This week, activist and theologian Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis joins host Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush to discuss the celebration and reflection of Black history, and the intersection of faith and activism. Together, they explore the ongoing fight for racial equality, the powerful influence of Black history on contemporary social justice movements, and the role of spiritual and community leaders in challenging systemic injustice.
Rev. Jacqui, renowned for her deep faith-based commitment to social justice, shares her personal history of activism, rooted in her family’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. She highlights the lessons we can draw from Black history and the Black Church to help foster unity, equity, and love, emphasizing the power of faith to overcome the forces of division and oppression.
“When asked about what you’re doing about immigrants, lean on your faith: that our faith compels us to care for the stranger, because we were once strangers in a strange land. In fact, the Hebrew scriptures say thirty-some odd times you should love the stranger, and one time love your neighbor. The whole idea of loving your neighbor as yourself means loving the alien, loving the stranger, loving the immigrant, loving the widow, loving the child. And I think, for as long as we can say those things as part of our creed, as part of our call to ministry, if you will, that stands well for us.”
– Rev. Dr Jacqui Lewis is the senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, a diverse and inclusive congregation. Believing faith communities can lead the way to racial reconciliation, Rev. Jacqui co-founded The Middle Project and The Revolutionary Love Conference with her spouse, The Rev. John Janka, which train leaders to create a more just society. She holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary and a PhD in psychology and religion from Drew University. Her next book, The Just Love Story Bible for children and families is due out in September.
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—INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT—
PAUL BRANDEIS RAUSHENBUSH, HOST:
Rev. Dr Jacqui Lewis is the senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, a diverse and inclusive congregation. She holds an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary and a PhD in psychology and religion from Drew. She is an author, she is an activist, and her works include Fierce Love, and she co-founded the Middle project The Revolutionary Love Conference, which is the must-go conference, and it’s there to train leaders to create a more just society.
She’s done so much more and we’re going to be covering that, but let me just say, Rev. Jacqui, welcome to the State of Belief!
REV. DR. JACQUI LEWIS, GUEST:
Paul, I’m so glad to be with you. Thank you so much for having me today.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
So one of the things that is so valuable about your national witness, which is, you have a national voice, but it’s rooted in the congregation. And in this moment, when there are so many things happening, so many things coming at us, the onslaught, and sometimes it feels like it’s hovering up at the policy level. It’s hovering at the kind of dynamics in Washington, but you’re there on the ground with people, and I would just love to start there – because I think it’s so important that we don’t just talk about the policies, but we talk about the impacted communities.
So could you start out by just explaining to the listeners and reminding the listeners of your location in your leadership and in your church, and then get into some of the way this is being experienced on the ground in a religious congregation.
JACQUI LEWIS:
Yeah, thank you so much for that, Paul. We both believe that the political is personal and political is spiritual, and the community I serve, which is profoundly important to me, I just love these people so much, Middle Church, is maybe the most diverse faith community I’ve experienced in my life as a leader and as a Christian.
To be honest, we are Black and White – many flavors of White, because White people are also ethnic German and Lutheran, and Dutch and English. We are Hispanic, from different cultures: Dominican, Puerto Rican, mostly; Asian, Japanese, Chinese, some Vietnamese and indigenous. So we are all the things, and those ethnicities are just one of the identities that most of the members carry.
There are also, some are immigrants and some are children of immigrants, and some are queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. We are feminist and we are womanist and we are probably mostly Democrat, probably mostly blue; I think there’s some Republicans hiding in there, but very much progressive, very much left-leaning. No matter who we voted for, this is a community that really understands all that.
Our faith is not just about some kind of up-and-down relationship, some sort of vertical relationship with the holy, with God. Having a right relationship with God is having a right relationship with the people and a right relationship with the earth. We are people who understand that the one we follow into ministry is a Jewish Palestinian,likely Brown, at once homeless, at once a refugee, who lived outside of the empire, outside of the boundaries of empire; who wasn’t trying to start a new religion but was trying to reform, preaching, teaching a reformed way of understanding his own faith; that the faith of Jesus is what calls us into relationship with the world, with the planet, with each other.
