August on Freedom Road
Reparation is about repair. To repair the world, we must first understand how the world broke.
Repair
“In the shadow of the four hundreth year since American slavery imposed itself on African lives—as scholars, documentarians, policymakers, and artists clarify the shape-shifting systems of control and confinement crafted to secure White supremacy on American soil and as White nationalist politicians seek to undermine the importance of 1619—we are complled to ask one question, lest we find ourselves in the same controlled, confined, shackled space four hundred years from now: How do we repair what race broke in the world?
Reparation is about repair. To repair the world, we must first understand how the world broke. And examination of racial injustice in the Western world must consider the theological grounds upon which legalized conquest and enslavement stood.” Fortune: How Race Broke my Family and the World and How to Repair it All, P. 29
Fortune is increasingly relevant as we move through this election cycle. If you haven’t read it, be sure to pick up a copy today.
In this Newsletter
Resilient Voices: Unveiling Injustice, Inspiring Action
On the Freedom Road Substack
Lisa Sharon Harper on Shifting Culture Podcast
Lisa Sharon Harper on Talkin’ Politics and Religion Podcast
On the Freedom Road Podcast
The Gaza Call
Truth Listening Webinar now available
On the Freedom Road Podcast
Build a Better World
Subscribers Calls
Global Writers Group
Fly
Resilient Voices: Unveiling Injustice, Inspiring Action: Lisa Sharon Harper at the Red Letter Christians Revival
From Red Letter Christians on Instagram: “Lisa Sharon Harper read from her book “Fortune” last night during our event at @newsongchurch: Resilient Voices: Unveiling Injustice, Inspiring Action 🔥🔥🔥
Lisa has spent 3 decades tracing her family history for 10 generations to make a powerful case for reparations. Listen here and pick up your copy of Fortune.”
Click through to the instagram post to watch the video!
On the Freedom Road Substack
Lisa Sharon Harper on Shifting Culture Podcast
“When you go under the water, your eyes are washed, so that when you come up, you no longer see in the way that empire has taught you to see. You no longer see hierarchies of human belonging. Rather, you see the image of God.”
Powerful words from @lisasharper on the @shiftingculturepodcast about the need for humility, empathy, and a radical vision of human dignity.
As followers of Jesus, we’re called to see beyond the dehumanizing lenses of power, oppression, and ‘othering’ - and to recognize the divine image in every person, from the Palestinian to the billionaire.
This requires a willingness to dream, to imagine, and to take bold, subversive action for justice and peace. It means standing in solidarity with the oppressed, even when it means challenging the actions of powerful nations.
Lisa’s words remind us that our Christian ethics must lead to prophetic witness and tangible steps towards a more just world. No more silence. No more neutrality. It’s time to be peacemakers and stewards of God’s creation.
Who’s ready to have their eyes washed and see the world through new eyes?
Lisa Sharon Harper on Talkin’ Politics and Religion
Listen here:
On the Freedom Road Podcast:
Election Thoughts
Don’t miss Lisa’s ongoing takes and information on the upcoming election on her instagram.
The Gaza Call
Dear Fellow Disciples of Jesus,
We are a community of Christians from around the world who are writing to you with heavy hearts. From our countries, we are watching with horror as a crisis has unfolded in Palestine/Israel. Since October 7, 2023, 1,139 Israeli Jews and more than 37,000 Palestinian Gazans have been killed. In the West Bank, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed, including many women and children. We condemn all of it. And yet, we see again and again how Christian leaders, theologians, institutions, and churches around the world have not only failed to call out their governments, which support Israel’s military, but also have been incapable of calling Israel out for what is clearly the utter devastation of Gaza and the dramatic loss of life there. Followers of Jesus in Palestine, the United Nations, and the International Court of Justice have identified Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank as ethnic cleansing and a plausible genocide. The Pope named Israel’s assault on Gaza as “terrorism.” We are appealing to you, imploring you to ask how God sees this litany of destruction and death, and what Christ requires of you…
Read the rest and add your name to the open letter here!
On the Freedom Road Podcast
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:
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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