| This study examined social justice leaders from the twentieth century who discovered their vision and reason for activism through their faith. The faith-inspired activists included in this study were not typically mystics or contemplatives in the purest sense. The call to activism consumed them. Yet their activism compelled them to passionately reach inward for sustenance, wisdom, perseverance, and a sense of belonging. Their activism needed mysticism.; Three social justice activists were the primary focus: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Malcolm X, and Aung San Suu Kyi. These three individuals offered a wide range in time periods, cultural settings, genders, and faith traditions. While these three were the central figures in this study, the viewpoints and life experiences of others from the twentieth century were incorporated, including Martin Luther King Jr., Rigoberta Menchu, Nelson Mandela, Winona LaDuke, Oscar Romero, Fannie Lou Hamer, Elie Wiesel, Mohandas Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Desmond Tutu, Thich Nhat Hanh, Abraham Heschel, Allan Boesak, and the Dalai Lama.; The methods used were not solely biographical or historical research. With a bias for social change, what Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot called "social science portraiture" best described the methodology. A number of shared themes---or ways of being---became apparent from this study of the lives of faith-inspired social justice activists. Four themes appeared, to varying degrees, in each of the lives of the three principle leaders: (1) they were motivated by their religious faith; (2) they had a worldview that emerged from the margins of society; (3) their identity was rooted in a belief that we share a common humanity; and (4) they embraced an ethics of revolution that demanded structural change. The argument is made that these four ways of being are also critical for empowering leaders in the twenty-first century who work for reconciliation with justice in a multicultural, multi-faith, multi-perspective world. |
