OCTOBER 20 | 7:00 – 8:30 P.M. ET

Rising to Indigenous Reparations

In this conversation, we’ll talk about how to move from nominal indigenous reparations, like land acknowledgements, into deeper partnership with native siblings. We’ll talk about how power and colonization still manifests in many of the ways religious communities interact with indigenous communities, and in our own theologies. We’ll also talk about the role art can play in helping us to imagine new futures that foster indigenous thriving, and tell more accurate stories about our native siblings’ past, present and future.

Jacqui Lewis will be joined in this conversation by Kali Spitzer and Jim Bear Jacobs.

Kali Spitzer (she/her) is is Kaska Dena from Daylu (Lower Post, British Columbia) on her father’s side and Jewish from Transylvania, Romania on her mother’s side. A photographer, her work includes portraits, figure studies and photographs of her people, ceremonies and culture.

Jim Bear Jacobs (he/him) was born in St. Paul, Minn., and is a member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation. He is the Director of Community Engagement and Racial Justice for the Minnesota Council of Churches. and the creator and director of “Healing Minnesota Stories.”

DECEMBER 15 | 7:00 – 8:30 P.M. ET

Rising to A Moral Economy

We live in a world of economic extremes: American billionaires added more than $1 trillion in wealth throughout the pandemic, while millions of families now risk eviction. Unfortunately, that gap will continue to grow if we don’t pass policy deliberately crafted to reduce inequality. This deplorable state of affairs violates the abundance created for us to share. In this conversation, we’ll explore a variety of policy solutions that could help rebalance this cultural mess. We’ll particularly focus on the ongoing eviction crisis, and examine how public housing, increased minimum wages, community land grants and collective action can make a difference. Plus, we’ll discuss how theology has been complicit to constructing these economic disparities, and the spiritual changes religious communities must make to help build systems that equitably distribute everyone deserves.

Jacqui Lewis will be joined by Jawanza Williams. Jawanza (he/they) is a Black, radical Queer, Prison Abolitionist, Socialist, Community Organizer. He is a native of Beaumont, Texas. They are Director of Organizing for Voices of Community Activists and Leaders (VOCAL-NY), and were recognized by City & State New York in 2021 as one of the 50 top activists to watch.

FEBRUARY 16 | 7:00 – 8:30 P.M. ET

Rising to Freedom

“Freedom is never given; it is won.” – A. Philip Randolph

The United States is perched upon a precipice: In the next decade, we will either become a genuine, multiethnic democracy for the very first time or tumble backward into Jim Crow-era disenfranchisement. Right now, lawmakers in dozens of states are advancing bills that would use modern poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent millions of people from casting a vote. Whether they will succeed depends entirely on the power of our collective resistance.

In this conversation, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis will talk with LaTosha Brown (she/her) and Lisa Sharon Harper about what we all can do to demand free and easy access to the ballot. And they’ll examine the lessons learned from organizing efforts in the 2020 election about the best way to encourage our neighbors to make their voices heard

LaTosha Brown
LaTosha (she/her) is the Co-Founder of Black Voters Matter, Black Voters Matter Fund and Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute. These initiatives are designed to boost Black voter registration and turnout, as well as increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black communities. She has received numerous awards and accolades for her work. She has been featured on ABC, CBS, CNN, Democracy Now, and PBS. Her Op-Eds have been showcased in the New York Times, Politico and Essence. Her work has also been highlighted in several docuseries: What’s Eating America?,  American Swamp, and Finding Justice. Ms. Brown is also the 2020 Hauser Leader at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School, the 2020 Leader in Practice at Harvard Kennedy School’s Women and Public Policy Program, and a 2020-2021 American Democracy fellow at the Charles Warren Center at Harvard.

Lisa Sharon Harper
A prolific poet, artist, and activist, Lisa Sharon 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 leads trainings that increase clergy and community leaders’ capacity to organize people of faith toward a just world. 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.

October 20, 7 - 8:30 PM ET
Rising to Indigenous Reparations

In this conversation, we’ll talk about how to move from nominal indigenous reparations, like land acknowledgements, into deeper partnership with native siblings. Jacqui Lewis will be joined in this conversation by Kali Spitzer and Jim Bear Jacobs.

This conversation is made possible in part by The Middle Project.

November 10, 7 - 8:30 PM ET
Rising to Fierce Love for Ourselves and the World

Jacqui will be in conversation with Cole Arthur Riley. Cole is the creator of Black Liturgies, a space of dignity, lament, truth-telling, healing, rest, and liberation. Together, she and Jacqui will talk about how rest is integral to self-love, and the foundation for liberatory action.

December 15, 7 - 8:30 PM ET
Rising to A Moral Economy

In this conversation, we’ll explore a variety of policy solutions that could help rebalance economic inequalities and equitable systems for all. Jacqui Lewis will be joined by Jawanza Williams, a Black, radical Queer, Prison Abolitionist, Socialist, Community Organizer.

This conversation is made possible in part by The Middle Project.

January 19, 7 - 8:30 PM ET
Rising to Beloved Community

This conversation will focus on how we can transform beyond the painful divisions that try to tear us apart, to foster conciliation. We will focus on both the personal and social dimensions of this work, and the practical steps each of us can take to heal what is broken. Jacqui Lewis will be in conversation with Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg.

February 16, 7 - 8:30 PM ET
Rising to Freedom

In this conversation, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis will talk with Black Voters Matter founder LaTosha Brown about what we all can do to demand free and easy access to the ballot. And they’ll examine the lessons learned from organizing efforts in the 2020 election about the best way to encourage our neighbors to make their voices heard.

This conversation is made possible in part by The Middle Project.

March 16, 7 - 8:30 PM ET
Rising to Gender Equality

In this conversation, we’ll talk along the fault lines of gender inequality—how we can build new coalitions of all people impacted by patriarchal abuse—to birth a world where everyone is free to live into the fullness of their gender without fearing violence or suffering injustice. Abby Stein will join Jacqui Lewis for this dialogue.

April 20, 7 - 8:30 PM ET
Rising for Mother Earth

In this training, Jacqui Lewis will speak with representatives from Green Faith, an interfaith and international organization that equips religious communities to fight extraction and exploitation. They’ll talk about the pervasiveness of ecological racism—in the U.S. and abroad—and articulate why we must move beyond a lens of individual change to pursue structural solutions.

May 18, 7 - 8:30 PM ET
Rising to Disability Justice

Our justice work is incomplete if it isn’t accessible for all people. Even though most people, at some point in their lives, will become disabled, our communities continue to fail to provide even baseline accommodations for universal access. Jacqui Lewis will be joined by Talila Lewis, an abolitionist community lawyer, educator, and organizer who works to ground all social justice movements in disability justice.

June 15, 7 - 8:30 PM ET
Rising to Divine Queerness

In this conversation, we’ll examine how we come to know God better through LGBTQIA+ people, and the ways queer liberation offers a roadmap to free all people. Jacqui Lewis will be joined by Semler, the first openly queer artist to hit number 1 on the iTunes Christian music charts with their EP, Preacher's Kid.