ABSTRACT
Jews holding up purple paper crosses at a gun shop. Muslim, Christian, and Jewish clergy silently processing through the Philadelphia International Airport. A foot-washing unfolding on the plaza of the city’s largest utility company. How are people from different traditions being religious together in public? What happens when interfaith social change organizations engage in both traditional and newly constructed ritual practices at sites of violation and opportunity? What is the relationship between the practice of ritual and the production of meaning in the public square?
This chapter explores the intersections of activism, social change, religion, ritual, and space, and looks at the ways in which they are navigated, constructed, and interpreted by three community organizations that utilize interfaith liturgical action in their quest for changes in culture and policy. It further suggests that the public ritual actions of these organizations can be understood through a framework that embraces both disruption and sanctification, indicating a departure from traditional ritual theory in which these concepts are opposed, and in which ritual functions to reinforce social structures, power, and norms.
