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Lisa Sharon Harper

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About Lisa

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From Ferguson to New York, and from Germany to South Africa to Australia, Lisa Sharon Harper leads trainings that increase clergy and community leaders’ capacity to organize people of faith toward a just world. A prolific speaker, writer and activist, Ms. Harper is the founder and president of FreedomRoad.us, a consulting group dedicated to shrinking the narrative gap in our nation by designing forums and experiences that bring common understanding, common commitment and common action.

Ms. Harper is the author of several books, including Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican…or Democrat (The New Press, 2008); Left Right and Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics (Elevate, 2011); Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith (Zondervan, 2014); and the critically acclaimed, The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong can be Made Right (Waterbrook, a division of Penguin Random House, 2016). The Very Good Gospel, recognized as the “2016 Book of the Year” by Englewood Review of Books, explores God’s intent for the wholeness of all relationships in light of today’s headlines.

A columnist at Sojourners Magazine and an Auburn Theological Seminary Senior Fellow, Ms. Harper has appeared on TVOne, FoxNews Online, NPR, and Al Jazeera America. Her writing has been featured in CNN Belief Blog, The National Civic Review, Sojourners, The Huffington Post, Relevant Magazine, and Essence Magazine. She writes extensively on shalom and governance, immigration reform, health care reform, poverty, racial and gender justice, climate change, and transformational civic engagement.

Ms. Harper earned her Masters degree in Human Rights from Columbia University in New York City, and served as Sojourners Chief Church Engagement Officer. In this capacity, she fasted for 22 days as a core faster in 2013 with the immigration reform Fast for Families. She trained and catalyzed evangelicals in St. Louis and Baltimore to engage the 2014 push for justice in Ferguson and the 2015 healing process in Baltimore, and she educated faith leaders in South Africa to pull the levers of their new democracy toward racial equity and economic inclusion.

In 2015, The Huffington Post named Ms. Harper one of 50 powerful women religious leaders to celebrate on International Women’s Day. In 2019, The Religion Communicators Council named a two-part series within Ms. Harper’s monthly Freedom Road Podcast “Best Radio or Podcast Series of The Year”. The series focused on The Roots and Fruits of Immigrant Labor Exploitation in the US. And in 2020 Ms. Harper received The Bridge Award from The Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth and Reconciliation in recognition of her dedication to bridging divides and building the beloved community.

Lisa is host of the Freedom Road Podcast, cohost of The FOUR Podcast and author of her weekly column on Substack, “The Truth Is…”. Her much anticipated book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And The World–And How To Repair It All, is now available!

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lisasharper

lisasharper
#tyrenichols was a youth group leader at his churc #tyrenichols was a youth group leader at his church in Sacramento. 

He was a skateboarder. 

He was grieving the death of his father. 

He found hope in sunsets. 

He was a free spirit who broke molds. 

He moved to Memphis because he felt “called.”

He was sick—suffering from Crohn’s Disease. 

So he was 6’3” and only 150 lbs. 

He was only trying to get home.

He was a momma’s boy. 

So, his last word was: “Mom!”

He was lynched

By five Black overseers of the state

And I feel for them. They, too, were likely victims of the state. They likely joined the patrol as a strategy to survive it. They swore to protect the proper order of things—

>>> Protect property. 
>>> Protect businesses. 
>>> Protect the white people who own and run them. 

The rest are expendable.

Black people are expendable. 

But they forgot—they, too, are expendable. 

The white pundits who usually close ranks around white men in blue—who normally demand we wait till both sides are heard—who normally do deep dives into assailants’ previous acts of blue valor—they readily sacrificed these five blue-clad Black lives on the altar of “See we’re reasonable white people. When it’s truly bad, we can say so.”

And they blow the loudest trumpets crying: This is the WORST EVER. 

#philandocastile #ahmaudarbery #sandrabland #michaelbrown and #breonnataylor rise up in a divine quintet and demand: “Don’t do that.” 

The death of Mr. Nichols was heinous—period. 

The death of all the rest was heinous—period. 

Traffic stops should be outlawed—period. 

And cities should commit as many resources to protecting Black lives as they have committed to containing and controlling Blackness.

Then, we must turn to the five, as the Black Chief and DA and family of Tyre have, and demand Justice.

#riptyrenichols
Sooo, this just happened over on the Tweeting box! Sooo, this just happened over on the Tweeting box! 🐥

Thank you, @dpgushee.

#fortunebook 🔗 in bio and stories
Hey Community! Almost 3 years ago, I had this id Hey Community! 

Almost 3 years ago, I had this idea:

“What if a bunch of diverse amazing writers came together to write every Saturday? And what if they listened to each other read the stories they wrote each time? How changed would we be…after soaking in each other’s stories? How might the symphony of our voices rise and change the world?” 

The answer is: A whole lot.

7 books have been written and published in the Global Writers Group writing room! 

Hundreds of commentaries, opEds, blogs, columns—even a song featured during the Super Bowl—were published from this group of prophetic writers! 

We have been changed by each other’s stories. We’ve become better writers through the process of listening and offering and receiving constructive feedback each week. And we are writing another world into being!

This Monday, come glimpse this new world and listen to power-packed stories crafted in our writing room and honed within our Literati writing cohort! 

Join us! 

