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God and Government in the Ghetto:

The Politics of Church-State Collaboration in Black America
Front Cover
1 Review
University of Chicago Press, Nov 15, 2008 - Social Science - 304 pages
In recent years, as government agencies have encouraged faith-based organizations to help ensure social welfare, many black churches have received grants to provide services to their neighborhoods’ poorest residents. This collaboration, activist churches explain, is a way of enacting their faith and helping their neighborhoods.

But as Michael Leo Owens demonstrates in God and Government in the Ghetto, this alliance also serves as a means for black clergy to reaffirm their political leadership and reposition moral authority in black civil society. Drawing on both survey data and fieldwork in New York City, Owens reveals that African American churches can use these newly forged connections with public agencies to influence policy and government responsiveness in a way that reaches beyond traditional electoral or protest politics. The churches and neighborhoods, Owens argues, can see a real benefit from that influence—but it may come at the expense of less involvement at the grassroots.

Anyone with a stake in the changing strategies employed by churches as they fight for social justice will find God and Government in the Ghetto compelling reading.
  

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Review: God and Government in the Ghetto

User Review  - John David Rausch, Jr. - Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly

"Students of religion and public policy will learn much from this book. . . . With this research, we can now better understand the process of church-state collaboration." Read full review

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Contents

Introduction
1
Scope and Theory of ChurchState Collaboration
19
The Social and Political Context of New York City
65
Inside ChurchState Collaboration
109
Conclusion
203
Research Note
211
Notes
217
References
259
Index
293
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About the author (2008)

Michael Leo Owens is assistant professor of political science at Emory University.

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