Christian Cosmopolitanism

Faith Communities Talk Immigration

Felipe Amin Filomeno

Empirically explores how Christian congregations can help expand solidarity across boundaries of identity

While religious institutions have been gateways for immigrants into local communities, religion has also coalesced with nationalism to discriminate against foreigners. Felipe Amin Filomeno asks, can “deliberative dialogues” about immigration in Christian congregations play a cosmopolitan role and bridge differences of nationality, race, and culture regarding immigration? To find the answer, he visited numerous Christian congregations in Baltimore with varying demographic makeups to discuss intergroup tensions and similarities in their communities. He developed dialogues to promote mutual understanding and collaboration between immigrants and U.S.-born people in religious spaces.

Christian Cosmopolitanism shows that mutual understanding can result when people share their personal stories, feelings, and thoughts about immigration. They reflect and deliberate on collaborative action to advance common interests and shared values, which can unleash the cosmopolitan potential of the Christian community.

Including practical tools for church leaders, Christian Cosmopolitanism promotes dialogue as a cultural practice that can help diverse communities overcome segregation and become socially cohesive.

Reviews

“Felipe Filomeno had the fascinating intuition that you could elicit cosmopolitan sentiments through deliberative dialogue; it’s an exciting discovery that it can work.”
—Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, and author of Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers

“Filomeno’s book offers an important perspective on the immigration debate that is raging in democracies around the world. He engages the tension between cosmopolitan and tribal visions of a democratic nation that is mirrored in sectarian and cosmopolitan visions of Christianity. Filomeno offers a compelling empirical study on intergroup community dialogue among immigrants and native-born citizens in Christian communities in Baltimore and concludes that these dialogues can enhance shared religious values of the participants and advance their common interests.”
—Vincent D. Rougeau, President of the College of the Holy Cross, and author of Christians in the American Empire: Faith and Citizenship in the New World Order

About the Author(s)

Felipe Amin Filomeno is Associate Professor of Political Science and Global Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is the author of Theories of Local Immigration Policy and Monsanto and Intellectual Property in South America.

In the Series

Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics

The Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics series, edited by Paul A. Djupe, collects works that explores in theoretically and empirically rigorous ways variations in and determinants of religious presence in the politics of democratic nations—from those with a long history of institutionalized democracy to those struggling to establish free, contested elections and systems of rights and liberties. Books in the series demonstrate application of one or more of a variety of quantitative and qualitative methodologies to explore the robust and highly variable presence of religion in democracies.

Prospective authors should contact series editor Paul Djupe or Editor-in-Chief Aaron Javsicas at Temple University Press to discuss their work in progress for inclusion in the series.

Christian Cosmopolitanism

Reviews

About the Author(s)

In the Series

Also of Interest

Temple University Press