by James E. Person, Jr.
Street Saints: Renewing America’s Cities
by Barbara J. Elliott (Templeton Foundation Press, 2004), 320 pages
Some of the world’s greatest people are largely unknown, for they accomplish positive, life-changing deeds in quiet, unannounced ways. Their work is unreported and largely unknown outside their immediate circle of influence. A great number of such people lack political connections and every characteristic of celebrity, and their only claim to recognition springs from one small source: they desire to help others in practical, uplifting ways, often in obedience to God. They are the men and women who work in faith-based initiatives in America’s cities, and their lives affirm the belief articulated by St. James, that faith without works is dead.
In Street Saints: Renewing America’s Cities, Barbara J. Elliott tells the stories of these Christian servants in a straightforward, warts-and-all manner, revealing their life stories, struggles, and triumphs. An authority on civic renewal, Elliott has interviewed hundreds of activists (predominantly Christian) working amid conditions of squalor and hopelessness who are seeking to fashion a sense of order, faith, and community-mindedness that has been long forgotten in many inner-city neighborhoods.
