Build a Better World
“We will not build a better world by killing other people’s children. It is time to get in the way of the business of war….too many lives have been lost. It’s time for us to turn up the volume for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to all the violence.”
- @shane.claiborne on the Philadelphia Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage (a part of the global @gcpilgrimages).
In this Newsletter
Locking Down Lockheed
Solidarity with the Student Movement for Gaza
Response to A Call for Repentance
Upcoming: Race and Justice Webinar
When God Became White
Upcoming: Truth-Listening Webinar
Build a Better World
2024 Subscriber Calls
Fly
Global Writers Group
Locking Down Lockheed
“We will not build a better world by killing other people’s children. It is time to get in the way of the business of war….too many lives have been lost. It’s time for us to turn up the volume for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to all the violence.”
- @shane.claiborne on the Philadelphia Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage (a part of the global @gcpilgrimages).
Arrested for the Cause
Click through to view the reel of Shane and Lisa and about two dozen others being arrested for their stand against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The automatic censors of Meta have covered the reel as “graphic” and we can’t copy the post into the newsletter.
“Indeed, all the way back to Jesus on that first Good Friday, Christians have been making good trouble ever since, stirring up holy mischief and challenging the systems that crush other people. So it was an honor to go to jail on Good Friday. As John Lewis once said, when we get into good trouble we can smile in our mugshot because we know that we are on the right side of history.”
- Shane Claiborne reflecting on the Good Friday vigil at Lockheed Martin on the final day of the Philadelphia Ceasefire Pilgrimage (as part of the global movement of @gcpilgrimages).
Solidarity with the Student Movement for Gaza
From Lisa Sharon Harper: The president of @columbia issued a statement this morning calling on students to disband their anti-genocide encampment or face suspension. All these students are calling for is university #divestment from the state of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.
They are clear. And they have a right to make this demand. Each Columbia undergrad student invests approximately $70,000/year (tuition/room/board) into the university’s coffers, according to one student leader I spoke with while on campus yesterday.
I walked onto the campus to meet Rev. Mark Thompson @ministter to participate in an interfaith service for the encampment. It was surreal to see the encampment set up in front of Butler Library—my 2nd home while at CU.
Before entering the encampment we had to agree to several principles of nonviolence, including no anti-Semitic speech. Many of students I met in the encampment were Jewish. Others were Palestinian, Arab, African American, Asian American or Latiné. There was a feeding area overflowing with donated food. There was a whiteboard with activities of the day. It was quiet, peaceful, beautiful.
Sitting in the shade of one of the student’s tents was Rabbi Michael Lerner, a veteran of the 1960’s Anti-War demonstrations who I partnered with when I was in NYC!
The students gathered as we presented our offerings to these faithful world-changers, one by one. It was amazing to witness @imayannagregory lead The Ceasefire Song live! NYU’s @imamklatif offered a powerful prayer. Rabbi Rachel Khan-Troster lifted the value of every human life. @w.n.middleton led an offering of libations to the ancestors. Rabbi Lerner shared lessons from the Anti-Apartheid protests, @sunitaviswanath declared the solidarity of @hindusforhumanrights. Rev. Dr. Herbert Daugherty shared Elder wisdom. I shared the Beatitudes and the #number10000 poem. Finally, Rev. Mark Thompson #preached on the Vine and the Branches! It was POWERFUL!
As the students continue to call for divestment in the face of serious threats, may they remember Matt5:1-12. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice, theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
From Lisa Sharon Harper: In an escalation, after the CU Administration began to suspend people who had not left the anti-g3no.side encampment by 2pm yesterday, “an autonomous group” of protesters took over Hamilton Hall—which houses Columbia College Academic Services—two weeks before graduation day. The students renamed the hall, Hind’s Hall.
Hind Rajab was a 5-yr old Palestinian girl from Gaza City who was murdered by the Israeli military, after being the sole survivor of Israeli tank fire. She called medics from the back seat of a bombed out car, surrounded by her dead relatives. The world listened as she pled with the medics to save her, then screamed as Israeli bullet-fire opened on her and the line went silent. The medics tried to save her, but they, too, were murdered.
