Religious Congregations as Social Problem-Solvers

Transcript:

Lisa Reyes Mason:

Hello, I’m Associate Professor Lisa Reyes Mason, interim dean of the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work. And welcome to Episode 14 of the school’s Brave Ideas for Social Change podcast series, which draws on GSSW faculty expertise for fast-moving discussions on emerging research practice and policy innovations to spur social change.

Today’s guest is Assistant Professor Marquisha Lawrence Scott, whose research, teaching and community engagement focus on ensuring that community and religious congregations are equipped to serve their communities. Dr. Scott has an MSW, a Master of Divinity degree and a PhD in social welfare. With a background in macro social work, community organizing and understanding religious congregations as organizations of faith and service, her work centers religious congregations as social problem solvers today and into the future. Dr. Scott, welcome. I'm so excited to talk with you about your work today!

Marquisha Lawrence Scott:

Thank you, Lisa.

Lisa Reyes Mason:

So, many of our listeners may not know this, but GSSW offers 13 dual degrees, including an MSW and Master of Divinity dual degree. Before we dive into your research, I'm hoping that you can tell our listeners a little bit more about your own unique academic background. How did social work and theology come together for you, and how did those degrees prepare you for the work that you do today?

Marquisha Lawrence Scott:

Yes. So for me, social work and theology go hand in hand. They both focus on the practice and experiences of people. Theology just has a faith component to it, but ideally, social work and theology are designed to help those who are socially disadvantaged. And so I saw that from my personal experience being a part of the Black church tradition that cared deeply about social justice and caring for our communities. And so when I went back to graduate school, that experience was reinforced. I completed a dual MSW and MDF program at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and Eden Theological Seminary. And so the tenets of social work paired with attending a seminary that was centered on social justice with a large commitment to contextual education was the perfect educational experience in bringing social work and theology together.

And after that, I went on to get my PhD in social welfare and studied with social work and religion scholar Dr. Ram Cnaan at the University of Pennsylvania at the School of Social Policy and Practice. And Dr. Cnaan completed extensive studies of congregations and social services that they provided to communities, including food pantries, medical clinics, educational support, resources for aging, voter registration and so much more. And so I see religious congregations as problem-solvers as well as communities of faith. So to me, it’s a natural connection.

Lisa Reyes Mason:

Thank you so much. Dr. Scott, your credentials are so unique among our faculty. And so is your research. You just said that you think of religious congregations as social problem-solvers. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that means? So how should congregations function in this larger context of communities, social services and some of the social and other challenges that they’re contending with?

Marquisha Lawrence Scott:

Religious congregations as social problem-solvers is the base assumption that I go into with my work every day. I think about different religious backgrounds and how social change is inherent in most religious traditions. So when we think about ameliorating suffering while maintaining dignity as a core component in faith traditions as well as in social work. So we see Buddhism promoting the importance of people having enough resources to live a life with dignity. And there’s Christian charity, where taking care of the stranger, the orphan and the widow is a core tenet of putting that faith into action. And Islam has Zakat, where the less fortunate are sought out and they are found just to be supported. Judaism has Tzedakah, which is charity with a moral obligation that recognizes and respects the dignity of people who are being helped.

And so these are obviously oversimplifications of these traditions, but there is this constant work to solve social problems. In the United States, we have most congregations providing some form of care or charity, food pantries, clothing drives and other social needs. But they are also called upon to work on large systemic issues like gun violence and climate change and health care access. In these situations, people constantly ask, where are the clergy? Where are the churches? Where are the synagogues?

So I've worked with many synagogues and people of different faith traditions, in the streets with clergy and community organizers, as well [as those] who are in city halls. And they’re wanting to expand Medicaid, they are really interested in providing resources to youth. And so we’ll see lots of training and community engagement and civic responsibility being carried out by religious congregations all the time. And in fact, there’s this historical connection of religious congregations in the United States that dates back to the 18th century where people were coming to the United States from Europe and deciding to rely on the strength of the people and their own religious beliefs. So instead of the government, volunteers provided a lot of social welfare for each other, and that history develops and morphs into different versions of individual communities supporting each other. But that work was largely organized with a faith-based lens and steeped in religious congregations’ work.

