How interfaith organizers view their role in shaping a progressive administration rooted in community needs
One big thing
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has deliberately anchored his transition team in the lived realities of New Yorkers, drawing in at least 18 faith leaders from diverse traditions — including Baptists, Adventists, Episcopalians and other community clergy — to inform policy on housing, education and community safety. What critics cast as symbolic has been embraced by these faith actors as strategic: their participation bridges grassroots caregiving networks with municipal power, turning spiritual care into civic infrastructure. Reporting from Sojourners explains how this coalition sees spiritual and material justice as linked.
From pulpit to policy
Faith communities have long been frontline responders to poverty, housing insecurity and food deserts in New York City. Rev. Rashad Raymond Moore of First Baptist Church in Crown Heights, who serves on the youth and education committee, explained that faith groups have not only comforted struggling families but also built affordable housing through interfaith community organizing. These leaders see their roles on the transition team as an opportunity to connect that on-the-ground expertise with policy levers in City Hall, helping shape decisions that affect working-class neighborhoods across the five boroughs. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
Integrated justice vision
The participation of clergy in committees focused on housing and safety signals a governance model rooted in radical care and social justice. Rev. Charles O. Galbreath, a transition team member working on community safety, emphasized that issues like homelessness, immigration, and food insecurity are interconnected rather than siloed. Their presence counters narratives that link faith leaders only to conservative politics and demonstrates how spiritual frameworks can inform equitable budgeting, tenant protection reforms, and community policing strategies that emphasize de-escalation and support over punishment. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
Faith as public good
Beatriz de la Torre of Trinity Church Wall Street, serving on the housing committee, framed her involvement not as charity but as civic engagement: “Faith communities speak for all people without regard for their politics,” she told Sojourners, asserting that religious organizations are deeply embedded in nonprofit networks already delivering essential services. This perspective aligns with a Marxist-informed understanding of *social reproduction* — the essential labor that sustains daily life, much of which takes place in religious and community settings and is often undervalued in economic calculations.
A strategic partnership
By incorporating faith leaders into committees addressing structural issues, Mamdani’s transition team acknowledges that transformative governance requires not only technocrats but partners rooted in community life. This model also expands public participation in government, resisting technocratic isolation and centering those who have long dealt with inequality’s material harms.
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