The Importance of Lineage in Spiritual Innovation by Hannah Petersen
Over the past year, I have had the privilege of speaking with BIPOC leaders of spiritually-innovative groups from across the United States, learning about their stories and experiences. The mission and content of their work varies widely. Some individuals, like Abbas Rattani of MIPSTERZ, facilitate connection among Muslim artists and creatives, while others, like Raymond Chang of the Asian American Christian Collaborative, raise and extend the voices of Asian Americans in both American Christianity and the American political sphere more broadly.
Acknowledgment of and respect for religious practices, sacred wisdom, and cultural values that have existed for generations were constant themes of our conversations. All 23 of the leaders I interviewed described their work as connected to a source -- outside of themselves -- that ultimately gives meaning and purpose to their innovations. Because of this deep connection to the lineage that came before them, many BIPOC spiritual innovators do not describe their work as “new.” For Konda Mason, president and founder of a nonprofit for Black farmers called Jubilee Justice, the work of farming goes beyond the simple production of a crop for financial gain. She draws on her Buddhist practice to explain why her work with farmers is sacred:
“We talk about how big this project is, that it’s not about us. It’s about the bigger picture. I am constantly talking about the bigger picture, who we are as people, where everything I do comes from the Buddhist within me and the sanctity and the sacredness of land, the sanctity and sacredness of growing food. People look at farmers and they think, oh, a farmer. And it is, as far as I’m concerned, the most sacred job on the planet.”
The interconnectedness of all life is core to Konda’s work. It, in combination with a keen awareness of the historical subjugation of Southern Black farmers, was the impetus for Konda to grow Jubilee Justice and expand its influence.
Danny Sanchez, CEO and co-founder of The PATH, an organization designed to help people assess their spiritual health, believes that traditions like meditation have often been detached from their religious and spiritual roots when practiced in the West and are thus rendered incomplete. Meditation is not just for symptom management, if one recalls the roots:
“And so we see ourselves picking the baton and continuing the next leg of the race, which is that all the tools and practices and ideas of the world’s wisdom traditions are for people to use -- not just meditation. And it’s not just about managing the symptoms of your mental illness or about managing anxiety, depression. It’s about intentionally shaping the way that you look at the world, the way you answer life’s big questions, and the way you answer life’s big questions have a huge impact on the way you live your life and the quality of your life.”
Like Konda, Danny sees his work as part of a bigger picture, one that is relevant to all people from all walks of life. His work is primarily a refiguration of spiritual principles for a modern context.
Civil Righteousness, a nonprofit organization that seeks to educate and mobilize Christian churches around racial justice, is an example of a prophetic innovation – and a call back to the Civil Rights Movement. Civil Righteousness’ president and CEO, Jonathan Tremaine Thomas, or JT, highlighted how past movements for civil rights are in fact efforts to assert the God-given value of all human beings:
“So the historic civil rights movements, particularly the historic African-American Civil Rights Movement, was really thrust forward on a foundational principle of the fact that we are image bearers…..And so the prophetic witness in the call to structural systemic change, educational change, reforms, whatever it is that we’re pursuing in our pursuits of justice, it actually falls from this intrinsic desire for heaven on earth.”
JT knows that social justice efforts, when divorced from their original religious and spiritual intentions, often lead to social division and partisanship. JT sees his team as able to hold space for viewpoints across political, social, and racial spectrums by embracing the “tension of a religious middle,” following his belief that Jesus called all people to live as equals. Several interviewees mention that aligning their work with a deeply-rooted tradition keeps them from cheapening spirituality under the constraints of the capitalist system.
The leaders of both Sacred Roots, a group that centers collective BIPOC healing practices, and the Puentes Collective, a BIPOC-led social justice organization, note that rituals such as acupuncture and Reiki have been “co-opted” and “mechanized” in predominantly white Western spaces in order to turn a profit. Uvinie, founder of a leadership training organization called Leading Through Connection, points to the Headspace app as an example of such mechanization and highlights that transactional services often fail to spiritually engage their consumers long-term.
In this way, leaning into lineage is often understood as countercultural for BIPOC innovators, an understanding that motivates them to seek out more “authentic” forms of spiritual practice.
Other BIPOC leaders reframe traditional interpretations of religious concepts and amplify their relevance to modern social issues. HEART Women and Girls, a Chicago-based Islamic organization seeking to “promote sexual health, uproot gendered violence, and advance reproductive justice” for Muslim women, uses the principle of “ridha,” or an allowance for the fullness of choice, to support their mission. As HEART’s co-founder and executive director, Nadiah Mohajir, asserts, this reframing is not a rejection of Islam, but an important reclaiming of what equity has looked like in Islamic societies for centuries. Nadiah points out that HEART’s understanding of “ridha” still creates boundaries for acceptable behavior:
“Now, this doesn’t mean that we’re arguing for a completely rule-free faith tradition where you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, without any consequence. Ridha is also a rejection of the Western sex positive framework….Because we include that element of commitment and fidelity in there. This framework is not for a one-night stand. This framework is for thriving, committed relationships.”
From HEART’s example, we see how spiritual innovation can simultaneously challenge and honor traditional religious ideas. In doing so, it has the power to create frameworks that uphold spiritual standards for behavior while addressing the problems and questions faced by modern individuals.
The true beauty of spiritually innovative work is that it is compelled by traditions and values alongside individual motivations. As Konda and Danny point out, traditional wisdom grounds spiritually-innovative work and increases its relevance for all people in the modern world. By basing their work in religious and historical lineages, leaders like JT are able to galvanize individuals from diverse backgrounds to collective action for social justice causes.
BIPOC spiritual innovators like Uvinie reject the for-profit exploitation of spiritual practices, choosing instead to investigate the source of such practices and honor their original intentions. Exploring ancient religious concepts and finding new ways to apply them, like Nadiah does for Muslim women, provides structure for people’s moral lives in an uncertain time. By relying on religious and spiritual lineage, spiritual innovators are uniquely positioned to create impactful social change that addresses the holistic needs of modern people.
This piece was based on interviews conducted as part of the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab’s Mapping Spiritual Innovation project, which was completed in partnership with Glean Network, Faith Matters Network, and innoFaith. To learn more, read the working paper or watch the webinar.