Griffin Snyder 10/28 Post

This week’s reading gave me a greater perspective on the modern collision of American religion and youth driven civil rights organizations like Black Lives Matter. Despite my preconceived notions about BLM being mostly secular, these pieces gave me a greater idea about the role of spirituality in the movement through non-traditional views of religious participation through things like Pentecostal piety and “prophetic” work. These readings reminded me of my personal experience with religion and that of my family. I was not raised especially religious, although my parents did talk about their Christianity and forced me to come to to church on Christmas eve, but by the time I was in middle school, I had decided that religion was not for me, as I was disenfranchised with it because of how it saw that it often was used to justify ignorance and bigotry. My Grandmother however, remains very religious, and her application of Christian values has helped me to understand the value of religion in social change as was represented by the readings this week. She does a lot of charity, and spends tons of time helping others in need. Before the pandemic she would even go to a nearby prison every week to help teach prisoners to educate themselves and prepare for life after they got out. Her adaptation of Christianity as a way to push her to help others helped to clear up a lot of my cynicism about Christianity and religion, and allowed me to better see how social movements are at their best when the people are inspired by ideals and a clear set of values, and for many people, Christianity, or any form of religion, formal or not, can serve that purpose and help make a better world. My family’s experiences has allowed me to look beyond the corruptions of religion that foster hate and see the progressive religions and spiritual beliefs that drive social change.