And Paul, it deeply moves me to think about how people kind of go by the Chinese church or go by the all-White church, or go by the all-Black church or by the Hispanic church to come to a place that is absolutely a laboratory for human flourishing, and struggle. It’s not easy sitting next to someone who looks different than you every Sunday; and it’s not easy, frankly, to plan worship that pleases the diverse population. But we work really hard at it, and so what I’m saying, that to say, is these are deeply passionate, deeply caring people who want the world, want America to work for most of us.
Therefore, deeply hurt by two things, if I’m honest, that happened in this last election season.
One was, Paul, that the candidate that most of us thought was the better candidate also had been a part of the Biden administration, and my progressive people, who watch and see and talk and listen, were deeply grieved by the October 7th violence that killed and kidnapped Jewish people and also the aftermath of that conflict that just decimated Gaza.
So to have that conflict sitting in the middle of the American problem was hard, and to have Trump win the election was really hard, because the promises of the Project 2025 and the fear of what would happen about abortion rights, what would happen about trans rights, what would happen about immigration – we knew that what was going to come was going to feel catastrophic to so many of our vulnerable peoples.
And that’s where we sit right now, Paul, is a kind of grief and shock and disappointment that the outcome of that election endangers the people we love – and it’s real people, right, it’s not hypothetical people; it’s real people who are hurt by these policies.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
I know how much you know your congregation – back to the 60s, maybe even earlier – has been really a haven for LGBTQ people. And I’ve been to your church, I’ve worshipped there, and I’ve seen how prominent and how welcome the trans would be in your community. And I think the effort to erase trans people, especially how that affects trans people of Black descent and Brown, as well as other ethnicities, all, everyone, really. I mean, it’s basically you don’t exist anymore under the effort of the administration.
What does that mean for you as a pastor? You and I are both pastors; but you’re doing it on the ground. What kind of conversations have you had, and what kind of conversations would you recommend that you can imagine pastors or rabbis or anybody who wants to be there for the trans community, especially right now – and I definitely want to talk about other impacted communities, but I am wondering, have you had any of those kinds of conversations, or what can you imagine being most helpful in this moment?
JACQUI LEWIS:
That’s a great question. One of my trans members just moved to LA. We baptized him last year and his name is Teek. He’s a public figure, so I’ll say his name. He’s just this incredible human being, gifted storyteller, media person, advocate, passionate about justice for everyone. And you know, it was Christmas time, and he left me this long voicemail for New Year. He said, you know, Rev. Jacqui, I just want to tell you how much I love you. And it was just this incredible, generous, loving, voicemail. And I was afraid it would disappear, so I asked him to send it again. And you know, Paul, I didn’t realize when he sent it that he was saying goodbye, that he was moving – and he’s moving towards safety. And yeah, it breaks my heart to think about what’s coming down the pike.
There’s a protest tonight in New York about meds being withheld from trans kids. I can’t really wrap my mind around why this administration and the people who feel so connected to Trump are so upset about trans people. There have been trans people for as long as there’s been people. There have been two-spirited people for as long as there’s been people. I have watched several members of my congregation, I say, become who they really are. It’s a beautiful, joyful experience to see the authentic person be who they are. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the bigotry. I don’t understand the hatred and the violence and the derision. But what happens in the public square, what happens from the government, what happens in faith communities, sets the stage for how people will live, be. Will they be suicidal, will they feel endangered? Will they be killed in a car because somebody just hates them? It’s just absurd to me.
So the conversation to have, I think, I’m saying in lots of ways: wrap your arms around the most vulnerable in your community and ask them, what do they need? What kind of safety makes sense? Do they need money for medicine? Do they need access to care? Do they need a safe haven? Do they need a chance to cry and rage? The queer community sometimes transgresses against the trans person in the LGBTQIA, and the T and the Q are being erased off the page in this administration.
Come on y’all, church people, faith people. Can we imagine a God who creates us that doesn’t create these people exactly as they are? How can we just love them unconditionally, like we want to be loved? That’s the only thing to do, is to love the people that God loves. And God – whose name, when Jesus prays to the Father, the Aramaic, is Father-Mother. It’s Abwoom. It’s Father with a womb. It’s not a new thing to imagine that God is genderless or more than one gender. That’s what the Trinity is about. So let’s get real about that and stop being so bigoted and small, is my hope.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Well, I I love that you reminded us that God created us in God’s image, both male and female in God’s image. And this idea that there’s one way to be. But I do think that the Church has a special obligation, because often the Church is referenced as a legitimization for anti-trans activism, and it’s a terrible thing.
