My city's NewSDS group and Coalition for Peace and Justice both have a
> lot of meetings and do work by operating out of the local Mennonite
> churches, but I doubt the religion itself plays any special role.
If you're speaking of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, it all depends on what you
mean by "the religion." As a friend of mine wrote on his
blog<http://youngleftandmennonite.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/hello-world>
:
"Those of us that started Lancaster SDS have been friends for years - most of us have grown up together, and attended the same Mennonite church since we were little. We've had a community from the beginning - known what it was like to grow up in a setting where we were supported and loved in the decisions we made."
And while I don't have handy quote on hand, I suspect from discussions with another friend of mine, a former staff organizer for the Lancaster Coalition for Peace and Justice who works in my building (and whose old place in Lancaster I may be crashing at this weekend), that he would ascribe a similarly strong role to the preexisting religious community in that organization.
Or maybe you mean "the religion" as a set of abstract concepts, completely divorced from the actual context in which people experience them? (In which case, what the hell has any religion ever done, for good or bad?)
Of course, you might be talking about somewhere other than Lancaster (although I'd be curious to know what other town shares this exact fact pattern).
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."