
Comment by: Karen
11Well thanks, that’s very nice of you to say. :-) But actually, my motivation is not all about politeness and consideration, though that’s there too. I honestly don’t want to leap to wrong assumptions by dismissing someone else’s explanation. That’s part of remaining open in my thinking about these matters, and not being closed-minded. Remember, I’m a “weak atheist” (AKA agnostic atheist), so while I don’t feel I have sufficient reason to believe in god, I also don’t declare: “There is no god, subject closed!” I’m interested in hearing more about it.
So, for instance, a woman told me a while ago that her entire life changed for the better after she began attending services led by a guru involved in “The Secret” movement. I told her how happy I was for her. And I was completely sincere. I don’t turn around and roll my eyes after she leaves and think, “Oh, that poor dumb girl, she’s so deluded!” I don’t personally like what I’ve heard about The Secret, and I’m certainly not going to join up based on her experience, but neither do I dismiss it entirely.
I’m fine with saying, “I don’t understand” and leave it at that. I never could have done that when I was convinced my way of belief was the One True Way, but I’ve grown much more comfortable now with uncertainty and ambiguity. It does take some getting used to! ;-)
Oh, but I have seen lots of other things work! As I mentioned, I know two women whose lives were transformed through AA. Neither had spiritual motivation to change and they don’t believe in god. I heard a story on NPR about a guy whose whole life changed when he was re-introduced to his childhood love of playing the piano. There was a story in the paper yesterday about two notorious drug addicts who changed because they fell in love with each other. People in my ex-fundy support group have had all kinds of stories about what motivated them to escape belief systems and people who were very repressive and unhealthful.
So, sometimes people ascribe spiritual reasons for change, and sometimes they don’t. I think there are all sorts of motivations that are probably as unique as each individual involved: Education, support, money, caring, love - you name it, it’s probably helped someone change.
I won’t second-guess other people’s motivations (see above). But I can tell you how I view the experiences that occurred in my own life in the past and how I analyze them now versus before, if that will help.
I had probably half a dozen big spiritual experiences in 30 years as a Christian. Most of them were during large capacity concerts and revival meetings where there was heavy appeal to emotion taking place: Lighting, mood, music, crowd energy, persuasive and polished speakers who clearly knew how to “juice up” a crowd - either with fear or promises of bliss or whatever.
I used to attribute those experiences to “being filled with the holy spirit.” Now I would say I was clearly manipulated emotionally right along with everybody else in the group. I’m not saying that the leaders or the other people in the audience were craven or insincere, but I do see now that there was a lot of string-pulling going on behind the scenes.
For instance, once I got involved in ministry during these events, I found out that everything was very carefully scripted and planned to have maximum effect. During altar calls there were members of the prayer team instructed to get up and walk to the front right at the beginning, to sort of “break the ice” for prospective converts to follow.
In terms of the two or three times I felt that I strongly got a message of comfort or solution from god, I think now that those good things were coming from my own subconscious mind, rather than from an outside entity. In other words, the encouragement and positivity and goodness was inside of me all along - I just didn’t recognize it for what it was.
How do I know for sure? I don’t. But that explanation rings truer to me now than any other. And, as I said, I try to stay very open to the possibility that god can reach me whenever he wants to if he exists and wants to persuade me differently. I hope that helps answer your questions!
Wow, a new baby! Congratulations!! This is No. 3? boy or girl?
I’m honestly really not invested emotionally in seeing Christians let go of their behaviors or thinking. As long as the behavior and thinking isn’t destructive, and the person is happy, that’s good by me. My motivation for being here and on other dialogue sites with Christians is not to change peoples’ cherished beliefs, but to help bridge the understanding gap that I see on both sides.
The only times I feel sad and wish that Christians would let go are when I see blatantly destructive attitudes, like beating themselves up for being evil sinners, being angry at themselves for being flawed witnesses, calling themselves stupid or worthless or filthy rags. I’ve been there and I know how terrible that is for one’s psyche, so I do care deeply about that.