Accepting the yoke of the Kingdom: the utility of Jim Corbett's religious conception of the sanctuary movement
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2013
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Haverford College. Department of Religion
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The U.S. sanctuary movement of the 1980s began amongst religious communities of the Southwest in response to an influx of Central American refugees. In its fifteen year history, the movement grew to a network of over 500 religious congregations and organizations across the country. Sanctuary was committed to providing for the physical safety of the refugees and fighting against the unjust policies of the Reagan administration that violated international law by not granting these migrants the refugee status they deserved. The network that the sanctuary movement created was vast community of religious organizations from various traditions as well as secular universities and cities. Scholarly views on the sanctuary movement tend to overlook this religious essence of the movement, choosing to instead view sanctuary as a politically charged movement. Jim Corbett, a Quaker from Tucson, Arizona, and co-founder of the sanctuary movement reminds us that this is not a movement of the church, but rather the church on the move. Jim Corbett provides us with an understanding of how the sanctuary community figures into biblical and religious history. He sees sanctuary as "unifying the Name," the beginning of a universal church on earth as well as a post-Constantinian church, removed from the dehumanizing forces of politics. Calling upon the prophesies of Isaiah, Corbett sees sanctuary as an Isaian community in modern times. Through an analysis of Corbett's writings we can acquire a new lens from which to view the movement. As we attain an understanding of what sanctuary was to its insiders, we see that religious beliefs played an essential role. In this thesis I will analyze of the writings of Jim Corbett, looking particularly to his conception of the sanctuary community as a religious movement and prove that this religious understanding is essential to comprehending the direction of the movement.