Alexia Salvatierra – Faith-Rooted Organizing [LDT021]

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In the nineteen sixties (and ever since), progressive people have been very impressed with the power of direct grass-roots organizing. Some very important victories, benefitting poor people in their struggle for better housing, better schools and a host of economic issues. Saul Alinski became the guru of this kind of organizing and organizations inspired by his work have continued to work to this day.

Faith-Rooted Organizing is an important new approach, somewhat based on the Alinski model, that focuses on the higher values and deeper hopes and dreams of oppressed people. It is a way of unleashing people to work for the most exciting goals of their lives.

Alexia Salvatierra is a Southern California-based Lutheran Pastor who has pulled together the Faith-Rooted work that has been growing within some of the most important struggles of our time. She and theologian Peter Heltzel (see a link below to the recent Love In A Dangerous Time (LDT019) interview with Peter)have brought the background, the experience, the techniques, and the theology of this kind of organizing into a movement that is developing it ongoingly.

In this interview Rev. Salvatierra discusses her journey to this approach to changing the world, and how it developed out of her
experience and her growing faith. She also talks about some of the techniques, like “Serpent Power” and “Dove Power,” and she explains Faith-Rooted Organizing’s emphasis on leadership being based on people’s gifts, rather than on a rigid structure.