Serving Up Sermons

Abstract

The authors use participant observation and interviews with homeless individuals to investigate two questions: How are religious elements that occur in congregation-based food programs integrated into service delivery? How are those elements, especially sermons, perceived by those who eat there? The authors find that regardless of their religious beliefs, two thirds of the homeless respondents reacted negatively to the sermons they heard at congregation-based food programs, characterizing them as coercive, hypocritical, condescending, and conflicting with their own beliefs. Observations at these programs shed light on the source of these negative reactions: The sermons tend to ignore the local knowledge and experience of clients, and they assume that the homeless individuals are responsible for their own troubles.