# Sacred Values and Street Power — The Theology of Organizing

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Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/homebrewed-christianity-723917/sacred-values-and-street-power-the-theology-of-organizing.md
Podcast: [Homebrewed Christianity](https://stenobird.com/podcast/homebrewed-christianity-723917)
Published: 2026-05-09T15:42:00+00:00
Episode link: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NAANT5714882301.mp3
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NAANT5714882301.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/homebrewed-christianity-723917/episodes/sacred-values-and-street-power-the-theology-of-organizing
Duration seconds: 5229

## Resource

Gary Dorrien came to organizing the hard way — canvassing for McGovern in Alma, Michigan in 1972, where people didn't just oppose the candidate, they despised him, and where two doorstep encounters came close enough to violence that he learned the hard way to pair up. He didn't come out of that thinking he'd found his calling. What he found instead was Michael Harrington at a Harvard Divinity School lecture two years later — corduroy jacket, blue work shirt, gently correcting his own introduction — and joined DSOC on the spot. This week's session gave us Gary's full origin story as an organizer: from the McGovern campaign to the Albany years where he co-founded a DSOC chapter, led Central American solidarity work through C-SPACE, and discovered firsthand the cultural chasm between two wings of the left that could barely stand to share a building. Then Aaron took over and introduced three extraordinary guests — Joe Strife,Colleen Wessel-McCoy, and Carolyn Baker — who brought the history of the National Welfare Rights Organization, Beulah Sanders, and the General Baker Institute directly into the room, and turned the question of who should lead into a live theological reckoning. Carolyn did the interview sitting on her mother's childhood porch steps in Dallas, recording oral history from a woman who is still organizing through dementia, which tells you everything you need to know about where this tradition lives and who carries it. If you haven't joined yet, come find us at www.HomebrewedClasses.com — donation-based, including zero. You get Gary's full lecture series, Aaron's supplemental interviews with scholars and organizers, curated readings, discussion guides, and the online community. Next week: James Cone with Charlene Sinclair. You can WATCH the conversation on Y…

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## Transcript

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