The Global Writers Group Annual Showcase
January 9, 8pm ET / 5pm PT

Save your seat at the link in my stories or here: bit.ly/GWGShowcase

#writerscommunity #writeanewworld #writingmatters #gwg #showcase @freedomroad.us
This convo is coming!!!! I’m so excited, y’all This convo is coming!!!! I’m so excited, y’all!! 

This Friday night join me at my Kitchen Table for a convo with my good friend,
The magnificent
The fantabulous
The deep as the ocean
The razor sharp
Pastor of souls across the globe

((Drum roll…))

@otismossiii !!! 😃😃😃🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽

OM3 is the author of several books, including his latest best seller, #dancinginthedarkness!!!!

This book spits wisdom between every punctuation mark!! Do not miss this. We need this. 2023 is the year when we choose light and life. Come listen in as Rev. Dr. Otis Moss iii (pastor of @trinitychgo) shares hard earned wisdom for right now and drops practical tips for how you can dance in the darkness this year!! 

See you soon!! 

Friday, Jan 6, 7pm ET / 6pm CT / 4pm PT

#iglive @lisasharper
May 2023 be the year when we reach for each other May 2023 be the year when we reach for each other anew—and rediscover the reality that we are, indeed, one nation. 

#onenation #2023
Thanking God for President Lincoln’s courage 160 Thanking God for President Lincoln’s courage 160 years ago and for the thousands of formerly enslaved and free Black soldiers, including my 2nd Great Grandfather, Henry Lawrence, and his brothers who exercised their agency to push down the wretched walls of antebellum!

Happy Emancipation Day!!! 

#emancipationday #emancipationproclamation #emancipation #fortunebook
Pelé won his third World Cup in 12 years in 1970. Pelé won his third World Cup in 12 years in 1970. I feel privileged to have been alive (only a year old, but who’s counting) when he danced and flew and dribbled and bounced across the field—at the height of his career. 

But, it wasn’t until I was on my way home from Brazil—having fallen in love with the people of that rainbow nation, having waded through the post-Eugenics waters of the last nation on earth to abolish slavery (1888), having understood the absolute brutality of Brazilian slavery, having listened to the testimonies of Black Brazilians scarred by entrench anti-blackness in every single corner of Brazilian consciousness—especially within the church, having walked the cratered dirt road of a favela and felt the menace of machine-gun toting police bearing down on already flattened people, having witnessed the genius and resilience of Black people who never had their Civil Rights Movement, yet dug deep and tapped into their God-ordained human call to exercise dominion on earth and INVENTED everything from the ironing board to the plow to the scale—after bearing witness, I watched the film Pelé on my flight home—and I wept. I got it. 

Pele’s futbol style came straight outta the favela. It was taught to him by his father, who learned it from his father. And that style of play had been banned by the white authorities in Brazilian futbol when Pelé first began to play. But Pelé defied the explicitly white supremacist rules and brought the power of his ancestors with him onto the field. That’s how he won his first World Cup. When he jumped into the arms of his teammates, it was much more than a win. It was a breakthrough celebration of Blackness—one that laid foundations for Brazil’s current reputation as the rainbow nation.

If you haven’t seen #Peléfilm, yet, see it. You will understand why this great man’s passing is about more than the skill of one soccer player. We celebrate Pelé for his courage and stamina and resilience and for the ways he taught all of us the beautiful power of blackness. 

Rest in peace, Pelé. 🙏🏽

#rip #pele
This Christmas, we experienced a #christmasmiracle This Christmas, we experienced a #christmasmiracle.

God showed up and brought light into a difficult day. 

My nephew and niece-in-law, Junie and Irma (who are more like a son and daughter to me), are here for the holiday. Love filled our house that night and helped to push back the darkness. Love sent despair back to hell where it belongs. 

Then last night, Christmas Eve, Rev. Cannon @shawmartini @aecst1792 peached his face off; reminding us of the power of the light. And my mother sang with the church choir for the first time. It was beautiful. 

Christmas is not about gifts, though we give them. It is about overflowing love and the power of light. Love and light—they are the gifts. Darkness and despair try to overcome them, but they cannot. 

They never could—not in Genesis, not in John 1, not even on the cross. 

#lightwins #merrychristmas
Repost from Christmas 2021: ““Cast down the m Repost from Christmas 2021:

““Cast down the mighty, lift the lowly. Fill the hungry, and send the rich away.” 

While this might sound like a call-and-response protest chant, these words lay foundations for Luke’s gospel. Brown Mary visits her elder cousin, Brown Elizabeth. She breaks into song and prophesies. In the context of colonization by white supremacist Rome, Brown Mary foresees a time when the low will be brought high and the high will be brought low. Mary saw a new way of living together in the world where injustices are made right. 

Those who live in high places without God could fear the coming of Brown Jesus. But what if Mary does not describe a reversal? What if she describes a leveling? What if she describes a reordering of our world such that all, at least have enough? And no one is exploited for sake of the few who belong? What if that is the world she foresaw when she understood the fortune of her womb?”

#FortuneBook #linkinbio or at FortuneBook.us

#advent #adventprayer 
#familyhistory #genealogy #race #repair #truthseekers #truthteller #reparations #restitution #forgiveness #belovedcommunity #beloved #blackfortunemonth 
@brazospress
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The Very Good Gospel on Audible

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