Lisa Reyes Mason:

Thank you, Dr. Scott. I love these parallels you draw amongst the world's major religions about dignity amidst care for suffering. And this has me thinking about our own social work profession, how in social work, social work itself is coming to recognize the suffering and many of the harms that the profession itself has caused and even continues to cause by how we struggle at times to also really effect meaningful change. Are congregations grappling with some of these same issues?

Marquisha Lawrence Scott:

Yes. I’m finding that many congregations are grappling with past harms while also reconsidering their vocation in places in their local communities and wider society. So who are we? How do we want to show up? How do we contend with what we’ve done? And so many congregations are thinking about how they hope to be in serving the future. However, that reimagining work … requires some self-reflection and acknowledgement of those past harms. So there’s still work to be done there, but a main population that has been ostracized or excluded from many religious traditions has been the LGBTQ community. And many congregations and wider denominational traditions have tried to publicly atone for the exclusionary and harmful behaviors that they’ve caused. And so we see many traditions identify as open and affirming and serve as great resources for LGBTQ folk.

But just like with social work, we must question and examine those congregations. We can’t just send our clients and colleagues to places that wave a flag or put up a statement on their website. So they are still in a lot of ways proving themselves. In a recently submitted paper, my colleagues and I write about the experiences of transgender identifying young people who are part of religious congregations. [The data show] that there was no significant difference in the experiences of open and affirming congregations and that of people attending evangelical congregations. So that is a very telling experience that there is still some work to do in congregations because while the values are stated one way, what the people are experiencing in congregations do not always align with these new values that are trying to be espoused in the congregations. So like social work, there are things that congregations get right, and there are things that they’re definitely grappling with and trying to make better.

Lisa Reyes Mason:

This is so important, this difference sometimes between values and how those are put into action. I’d love to keep talking a little more about your recent research. What are some of the projects you’ve been working on?

Marquisha Lawrence Scott:

Yeah. One of my most recent projects that I’ve been working on that I’m super excited about is within my role as a congregational data associate with the Center for Religion in Cities. It’s a center based out of Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. I’m leading a project called the Afterlife of Sacred Spaces. And the purpose of the Afterlife study is to collaborate with congregations who are experiencing transitions largely within their buildings, or they’re in neighborhoods that have been abandoned, or they have to leave their places of worship to find ways to heal after not being as connected to their communities.

And so the first congregation that I’m engaging with in this participatory action research is a Christian congregation in Washington, DC. They are in a gentrifying neighborhood with the aging building, and while they’re trying to reestablish themselves in their community and with each other, there is so much work that needs to happen with them. And so this summer we started with this Indigenous practice of a listening circle with some core congregational members. And what I’m learning is that there is a need for grief work within congregations. As we see in the wider society, there’s so much grief that is being held and needed to be managed. During a pre-circle session, there was a 75-year-old man — they were talking about the concerns with the building, and he said, “We have to keep the church because the old people paid for this building.”

And so there is this history that must be told and shared about what were the circumstances in which this building was acquired, who were those people. And it’s not just about the building, but about who they have been and who they want to be and the grief around that. And for this community, their past members who were also their grandparents and aunts and uncles and neighbors who lived in areas that were severely redlined, and the church was the only space that many of them could collectively own.

So it’s not as easy as running the numbers, but assessing what it means to be who they are in the space at this time while honoring what they’ve been. So in conversations, we hear things like, my grandmother sat on the third pew to the right. So when you’re talking about the building, it is a history of their family, not just a building that’s sitting on the corner.

And so this work will likely take several years to work through with this congregation. And if we were in a different situation with a different congregation, it would be different experiences and a different timeline. But as this project continues to be conceptualized, I knew that this somewhat curated approach will be necessary because I understand a little bit of their history, the traumas of those individuals that make up the congregation, and what it means to have religious values while your community is changing, while you’re also grieving who you have been and what you hope to be. And I find it to be a cultural competency that I am constantly building and working through.

Lisa Reyes Mason:

Wow, this connection between place and spirituality and also grief is so profound. I’m also thinking now about connections between congregations and ways that they serve the community. We know we’re seeing more and more formal partnerships, for example, between social work and the law or other first responders. It’s interesting to think about what partnerships could look like between social work and religious congregations. Do you have some thoughts on this?

Marquisha Lawrence Scott:

I do, I have a few thoughts. I think first, considering that congregations still want to serve as community resources, I recommend that first the social work profession revisits its partnerships with religion-based organizations. And this was proposed about 20 years ago of this limited partnership with the social work profession between religious congregations. If people want more history of that, I recommend folks read the Newer Deal: Social Work and Religion [in] Partnership by Ram Cnaan with Robert Wineberg and Stephanie Boddie.

The second recommendation I would make is that social work and religious congregations continue to establish those relationships, including expanding educational collaborations with graduates and graduate students from Master’s of Social Work and Master of Divinity joint programs. That educational space and that shared values and approach is so invaluable. And third, I think we need to increase collaborations based on research, program evaluations and grant sharing. There are many shared efforts that social workers and congregations are both doing where social workers may need space and congregations need the people with the expertise. And so those collaborations could really benefit a lot of people and help some of those issues be ameliorated by simply collaborating instead of doing things separately.

Lisa Reyes Mason:

These are great suggestions. I'd love to read the book that you recommended. Now, you’re also working on a project to get climate change and eco-justice-based information and resources to local congregations and communities. And of course, this is a topic that’s near and dear to my own heart. Will you tell us more about that?

Marquisha Lawrence Scott:

Yes. So, following up on some dissertation research in Philadelphia, congregations brought up this climate change and eco justice concern to me. One clergy person said, “I know that I’m supposed to be talking about climate change, but I don’t know how to get it to the local level.” So I’ve been working on getting this information to the local level while really understanding the need for diverse responses based on congregations and their needs. I am a faculty research collaborator with the Bangor Theological Seminary Center out of Portland, Maine. And it used to be a seminary that has reimagined itself as a place focused on spiritual leadership for [a] climate change world. And the center has gathered a cohort of 100 clergy from across the United States to understand climate change and environmental justice issues as moral and spiritual crisis. And that needs some really specific understanding and actionable responses. Clergy are in a unique position to offer both education and spiritual guidance on these topics, especially if they are in collaboration with the right experts, organizations and colleagues.

Lisa Reyes Mason:

Wow. I’d love to hear more. What are some of the key things you’ve been learning in this project?

Marquisha Lawrence Scott:

Yeah, what I learned between working with congregations in Philadelphia and Denver as well as analyzing this data from the EcoPreacher Cohort is how much bioregion and watershed conversations matter. So in the EcoPreacher Cohort study, I’m focusing on the parts of the country that the clergy are coming from and what questions and concerns are coming based on location. There are some regional differences that needs to be addressed, like lifestyle and inherent connection to land, what resources are available, demographics and other social variables that come into play. And some congregations, they have so much wealth and so much access and time that their focus is more so on getting the council to vote on taking money from their endowment to green their buildings while others are so steeped in other concerns that it’s hard to think about the building as anything other than a haven for the community.

And the study offers room to understand congregations in both of these spaces and congregations who are somewhat in between. So I think education and orientation of climate and environmental issues must be culturally competent and based on location demographics and those rituals shared in the specific communities. These components are also important to get a more diverse pool of communities to be a part of the climate change and environmental justice work that’s so desperately needed. And if people don’t see their communities and the solutions, then they may not take it as seriously as [everyone needs] to take the climate crisis. And so clergy are some of the best people to connect with because religious congregations tend to be in communities that are there for the longest time, and they understand its values and how things have changed over the course of decades. And so as congregations and communities in general think about reimagining their communities and how we might be together in this climate change world, congregational leaders must be a part of those collaborative conversations, and they really want to be. And my research is designed to help them do that.

