Understanding Our Ecologies of Faith: The Ecologies of Learning Project

Beginning of article

Our urban challenges are fundamentally theological concerns. The new global world we live in requires that we continue to interpret our traditions, to look for revelation in our neighborhoods, and to offer new witness. The shifting terrain of religion in urban America can best be understood through an ecological perspective. This approach examines the way religious institutions adapt to their environments through patterns of interdependence with other religious groups, as well as neighborhood and city organizations and structures. Lowell W. Livezey explained it best when he discussed religious communities as "deeply impacted by their neighborhoods and hold the power to impact neighborhoods."

When congregations learn about their local context and the ways they interact with that place, they are empowered for more effective, creative, and locally relevant urban ministry. Today, this ecological perspective is well documented in the work the Ecologies of Learning Project (EOL). EOLs continued mission is important in understanding the work, life and legacy of Lowell W. Livezey, researcher-teacher-activist ...

Who we are and what we do

The EOL is a research and action center based at New York Theological Seminary, supported by major funding from the Lilly Endowment. Our work rests on two convictions backed by founder Dr. Lowell W. Livezey's twenty years of research in large American cities. First, religious congregations constitute an important force in American urban life that is not adequately appreciated or understood by social scientists and government. Second, religious communities are deeply impacted by their neighborhoods and hold the power to impact these neighborhoods as well. When congregations learn about their local context and …