What have you heard around ICE coming into congregations, because we know it’s happening. You know, he rescinded the idea that congregations are sensitive spaces that are not to be disrupted with people barging in, frankly armed, to take away parishioners who are there to worship. You know, freedom of religion.
I’m wondering, are you having conversations in your congregation about that, what to do? Because a Quaker meeting was invaded and someone taken and there’s a lawsuit about it right now, and Interfaith Alliance, among many others, have been vocal about in our support and solidarity with the Quaker community. But it’s happening all over the place. And this was one of the first things that Trump decided to do. It’s like, he just decided, okay, how can I go after religious folks who are doing things I don’t like? It’s almost like this incredible aggression against religious communities. I’m just curious. I’m not going to ask you about anybody’s status within your congregation, because I don’t want to endanger anyone. But I think everyone is asking the question: what does our congregation stand for vis-a-vis ICE? I don’t know what the options are.
JACQUI LEWIS:
We New Yorkers have worked with New Yorkers who are immigrants for decades, some of our congregations more than others. New York, of course, is a sanctuary city, and we’re hearing two things.
One is, when asked about what you’re doing about immigrants, lean on your faith: that our faith compels us to care for the stranger, because we were once strangers in a strange land. In fact, the Hebrew scriptures say thirty-some odd times you should love the stranger, and one time love your neighbor. The whole idea of loving your neighbor as yourself means loving the alien, loving the stranger, loving the immigrant, loving the widow, loving the child.
And I think, for as long as we can say those things as part of our creed, as part of our call to ministry, if you will, that that stands well for us. But Trump doesn’t care about that and ICE won’t care about that.
So I think there are also conversations about just how to keep people out of the sanctuary, and those are the kinds of things we don’t say on the radio. But people are building coalitions and building resources and networks and strategies for how to keep people safe. You know, thanks be to God. I worry about the families of the people who are born here, who might not be documented, and just want to encourage people to be brave, as brave as you can be.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
I think it’s important, as you mentioned, to talk about faith and to lean into our faith and not be shy about that. You know, in Matthew 25, Jesus said, “When I was a stranger, did you welcome me?”
JACQUI LEWIS:
Right, exactly.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
It’s like, that’s the test to get into heaven.
JACQUI LEWIS:
It kind of is, if that’s where you’re trying to go, that’s what your goal is.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
I didn’t know, that was you, Jesus… So, anyway, I appreciate that. And I think that you know, being a pastor is hard. I don’t need to tell you that. I’ve done a little bit of it, but not like as much as you. How long have you been at Middle Collegiate?
JACQUI LEWIS:
21 years, Paul, can you believe that?
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Congratulations! It is amazing .and what you’ve built there. Plus I should mention you experienced a fire, that really devastated a beautiful sanctuary. And you’ve been a little bit – not homeless, because I think you are home, but it’s been an added sort of thing. So if anybody listening wants to support Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, you support that church, you support a whole community that is building itself around that, including artists, including activists, including loving people living in a neighborhood.
I also want to get into the fact that here we are in Black History Month, in a situation where, basically, DEI and anti-Black activism of this administration – now, they’re saying DEI, and many Black activists are just saying, just say Black, you know what I mean. Don’t pretend. You and I know that DEI helps White people, helps women. I mean, it is not that, but the way it’s being weaponized, now. They’re using this. I’m not trying to put you on the spot, but I just recognize Black History Month hits differently. In part because some of the departments are not allowed to celebrate it anymore! One of the first things… Imagine that being a priority in your first week: We’re going to get rid of Black History Month in the Defense Department. Come on!
JACQUI LEWIS:
It is absurd. Please put me on the spot. I’m happy to be on this spot. It is absolutely absurd to imagine the president of the United States, arguably the most powerful person on the globe, wasting his time on petty bigotry and BS. We’re going to say BS meaning bad stuff. Like what in the world? And to me, all the lies about how Project 2025 was not the intent – of course it was – and all of the lies about making America great again, when what we really mean is making America White again. We mean making America White. We mean rolling back the clock to the good old boy days, the good old boy days when your life didn’t matter, Paul, and where my life didn’t matter, and where Indigenous lives didn’t matter, and the only lives that count are White, straight, wealthy lives, more so, now, the billionaire class. We are not a democracy, we know that that’s true.
