Articles

Edited by Ken Chitwood (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Multifaith movement of faith leaders and believers call upon the consciences of our political leaders to respect that inherent dignity and end the racial profiling and indiscriminate raids against innocent mothers, fathers and children that continue to terrorize Los Angeles.

CRCC 2025 trends focus on the wildfires affecting Los Angeles County and what will be a multi-year recovery effort. Across the various issues, a central theme emerged: Solidarity.

Watch 2024 Shurden Lectures: “Whose Country Is It Anyway?” The Rev. Dr. Joseph Evans and the Rev. Dr. Christopher The brought their unique experiences and expertise to a conversation on religious and racial identity, moderated by the Rev. Dr. Najuma Smith.

Until the pandemic, the Rev. Dr. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray was the first person in the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture’s office every morning. Then 90 years old, he would open the gate to welcome guests looking for career or academic mentoring, advice about how to lead a church or take social action, or simply a compassionate ear.

Watch a discussion about the power of faith to drive resistance to anti-immigration policies in the United States. Manuel Pastor, director of USC’s Equity Research Institute, moderated an online discussion with the authors of God’s Resistance: Mobilizing Faith to Defend Immigrants (NYU Press, 2023).

The founder of the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation and prison reentry program in the world is a mystic, a Jesuit priest who does not believe that God has a plan for your life. Having buried 260 young men and women, Father Greg Boyle rejects the idea that it is God’s plan that anyone should die of a gang member’s bullet.

In CRCC’s annual trends post last year, we wrote about surviving, if not thriving. We write this year’s trends with a special place in our hearts for CRCC’s senior editor Nick Street, who took a significant role in compiling these trends each year, always balancing a sense of cynicism and optimism.