Looking for a way to create a "tighter fit between the life of faith and public life," the Very Reverend W. Mark Richardson of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) in Berkeley turned to the Industrial Areas Foundation to help train its seminarians.

Says Rev. Susanna Singer, "Bishops were saying increasingly that community organizing is a good thing." The creation faith, she argues, is about God's vision of flourishing for humanity and the cosmos. "It means that the body of Christ, which is us now, has got to get out there now and be involved in the communities in which we live because that's where God's dream is going to come true."

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