And I’m so pissed off – sorry, y’all – I’m so mad, so pissed off about all the people who would pull a lever for this fascist racist because of maybe one thing. Maybe they thought their eggs would be cheaper, which they’re not; or maybe they thought the economy would be stronger, which it’s not; and maybe they thought, I don’t know, they thought there was something in it for them, without imagining what isn’t there for their neighbor.
All I want to say, and I want to say it straightforwardly: look at what’s happened in just two and a half weeks. Look at what’s happened, and imagine four years of this blatant doubling down on disrupting the human rights, the civil rights that have been won in these last decades. Are we just still struggling with the fact that there was a Black family in the White House for eight years? I don’t know, but the kind of Band-Aid or like the tourniquet is ripped off, is ripped off, let’s use that. And the true underbelly, Paul, of White supremacy and its vestiges is on full display, with permission. Breaks my soul, to be honest.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
It’s done in explicit ways, but then also in more ways that are implicit, like the attack on the Department of Education – which, as you and I know, provides schooling, education, for many sometimes marginal communities – and by the way, it’s not just Black communities; rural communities. Oh, and the erasing of history, the banning of books… I mean, we could go on and on and on.
And so I think that one of the one of the ways that I think it’s important to recognize Black History Month today is to talk about Black history. Because there is an intentional effort to just basically wash away Black history and create this false history. Right, Because Black history is American history; Black religion is American religion. And if you try to get rid of Black contributions, not to mention the ar, not to mention…
JACQUI LEWIS:
…Science, technology, everything.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Everything. So here we are. One of the things that I would love, just to give you the opportunity, is to lift up a few names. Let’s think about a few names in Black history, or events or moments. Let’s just celebrate Black history for a second here. You know, we can’t just let them create the parameters of what we’re allowed to do in Black history. You know, we can celebrate and we can do an observance, and I think it’s really important. Some of our listeners may be very well versed in some of the folks that you might mention, or some of the events, but some people might not. So, are there names or events that you’d like to lift up right now?
JACQUI LEWIS:
I would. I absolutely will, and I want to just say first these words, Paul, because you said it, and I just want to underscore: Diversity, equity and inclusion. That’s code in the mouth of the president for Black people. It might be code in the mouth of the press secretary for Black people, but diversity, equity and inclusion is hard-won policies and practices and procedures to protect disabled people, queer people, female-identified people, Black people, Indigenous people, White, poor people, people who have been disenfranchised on so many axes of identity. Diversity, equity, inclusion is about all of us and making a way for more of us. I want to just say that out loud so people can think about that.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
I think it’s really important that you said that. One of the greatest ironies right now is that you have the governor of Texas saying, we don’t want DEI anywhere – and yet he is a person who is differently abled.
JACQUI LEWIS:
Absolutely.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
And DEI created the mechanism by which we have accessibility.
JACQUI LEWIS:
Exactly.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
We have a vice president who basically made his whole name on the fact that he was from a marginalized White community. I’m sure it didn’t hurt him in getting into Yale Law School, which he went to, and all of these things.
I’m not saying they are bad for being those people. I am saying they are bad for just trying to dismantle the very thing that helped them when they needed it. And this idea, if we think about equity, even in terms of religion, fair access, fair ability to be a country that truly represents – and we had Maggie Siddiqi on a couple weeks ago and she talked about how important that idea of equity is when you’re planning for the idea of a diverse religious population, each of which who deserves to be respected, including people who don’t have any faith tradition or come from a very marginalized faith tradition.
So equity is not some sort of calling card, get out free card. It’s basically about a goal to make us a more perfect union. And so I just think we have to keep on reminding ourselves, because they have now been able to cast this idea in such a way…
JACQUI LEWIS:
Paul, Your show is so good about educating people. I mean the people who are going to listen to this now, I want them to think diversity, equity, inclusion – what could possibly be bad about that?
