Saul Alinsky, the great community activist, whom Jaques Maratain considered one of the few great men of our century, wrote in the preface of his infamous Reveille for Radicals, that, as far as he was concerned, the main job of the community organiser was “organising people so that they will have the power to realise those values of equality, justice, freedom, and the preciousness of human life ” that he identifies with “Judeo-Christianity”¹

For many people Judeo-Christianity is the “gospel” and, for them, what Saul Alinsky says is “good news”. However, for many of us, who have suffered at the hands of fundamentalists, what Saul Alinsky says is “bad news”. I can almost hear the agony in the voice of Joachim Kahl, echoing in the groans of many people in my neighbourhood, when he cries out, in The Misery of Christianity, “What to me is (Christianity)… but the sadomasochistic glorification of pain!”²

Dave Andrews Building A Better World p338