Lisa Reyes Mason:

It’s so fascinating and so important to hear how congregations are approaching climate change and ecological justice. I know you’ve developed some specific recommendations for congregations about this. What are some of those?

Marquisha Lawrence Scott:

Yes, I have. So the main recommendations for congregations are to, one, build connection between their congregation and caring for the environment by understanding those health impacts and emphasizing that climate change is also a social justice issue. And second, talk with their congregational members about what actions they want to take on. You might not be able to do everything, but you and your congregation can do something. And third, I'd say find a designated person who wants to lead the effort, and bring together a group to support all those initiatives and carry out information across the congregation and community. Four, don’t reinvent the wheel. So cultivate relationships with organizations that are already working on climate-based initiatives and legislative actions that your congregation is interested in supporting. And five, make a creation justice covenant or an environmental commitment that connects with the congregation’s commitment to the environment as well as cultural and religious beliefs and rituals so that all those align and feel appropriate for the community. And six, get the youth involved. They will bear the brunt of the decisions that we make and the ones that we don't make. So they should be a part of creating those solutions and having those conversations and carrying out many of those initiatives.

Lisa Reyes Mason:

This is so great. I really love this overlap between our work. I really also believe that we all need to be all in on climate action. And this work you’re doing with congregations on climate change is so inspiring. Now, turning to the social workers out there and the future social workers who are in graduate school now, how do you think they should be thinking about religious congregations as potential partners in our work? From the micro level on up to the macro level?

Marquisha Lawrence Scott:

Oh, I love this question! So I encourage social workers to make connections with religious congregations in their local neighborhoods and cities. So from a macro, sorry, from a micro perspective starting there, I think there is this idea that religion is private, but religion is largely done in community through shared faith traditions and rituals. So it’s helpful to understand how religious congregations work in the lives of individual clients. So I always encourage social workers to be self-reflective on their own experienced religion that may be prohibiting them or limiting their engagement with religious congregations, but seeing the value in it and seeing how people are using it and connecting with religious congregations. And so I start there.

And then from a mezzo perspective, I think this is where social work could take advice from politicians. Congregations see politicians flooding their pulpits to share their messages and promise to make the changes that social workers are actually making in our communities. So I’d say switch that and have social workers speaking in congregations to share their messages, getting volunteers to do the work that the community and organizations need to really serve the community and in hopes of a better society. So many congregations want to be a part of the work that social workers are already doing but have not been connected or have somehow been excluded from those conversations and the work.

From a macro perspective, congregations tend to have a group of people to rally for policy initiatives and legislation action. I did an interview with a retiree from Boulder last year, and they said, “I’m retired, so give me topics and an address and I’ll write a letter to anyone you need me to.” And I’ve seen them do just that. So there is room to think of ways to get congregations involved with policy work, make connections with organizations like Gamaliel and Faith in Action, who have community organization efforts all over the country on various topics from voting rights to health care, climate and environmental issues, transformational justice efforts, and many topics that are being addressed in the social work field. These organizations organize congregations around these issues and social workers would fit right into these groups.

So I think that those are some of the larger concerns. But overall, I think that social workers continue to reinforce the notion that religious congregations and their faith traditions should be a part of being culturally competent. The students in my spirituality and social work class ask every year, why isn’t this class required? So I’ll put a collective call out. Let’s require religious and spirituality training for all social work programs as well as continued education for current social workers.

Lisa Reyes Mason:

Dr. Scott, thank you so much. This has been fascinating and just thank you for the important work that you do and for talking with us today.

Marquisha Lawrence Scott:

Oh, thank you so much for having me!

Lisa Reyes Mason:

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