Lots of companies are adding the word belonging, so there’s not one Black person, you know, hanging in the cafeteria by themselves. How do we create a culture in which all of us are welcome? And, Paul, you’ve heard me talk before about Ubuntu, so I’m finding my way to Black history here. This idea that I am human because you are human. A human is a human through other humans. And this diversity, equity, inclusion concept is very biblical: that everyone should belong and everyone should have a place and everyone should get along, and there should be room for all. All of these concepts are located not only in our scripture, Paul, but in almost all the world’s major religions have a part about loving your neighbor as yourself.
Islam says don’t withhold from someone that which you need for yourself. Christianity: do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. Judaism: love the stranger because you were once strangers. The Sikh tradition says: don’t do anything to break another’s heart. And look at us, look at this so-called Christian nation parading out White nationalism in the name of the Brown Palestinian Jew. I mean it is heartbreaking.
So you know, celebrating Black history in the context of truth, that Jesus said, we shall know the truth and the truth shall set us free, that what’s happening in the name of Jesus is a fascist, White nationalist agenda. And I want all of the people, Paul, you and your skin tone, and me and my skin tone, to sort of hold hands together against the weaponization of what should be all about love.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Well, and it’s a weaponization of racism. It’s totally intended to do that.
JACQUI LEWIS:
It is, it absolutely is, and it makes me think about when I think about Black history and what I celebrate. I’m going to be really personal for just a moment, and talk about how I say my Black history is personal. My mother, Emma Lewis, was raised in Rovo, Mississippi. My dad, Richard Lewis, was raised in Meridian. My mother picked cotton with Fannie Lou Hamer. My mother picked cotton with Fannie Lou Hamer, who sang in my mother’s choir. They lived on the same street, just about like around the corner. My grandmother lived around the corner from Fannie Lou Hamer.
My Uncle George, my mother’s brother, helped her register people to vote. It’s in my neighborhood, it’s in my blood. The little house in Sunflower County where my uncle lived got shot at because he was doing this work of registering people to vote.
My mother and her sister get on the truck with her mother and Fannie Lou Hamer and they go to the plantation and they pick cotton right and they come back and sit on the porch and sing songs and pick beans. This is real history to me. Fannie Lou Hamer, who was unlettered and brilliant and brave and bold, who got her butt beat over and over again because she just kept on working for freedom and liberation. I want to celebrate her today.
And I want to celebrate George Jordan, who was her friend, who was a trustee at the St James Chapel where she came to to to be recruited by SNCC.
I want to celebrate somebody in the present, Kimberly Crenshaw, who studied Critical Race Theory with Derek Bell, her professor, and how this system weaponized the words “critical race theory,” which was simply law students learning, Paul, the relationship between race and policy and race and practice, so they could be better attorneys. These White racists weaponized Critical Race Theory like they’ve now weaponized diversity, equity, inclusion.
I want to celebrate Martin King, not because he’s a saint, because he wasn’t, but because he was a revolutionary lover who changed over time from just doing race work to understanding that race and militarization and economy were all connected together. And it was when he moved, when he got out of his lane, Paul, and started talking about the economy and started talking about the war and started talking about how we were killing Brownish people over in Vietnam – for what reason? Those are the spikes in his career that put him on the danger watch list and I think ended up with him assassinated. But I want to say that he’s why I’m in ministry. His assassination when I was almost nine sent me into a sense of my own calling that I would be a drum major for peace.
So I’m going to just say those names for now: Derek Bell and Kimberly Crenshaw and Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin King. Y’all read past Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech, okay, and read “Where Do We Go From Here?” and read “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” and hear the brilliant mind of Martin King.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Yeah, I love all of those. You know I have to say, just when I went to seminary, I went to Union, and you know I was who I was. I mean, no apologies, but I only knew what I knew. And, you know, I was kind of a liberal White kid, you know, trying to figure it out, going to seminary: Well, what’s all this craziness about?
And I got there and, you know, Jim Cone was there, and James Washington, Dolores Williams, it was Vincent Wimbush.
JACQUI LEWIS:
You had the best ones, Paul.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
No, every generation, has the best ones. I’m not nostalgic, I’m just saying for me, and even more than those folks, were my colleagues and the people I went to school with, which were Sen. Raphael Warnock.
