Books and Speakers for Spiritual Theology: The Way of Jesus (Fall 2024)

This fall, we will read works that help us envision faith as a house of many rooms, embody practices for change that manifest the justice we long for, and uncover the Sacred Black Feminine as part of a deeper healing journey into spirituality. For a few meaningful days in September, we will gather together as a community in Minneapolis, MN (Sep 12-14, 2024) to hear from each of the authors, walk together to the George Floyd Global Memorial, and spend time getting to know one another as we share our hopes, dreams, and stories. Then, we will delve into wide-ranging texts by many more diverse authors and far-reaching conversations throughout the fall months. 

How to Participate

  1. Faith & Justice Network: a self-paced study of the F&J curriculum on your own
  2. Faith & Justice Fellowship: work through the F&J curriculum in a cohort of peers
  3. Preaching Justice Fellowship: a new program for preachers, designed to foster compelling preaching that prioritizes the work of justice

More details coming soon. For now, we’re excited to introduce you to the authors and speakers we will be learning from in the coming months!

Debie Thomas

Debie Thomas is the author of A Faith of Many Rooms: Inhabiting a More Spacious Christianity, and Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ. She is also a columnist and contributing editor for The Christian Century, and from 2014 to 2022, was a staff writer for Journey with Jesus: A Weekly Webzine for the Global Church. She studied English Literature at Wellesley College and Brown University, and earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Ohio State University. Currently, she serves as the Minister for Lifelong Formation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, CA. 

Tyler Sit

Rev. Tyler Sit is the author of Staying Awake: The Gospel for Changemakers and the founding pastor of New City Church, a church in Minneapolis that is led mostly by queer people of color. New City became the first ‘built from scratch’ church plant to charter in Minnesota United Methodism in decades. And in 2022, New City launched its second branch, Northeast United Methodist Church. Sit is a second-generation Chinese American, and he focuses his racial justice work into Intersect, a church planting network that he co-founded during the pandemic. New City has been featured in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Minnesota Public Radio, and more. Sit is a graduate of Boston University and Candler School of Theology at Emory University.

Christena Cleveland

Dr. Christena Cleveland is a social psychologist, public theologian, author, and activist. She is the founder and director of the Center for Justice + Renewal. A weaver at heart, Dr. Cleveland integrates psychology, theology, storytelling, and art to help justice seekers sharpen their understanding of the social realities that maintain injustice while also stimulating the soul’s enormous capacity to resist and transform those realities. Dr. Cleveland holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California Santa Barbara, a B.A. from Dartmouth College, as well as an honorary doctorate from the Virginia Theological Seminary. An award-winning researcher and author, Christena is a Ford Foundation Fellow who has held faculty positions at several institutions of higher education — most recently at Duke University’s Divinity School, where she was the first African-American and first female director of the Duke Center for Reconciliation, and also led a research team investigating self-compassion as a buffer to racial stress.

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