Richard Flory Addresses the Los Angeles City Council
This post was a speech delivered to the Los Angeles City Council and a gathering of religious leaders whose communities are working with the City on disaster preparedness. Good morning, it is …
Civic Engagement
A Family Occupation: Samuel Chu on the Occupy Central Movement in Hong Kong
Samuel Chu has been a community organizer in Southern California for the past decade. On September 26, 2014 he left Los Angeles to join his father–a Southern Baptist minister, community activist and …
LA Voice: Congregations and Communities Building Electoral Power
For many years in the United States, churches have been at the center of progressive political and social movements. From abolitionism to child welfare and of course the Civil Rights Movement, religious …
Lift Up, Wake Up, Grow Up: Religion and Civil Rights in Ferguson
Prompted by recent social unrest in Ferguson, MO, New York City and Southern California, the Rev. Dr. Cecil Murray, Tansey Chair of Christian Ethics at USC and Chairman of the Cecil Murray …
Want to Build a More Resilient City? Bring Faith to the Table
Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti recently announced his commitment to hire a Chief Resilience Officer, who will be tasked with increasing the city’s ability to recover from man-made and natural disasters. This …
The Burbs Are All Right: Religion, Sprawl and L.A.’s Urban Logic
As a part of our Religious Competition and Creative Innovation project, our research team meets once each month for “idea lunches” during which we have freewheeling discussions about what we’re seeing in …
Where They Make Manna
When Pastor Ed Carey arrived at Hope International Bible Fellowship (Hope IBF) in 1994, the situation was grim. The once-thriving congregation was down to 30 people and thinking of closing its doors. …
Laundry Love
Several years ago—2002 to be exact—I met an incredibly interesting young pastor named Greg Russinger. At the time, Greg was leading the Bridge Communities, an innovative church in Ventura, California. What was …
In Mellow L.A. and Suave Rio, Religious Movements are Similar (but Different)
When I walked by the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on USC’s campus this week I thought of Rio de Janeiro. The Coliseum stands as a symbol of both the 1932 and 1984 …
The Role of Religious Competency and Literacy in Disaster
(Photo: Dvids / Flickr) Disasters do not occur in a secular vacuum. This means that the impact of a disaster on the lives of individuals—and on the communities in which they live—must …