June on Freedom Road
Decolonizing journeys, paradigm shifts, and mutual thriving
In our bonus podcast episode this month, Corey Nathan and Lisa Sharon Harper talked among other things about the work that Freedom Road does in facilitating paradigm shifts for organizations. Here’s an excerpt of that converstation. You can listen to (or read) the whole thing on our website.
Corey Nathan: So since we're talking about it, and you've touched upon this already, what you mentioned, NGO—non-governmental organizations—you mentioned churches.
What other types of organizations does Freedom Road work with and what is a practical sense of what that work looks like?
Lisa Sharon Harper: Well, it, we, we do work in lots of different ways. Our primary thing we do is that we create experiences that create common understanding, common commitments that leads to common action.
And we do that through consulting with different groups. We do that through trainings that we offer. We do that through pilgrimages. That’s the most highly potent thing we do that creates common understanding and common commitments, and leads to common action. And over the covid lockdowns, we created an institute where we could reach the masses, and actually begin to change how people approach their faith.
We offered different webinars, learning opportunities, and community building opportunities online. And we're now in the midst of transitioning that into a resource center and focusing our work more clearly on the consulting work that we're doing currently.
We recently wrapped the first two phases of a large contract with a pillar church here in Philadelphia where I live. And, um, this pillar, historic white church, Bryn Mawr Presbyterian, has a 150 year history of being right here in Philadelphia. And it's only since the 1960s that they began to see that they have a stake in this question of racial equity and racial justice.
And they came to us at Freedom Road in order to see how can we do this even more effectively going into our next 150 years. So we're in the midst of work with them. We have worked with other groups like Friends Committee on National Legislation. We worked with them for two years to move this Quaker organization into a more equitable and just and inclusive place where all belong in their workplace.
They do amazing outward work, but their actual structures were actually working against their desired outcome which was to be a place of flourishing. And we helped them to identify the places where they could actually focus their work in order to pull levers and create a more just system and community.
Now we're actually working with the Carter Center. We worked for about a year with them: discerning how could they leverage their history with President Carter, their heritage with a founder that is evangelical and now out of that. We discerned with them, and they then contracted with us to move this forward in their organization.
They have the ability to organize and convene evangelical institutions to move forward in the work of truth telling: to do that in that really courageous work of interrogating the stories they tell about themselves and seeking the truth of the genealogies of their institutions and asking how do their institutions intersect with the things that have happened in our world.
Our work with the Carter Center will move 13 evangelical institutions forward in a three-year initiative that will move those institutions toward in the work of truth seeking, truth listening, and truth telling, working from the rubric that's in the last part of my book, Fortune.
Listen to the rest of the conversation now!
**PRICE DROP!! REGISTRATION CLOSING JUNE 30**
Black|Brown Pilgrimage to Puerto Rico
On his 2nd voyage in 1493, Christopher Columbus landed on the island that the Taino people called Borinquen. Fifteen years later, Caparra, Puerto Rico became the first European settlement in what we now call the United States territory. A beachhead for western colonization and the transatlantic slave trade, the land and people of Puerto Rico have a critical story to tell, as we forge into an age of decolonization.
Together we will journey through the story of Taino resistance and genocide, African enslavement and subversive faith, abolition, Jim Crow annexation and the current-day struggle of environmental disaster trailed by economic colonization. Our pilgrimage will center the experiences of Black Puerto Ricans to understand the full-weight and consequences of colonization. Our experience will incorporate story-telling, spiritual formation, coping and resilience training, as well as times for strategic visioning.
Black|Brown Puerto Rico Pilgrimage Information
More about Freedom Road Pilgrimages
Seven Pillars of a Freedom Road Pilgrimage
REGISTRATION IS OPEN UNTIL JUNE 30, 2023
PILGRIMAGE DATES
April 28 – May 4, 2024
COST & WHAT IS INCLUDED
Double Occupancy: $2,835
Single Occupancy: $3,840
Includes: Hotel accommodations, tour bus, welcome dinner and boxed lunches, lectures and experiences.
Does Not Include: Airfare to Puerto Rico, breakfasts, and most dinners.
Powering Pluralism Summit
Lisa was excited to join the Aspen Institute Religion and Society Program for their Powering Pluralism Summit this month. She spoke about foundational American strategies to establish and defend human hierarchies of belonging—and how to repair it all!
Decolonizing the Bible Webinar—Now on Demand!
We don’t consider what was lost, when we allowed Europeans to develop, write and commodify scholarship and thus theology. How do we reclaim the doing of theology as a necessary act of discipleship? How do we move the issues to a place and space that takes us beyond debates, winning, being right or wrong? Of what value are Jesus’ actions of love, faith and righteousness/justice?
What about contextual Theology, Feminist Theology, Black Theology, etc? Is there such a thing as “pure theology” is that the same as white theology or Eurocentric white theology? What does Eurocentric white theology have to say about Jesus and the gospels in 2020, that can help us make sense of the world in which we live? – What does it say or not say about the biggest problems in the world, like hunger, economic inequality, systemic injustice, conflict and war, racism and religious extremism? How do we understand God’s power and healing in a time of Covid-19, so that we live in social solidarity while experiencing physical distance? How does the gospel of Jesus help us to live more faithfully these days?
On the Freedom Road Podcast this Month
On this episode, we are joined by Rev. Gail Song Bantum, Lead Pastor of Quest Church, which recently voluntarily cut ties with its denomination—the Evangelical Covenant Church—because of its hard right turn on LGBTQIA+ inclusion.
Pastor Gail was invited to speak with us today, because she is an eye witness to a profound come-to-Jesus moment taking place right now inside of white evangelical denominations. She posted her letter to the denomination online. Lisa read it. We are going to talk about it.
Available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts!
If you are a paid subscriber or a Patreon patron at the James Farmer level or above, you are invited to participate in a quarterly call with Lisa Sharon Harper.
Mark your calendar for the next three calls, and if you aren’t a subscriber or Patron, upgrade your subscription today, or join our Patreon!
If you are already a paid subscriber, click here for the zoom link to this week’s call.
June 28: 7-8pm ET
September 20: 7-8pm ET
December 13: 7-8pm ET
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
Freedom Road Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Website | Patreon