Changing the Face of the Enemy : Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Beloved Community

Martin Luther King, Jr., begins with Jesus’ command to love the enemy and moves to an understanding that in the “beloved community” God is “changing the face of the enemy.” In that beloved community, where all are brought together in a way that changes all, true freedom is found

“A Living For-Instance”: embracing a teleological vision of beloved community in American Baptist Women's Ministries

This thesis examines the theological and practical functioning of American Baptist Women’s Ministries, American Baptist Churches USA, as it has engaged in a “Becoming Beloved Community” initiative. It argues that theological grounding in a vision of Beloved Community is a necessary missing element in transforming the way the organization pursues its mission. Since 2014, the organization has conducted a cultural audit, assessing attitudes and readiness, and it has developed some strategies and tactics as a result. However, without a solid theological grounding and a deeper understanding of what adhering to a vision of beloved community may mean in terms of structure and decision-making processes, these strategies and tactics are less effective than they could be. This thesis draws upon the writings of Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr., on process theology, and on woman’s liberation theologies to assess current practices in AB Women’s Ministries and provide a more robust theological grounding for the concept of “Becoming Beloved Community.” In constructing the theological grounding, a list of marks of beloved community is developed and used as an evaluative tool for current practices in the organization. Using adaptive leadership theory and complexity leadership theory, the thesis also develops recommendations for the future

Building the Beloved Community: Christian Ethical Reflections on Race, Gender, and Family During COVID-19

Catholic circles are no stranger to using the beloved community as a way to communicate a particular vision of what the world could and should be. Rooted in a Christian social ethics framework, this transformative vision captures how the Gospel story and paschal mystery might be lived out today. This paper examines how Catholic ethicists can adopt the beloved community lens as a way to broach issues of race, gender, and family during the current COVID-19 pandemic. This vision of the beloved community specifically looks at how spiritual resistance, Eucharistic solidarity, and community organizing can approach matters of race, gender, and family together, ideally empowering families to work toward racial and gender justice in the midst of the current crisis and beyond

Towards Racial Reconciliation: An Oral History Inquiry Examining Race And Reconciliation In The Context Of Mercer University\u27s Beloved Community

Informed by archival data and oral history interviews, this dissertation explored stories of the lived experiences of the stakeholders of Mercer University’s Beloved Community. The goal was to gain insight into how higher educational institutions (HEIs) engaged community partners to address long-term racial injury through the process of racial reconciliation. This study included the insights of 18 participants in a racial reconciliation project named the Beloved Community; which began in 2005 and was sponsored by Mercer University, a private higher educational institution; formerly affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention. An aim of the project was to sustain a frank discourse within a safe, public forum, that would address the present and past injuries of racial segregation at the local church level and include the injured in problem solving. Mercer is one of few formerly segregated southern universities engaged in such an endeavor. The research questions were: 1) What do Mercer University’s Beloved Community stakeholders perceive as the primary goals of higher educational institutions in addressing racial reconciliation? 2) What are Mercer University’s Beloved Community stakeholders’ perceptions and lived experiences of racial reconciliation, through this project? 3) What patterns and contradictions are there in the stakeholders’ stories about their perceptions and lived experiences of racial reconciliation? The findings validate the research of Androff (2012) that reconciliation is a slow process, occurring at multiple levels, and provides insights into such an endeavor at a local level. Further, this study found that enactment of the project is influenced by social identity, collective memory, and intergroup interaction. A culture of social reconciliation, in the form of building interpersonal relationships and creating forums for racial dialogue, was the dominant form of reconciliation found within Mercer’s Beloved Community. This study is significant in examining the role of HEIs who include community partners to extend sustained scholarship, learning, and civic engagement

Celebrating Diversity: Building a Beloved Community

Lindenwood University booklet, Celebrating Diversity: Building a Beloved Community.

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Local organizers Create Beloved Community in Bulloch Count

Organizational Pursuit of a Beloved Community

The following paper is an examination of three organizations, Vamos Puerto Rico, The Well CDC, and the Karen Community of Akron, who are working towards the betterment of their community by fighting the injustices that their communities face. In this paper, I argue that the choices made by each of these three organizations, reflected in their organizational structure and the initiatives they focus on, can be understood as linked to the common goal of the beloved community when examined through the framework of the six steps of nonviolent social change. The steps of nonviolent social change are information gathering, education, personal commitment, discussion/negation, direct action, and reconciliation and, through their implementation, they represent people-focused social change and its complexities and how these organizations are working to effectively catalyze their communities toward a beloved community

El amor como motivo ético en la fenomenología de Edmund Husserl

Husserl is aware that the “rationalistic” ideal of reason does not, by itself, do justice to the richness of moral life. The life fully achieved does not consist just in following reason ́s ideal but also in being moved by love. Love has two main characteristics, according to Husserl: (1) it reveals the individuality of the lover and of the beloved and (2) founds a “community of striving” with the beloved