Columbia University undergrads pay approximately $70,000 per year (tuition/room/board) into CU coffers. A recent poll of Barnard and Columbia students revealed more than 90% of students want Columbia to divest from Israel. ***These students have a clear right to make this demand.***
More, for @columbia to refuse to divest, is to *insist* on investing in g3no.side and apartheid.
SHAME on Columbia Univ President Minouche Shafik!
From @cuapartheiddivest 🚨HAPPENING NOW🚨STUDENTS HAVE TAKEN OVER HAMILTON HALL.
Join @FreedomRoad.us and @faithjusticenet in Philadelphia on May 18th!!
We will be diving into one of the most critical questions of our times: “How has Christianity contributed to the construction of racial hierarchy and what can be done about it?”
In the morning, we’ll hear from:
* @lisasharper on “Whiteness, Christianity, and Politics”
* @MKimKort on “Asian Americans and Racial Justice”
* @Julie_Rodgers on “Solidarity in the Work of Racial Justice”
In the afternoon, we will pilgrimage through the story of The Black Church and the Birth of Democracy in Old Town Philadelphia, led by UPenn chaplain and VP, Rev. Dr. Charles Howard and Freedom Road’s own, Lisa Sharon Harper!
Finally, we will gather at the University of The Arts Lightbox Film Center to watch and discuss the new documentary, #TrueBelieverFilm with director @krisirving !
The Race and Faith Forum is convened in partnership with the UPenn Office of Social Equity and Community, the UPenn Chaplain's Office, Red Letter Christians, and Evangelicals4Justice.
Build a Better World: A Learning Community from Freedom Road
Have you read one of Lisa Sharon Harper’s books? Or one of the books from our Global Writers’ Group authors? Have you been a part of one of Freedom Road’s Webinars either live or purchased one on demand? We have just launched a learning community on Facebook for anyone who wants to chat with like-minded people about the material they’ve been reading or watching.
Join us today and we will grow together to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly into a better world!
Join the Facebook Group
To make things easier in these difficult times where everything seems to be more expensive, we have lowered our individual pricing on all our courses to make them accessible to more people. And don’t forget there’s a couple of free offerings to get you started as well! Check out our institute page and the course archive now.
Rather read a book? Check out The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can be Made Right or Fortune: How Race Broke my Family and the World… and How to Repair it All both by Lisa Sharon Harper.
Or check out the list of books written in our Global Writers’ Group here.
2024 Subscribers’ Calls
Every quarter, Lisa sits down with our subscribers and patrons and chats about different things going on in the world.
If you are a paid subscriber to Substack or a Patreon patron at the James Farmer level or above, you are invited to participate in a quarterly call with Lisa Sharon Harper.
If you aren’t a subscriber or Patron, upgrade your subscription today, or join our Patreon!
Mark your calendars now, and you’ll get an email prompting you to register closer to the each date:
May 9, 2024 at 8pm Eastern: an exclusive webinar with Lisa on Truth Listening
August 8, 2024 at 8pm Eastern
November 14, 2024 at 8pm Eastern
Fly
Download Fly now on Apple or Amazon Music or stream on Spotify and take it with you wherever you go!
Global Writer’s Group
Since April of 2020 as the world closed down, the Global Writer’s Group has been meeting via zoom every Saturday, with time off only for Christmas and New Years. Early in our time together, Lisa Sharon Harper charged the group with the task of “writing a new world into existence” and over time we have truly seen this in action. We have taken on the task of changing the world, and of course what changed first was ourselves. We as a group have become better writers over this time, but also better people, finding true community in the sacred sharing of ourselves with each other and the world.
We accept members on a rolling basis: it’s never too late to join the community. Prepare to find your life changed for the better as you sharpen your writing skills and prepare to bring your words to the world.
Collectively, we have published six books, have several writers who’ve recently become agented and/or are under contract for upcoming books, and many, many journal articles over the past three years with several more books in the works.
The Narrative Gap, as coined by Lisa Sharon Harper, is the distance between the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, including how we got here and what it will take to make things right. In our world today, competing narratives vie for our loyalty, dividing society and the church, therefore making justice impossible. Our mission is help communities shrink the narrative gap, by identifying core issues and building community capacity so they might work toward common solutions for a just world. Here on the Freedom Road Substack, we can converse together on ways to shrink that narrative gap and help ensure everyones’ stories are told.
Connect
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