Twelve Jesus-Haunted Misfits, Malcontents, and Dreamers in Pursuit of Justice
Meeting one: September 2019 – Washington, DC
Meeting two: October 2020 – Virtual
Over the last forty years, religious power brokers have galvanized a huge number of American Christians around the causes of the political right. The history and power of this movement have been the topics of countless books, articles, and analyses, and American cultural scripts have largely come to equate Christianity and conservative politics in many quarters. It is not our wish to add another volume to this ever-growing canon.
The 2019 book Can I Get a Witness?: Thirteen Peacemakers, Community Builders, and Agitators for Faith and Justice (Eerdmans) introduced instead a cast of thirteen women and men whose lives draw us to a different exemplification of Christian faith and practice.
Presented in artfully told and thoroughly researched theological biographies, People Get Ready! Twelve Jesus-Haunted Misfits, Malcontents, and Dreamers in Pursuit of Justice is a treasure trove of redemptive life stories; it is both a companion volume to Can I Get a Witness? and a free-standing celebration of America’s forgotten peacemakers and hope-builders,
The chapters illuminate aspects of the historical figures’ religious experiences and convictions as well as the work they did in the world, all the while exploring how their convictions shaped their work, and how their work refined their convictions. Each chapter will unearth important connections between the historical figures’ lives and activism, and our present-day faith-based struggles for social justice and equity. Rather than the consensus and homogeneity imposed by the guardians of political and theological reactionary conservatism, People Get Ready! strives to bring many voices—women and men; Catholics and Protestants; white, Latinx, African American, and Asian; clergy and laity; gay and straight—together.
People Get Ready! will be published by Eerdmans and is scheduled to be released in 2022.
The authors gathered in Washington, DC, for the first meeting, in September 2019. The writers attended seminars on theology and biography, discussed writing style and process, and met in workshop groups in order to support each other throughout the writing process. Click the meeting link for further details and photos from the gathering.
For the second meeting, which was held virtually in 2020 due to COVID-19, the authors and editors met on Zoom for editorial conversations, small-group workshops, and feedback sessions. Click the meeting link for further details and photos from the gathering.
2019/20 SPRING INSTITUTE FOR LIVED THEOLOGY AUTHORS
For more information about the authors, please click on their photos below:
