Looking for Holistic Political Organizations

If you ‘re familiar with a holistic political organization, please tell me about it. At this point, I’m not aware of any.

By “holistic politics,” I mean an effort that aims to both directly impact public policy and foster personal growth, healthy group dynamics, cultural change, and a compassionate sense of community rooted in mutual support.

Many religious institutions affirm holistic politics in their declarations. The mission of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco, for example, is “to be a sanctuary for individual religious growth and learning, to celebrate life and worship in diverse fellowship, to bear witness to suffering and joy, and to work for peace and justice in our world.”

And the Congregation Emanu-El is “dedicated to advancing our members' lifelong involvement in Judaism, engaging them in communal prayer, the study of sacred texts, and the performance of compassionate deeds.”  That Congregation serves its mission by “providing experiences that serve to deepen our members' involvement and faith…[and] providing opportunities and encouraging actions that respond to the call for social justice through tikkun olam (healing of a broken world).”

These projects assist their members with personal growth by offering suggestions, structured activities, materials, and encouragement. In addition to nurturing personal growth with their own members, they also discuss the need for self-development when they communicate with the general public.

As addressed in “Why Some of Us Seek a New Strategy,” harmful social conditioning is deeply engrained. One example is our tendency toward competitive, arrogant assumptions of moral superiority. Political activists need to undo our harmful conditioning with what Buddhists call “skillful effort,” which requires a disciplined commitment.

Because of their tax-exempt status, however, religious bodies are limited in the degree to which they can engage in political activities. They are unable to fully practice what they preach.

But religious leaders do initiate independent, community-based, political-organizing projects. It would seem natural for them to do so with the holistic perspective that is reflected in their spiritual worldview. But for some reason, they don’t.

When I recently went to the Pacific School of Religion to participate in the 2011 Earl Lectures and Leadership Conference on “Our Daily Bread: Faith, Work, and the Economy,” I listened carefully for the speakers and workshop leaders to advocate holistic politics.

This conference brought together about 150 religious and secular leaders from throughout the country to “teach, preach, and strategize about issues of economic justice.” Its purpose was to “seek to answer tough questions: How can an understanding of the economy help people of faith and goodwill advocate for change? What can we do together in difficult times to improve lives and empower futures?”

But I did not hear one speaker say one word about the need to encourage and support personal growth. 

Toward the end of the conference, I commented on this void to one of the main speakers. She replied that she and most of her fellow activists have their personal practice and she begins her staff meetings with prayer. I responded by saying that I believe we need to more explicitly affirm self-development as a major goal, build structures into our work that foster such growth, and talk about it with the general public. As we concluded our exchange, I repeated that throughout the conference I heard not one speaker mention self-development. She replied that it sounded like a good topic for an ongoing conversation. I’m encouraged by her response and look forward to further discussion.

Another source of encouragement at the conference was the two-day workshop led by CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice). They did talk about building “holistic communities” whose members care for each other. And they did affirm speaking deeply to member’s visions, dreams, and values in relation to justice, rather than just seeking short-term power for the organization. I applaud those goals, but I have concerns about their methods.

My main unease is that their understanding of leadership seems to be based on the traditional, elitist notion that the goal of a leader is to mobilize followers. Their workshop only touched on what they mean by “leadership development,” so my impressions are tentative. But their approach seems too narrow and top-down.

Much of their workshop, for example, was devoted to demonstrating how an organizer can recruit potential members by tapping into feelings expressed by those individuals. And the organizer can note the potential member’s interests and skills so he or she can suggest roles for the new member to assume. “Organizing is manipulation,” my small group leader asserted.

This method differs from transparent collaboration between equals who jointly develop solutions to acknowledged problems, which relies on mutual inspiration rather than manipulation – that is, hidden agendas, flattery, and half-truths – to get others to do what one wants them to do.

The CLUE facilitators summed up their leadership development as efforts to “equip” leaders with needed skills. The risk here is that trainers assume they know what their students need and proceed to give it to them.

And they reported that they work on “sustaining the leaders.” But what about members sustaining each other?

A commitment to leadership development is not the same as a commitment to open-ended self-development. The former focuses on teaching specific skills, while the latter involves each individual defining their own focus for their personal work, on any issue.

With a commitment to self-development and mutual support, the community would, at least to some degree, support other members with regard to any need. And the community would be clearly committed to sustaining all the members, not just the leaders.

To my knowledge, the only example of political organizing that has adopted this kind of openness to whatever needs are presented by the members are the base-communities organized by proponents of Liberation Theology in Latin America.

At their workshop, CLUE did not advocate ongoing, self-development (or personal growth, or whatever language one prefers). And their website makes no such affirmation. The website does affirm that “workers must successfully overcome their own fear and grief,” but that goal is narrow. It’s not open-ended self-development as defined by each individual. Fear and grief are only two of many pressing issues.

Neither does their site affirm mutual support to one another in personal growth efforts. The site does state that “religious leaders can act as ‘chaplains on the field of battle,’ encouraging workers to remember their deepest values and providing emotional/spiritual support,” but that feels top-down and one-way.

A holistic community is mutually supportive. We are all inter-connected. We need to nourish one another directly. Support must not merely be one-way, from leaders to members, but also multi-directional and horizontal, which is at the heart of a holistic perspective.

Though I offer these constructive criticisms, I remain encouraged by the evolution of community organizing that CLUE has developed with its “faith-rooted” approach. It definitely seems to be moving in the right direction.

Another source of encouragement is the work of organizations, such as Stone House, Social Justice Leadership, Movement Strategy Center, Rockwood Leadership Institute, One-Life Institute, and Center for Transformative Change, that are providing training to political activists to utilize various personal- and social-growth tools. I look forward to learning more about how their clients are using the tools that those organizations utilize.

Issues related to holistic politics are in the air. Many people are exploring possibilities. Seeds are being planted. If there aren’t any full-grown holistic political organizations operating now, I suspect there will be soon. And if there are some that I don’t recognize or with which I’m unfamiliar (please let me know if you know any), I suspect there will be more in the future.

Let’s encourage these developments and learn from them, so we can more fully embody holistic politics in our own lives.

Long live Egypt!