faith and democracy
a reflection on the need for empathy and translation
This essay is adapted from an article I wrote for Office of Citizen, a publication of Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE).
What role does empathy play at the intersection of faith and democracy? Can institutions be empathetic? How might empathy help us achieve moments of justice and liberation?
These questions have been on my mind for a while following PACE’s October Faith In/And Democracy gathering in Chicago, where we interrogated the relationship between faith and democracy: Whose Christianity is represented in democracy? What happens when “common goods” conflict?1 Can civic work be the medium by which we bring our faith into the public square?
Taking a historical perspective, we can see that people of faith in our nation have often been civic leaders. John Winthrop, Harry Emerson Fosdick, William Jennings Bryan, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Billy Graham, Howard Thurman, James Baldwin, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and countless others throughout American history have held the belief that faith and civic life must go together. However, even among the limited group mentioned here, the relationship between faith and democracy has led to diverse ends. Some chose to uphold exclusion while others sought to embrace those in need; some saw violence as a necessity, others pursued a non-violent path to peace; some choose to prophesy hope in a country that failed to love them while others remain complacent in the presence of evil.
A common demand faced by each of these activists was for “evidence” of the racist systems they fought to dismantle. This question of proof, especially in government and scholastic systems, is often overlooked and yet incredibly pertinent. In her book Notes of a Native Daughter, Keri Day argues places the common call for “evidence” of racism’s existence in relation to racist institutional practice is grounded in the belief that America is innocent. “Given such an underlying belief of innocence,” Day writes, “how can other people legitimate their claims of exploitation and injustice? How can they justify or ‘prove’ that oppression exists?”
When stories are excluded and the existence of racism must be proven exclusively through data and statistics, those who want to hold an innocent history of America have the upper hand. This is because, Day argues, “the question or demand for evidence assumes a position that rejects the existence of racism.” Further, to convince this person that racism does indeed exist, one must provide “evidence” from the little data accumulated due to the failure of institutions to document substantively the many experiences of overt and subtle acts of racism.
The FIAD Learning Community collectively discussed in grant-making and non-profit work that metrics and data fail to tell the whole story of projects and initiatives. A study conducted by the Fetzer Institute and FIAD member Sharif Azami expounds upon this. By combing datasets and stories, Fetzer has provided a more holistic framework in which the outcomes of grant projects and initiatives might be analyzed to both the benefit of grant-makers and recipients. For example, Fetzer’s resource What Does Spirituality Mean to Us? A Study of Spirituality in the United States does not only provide expansive statistical survey data pertaining to religion in America, but it also shares stories and interview excerpts of individuals who were surveyed. This approach to philanthropy, grant-making, and civic engagement provides a much-needed hybrid that brings together the strengths of surveys, data analysis, and metrics, and also stories in the context of complex relationships. Where the quantitative falls short, the qualitative succeeds.
The approach of the Fetzer Institute and FIAD avoids a key pitfall of bringing together faith and democracy: essentialization. Simply put, to essentialize religion is to abstract it from its cultural, lived context and instrumentalize it for one’s personal good. To essentialize is to say “all Christians” support X cause, or “all Muslims” fit Y group. These essentialized generalizations quickly fall apart when complex narratives are brought to the table, and that is exactly what FIAD and Fetzer have made room for.
This work of storytelling and making space for complexity and nuance, I believe, is deeply empathetic. In short, it is a work of empathic translation — the communication between faith and democracy. In his co-edited book with Tim Keller, John Inazu speaks of translation as a “God-given opportunity…of making the unknown known, making the inaccessible more accessible.” As those who work between the sectors of faith and democracy, it is our job to translate between those who reside exclusively in one space.
Translation, however, cannot be prescriptive. That is, translation cannot be the work of the translator reading their bias and beliefs into the content being didactically conveyed in order to achieve a certain result. Instead, like those who act as translators between languages or interpreters in the deaf community, translators between faith and democracy are tasked with perceiving and faithfully conveying the intended meaning of terminology and language between institutions and denominations.
Because there is often civic illiteracy in faith communities and religious illiteracy in the civic sector, the work of the translator is integral to the flourishing of faith in/and democracy.
As the FIAD Learning Community collectively agreed when we recently gathered in Chicago, separation of church and state should not be mistaken for a separation of religion and philanthropy. Indeed, philanthropists and religious communities often hold a common desire to see communities flourish in sustainable and constructive ways. Both often want to see our nation become more unified around shared goals and beliefs, rather than polarized across lines of tribalism and ideology. Fortunate for us, religion is both long-standing and comprehensive. Faith is not short-term, it is all-encompassing and requires embodiment. This collective experience and holistic formation positions faith leaders to be incredibly constructive and effective mobilizers in their communities.
Reading:
Cambria Kaltwasser, “Kenosis and the Mutuality of God” in Kenosis: The Self-Emptying of Christ in Scripture and Theology, Keith Johnson and Paul Nimmo, eds. (Eerdmans, 2022).
Eboo Patel, We Need To Build: Field Notes for Diverse Democracy (Penguin RH, 2022)
Watching:
Kim’s Convenience (Netflix)
Listening:
Spilligion (Album) - Spillage Village
Special (Album) - Lizzo