JACQUI LEWIS:
Yes, yes.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
And he wasn’t the only one. There was a constellation of amazing, amazing leaders, and they really pressed me to think about, like, okay, have you considered Black history and how it factors into religion and how it factors into your life? And frankly, I hadn’t, partially because I hadn’t had the extended exposure and ability to… Or I hadn’t put myself. I’m not blaming anybody but myself, but I, at Union, I got a chance, and mostly what I got a chance is to worship with them.
And hear them preach and hear them and hear us, because then we were preaching together and we were learning from one another. And, Reverend Tony Lee, he’s an amazing preacher. We did something about AIDS, and you know I was in the middle of the AIDS crisis in the gay community, but he was like, AIDS is just one of the things that we’re trying to get through where I come from.
And so I offer all of that to say that that formed me, it was like that and I want to celebrate that, but it’s not enough to celebrate; it’s like, what do we learn from all of that? And what does this moment require of us for Black history, for American history? Because, as we said, Black history is American history. And I do think all of us who feel this is a moment when we really have to put it all together, how do we show up?
I’ll try this out on you and you let me know what you think. But you know, this is a time to decide what is the strategy of, for instance, the Civil Rights Movement and the determination of your mother and those who were with Fannie Lou Hamer, and all of those folks who were like, okay, you can shoot at me and I’m still going to do the thing I need to do. And so how do we all take that and say, okay, I’m going to show up in ways that are smart, that are strategic and determined over the long run.
And so I think of your Revolutionary Love work as kind of putting those things together, and I just want to set that up for you in whatever way you want to take it. But I do feel like this is something you’ve thought about a lot.
JACQUI LEWIS:
I really appreciate that, Paul. You know, I went on a sabbatical a few years ago in the search of Black folks’ religion and what it had to teach me, us. I want to make sure that I say Mama Ruby Sales’ name. She helps me to think all the time about how Black old folks with their faith, that they were spiritual geniuses, she says, and they had a kind of spirituality that was transcendent and eminent at the same time. Like, Jesus is my friend. But Jesus is a rock in a weary land, a shelter in a time of storm, don’t you know? God is able. I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me, Christology and theology very much flattened into one place. Jesus is God in that context.
But Jesus is also like us, Paul, an outsider who was crucified, who was lynched, and I’m going to say outlived that, the resurrection, hope, that not even lynching could keep God from doing what God intended to do in the world through Jesus.
So, Black folks’ spirituality, like Black people, we’re like, we’ve been here. We haven’t been precisely here, but we have been here. We have walked through the fire, we have overcome the terror of lynching, we’ve been hung on the cross, meaning swung like strange fruit on the trees. We have been debilitated, we have been debased, we’ve been derided, and yet we continue to rise and we do rise.
We don’t suffer so God can prove a point; we don’t suffer because it’s redemptive; we don’t suffer at the hand of White supremacy to somehow show God is able. But God is able to do more than we can ask or imagine, through the power at work within us; able to keep us from staying down when we fall down, and that we rise up.
And we rise up because we believe in God. We rise up because of the faith of our ancestors. We are sustained by the music and the joy and the power of Black worship, but also, we are sustained by a community that knows that we are rooted and that we are connected and that together we can do more than we can apart.
That’s Black folks’ religion – and it’s not just Black folks’ religion. It’s poor folks’ religion and it’s Irish folks’ religion, it’s Vietnamese families’ religion, the people who know that the individual is not the only thing that matters. That’s where this love survives and thrives. It is fierce love. It takes risks. It demands truth. It’s willing to walk, walk, walk for a year to get the right to ride on buses. It’s willing to sit at a lunchroom counter and be pummeled to demand the right to have freedom. It does not stop until freedom comes.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
So this is so inspiring and this is the moment for us to learn to pay attention. Who are you, as far as leaders, who are you working with right now? I think a lot of us are doing really important wor,k and I just want to kind of share it out. I love for people to get involved with Interfaith Alliance, but when you think about your guest list for your Revolutionary Love, in the best way, it’s a who’s who of who you want to know and who you want to learn from and who you want to walk with – because eventually we’re going to have to get on the streets.
JACQUI LEWIS:
Yeah, we have to get on the streets, yeah.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
And so who are some folks who, when you’re thinking about Revolutionary Love, not as a one-time event, but as a movement, who are the people you’re hoping or you’re in communication with – they don’t have to be just Black leaders, but within that Black tradition that you just talked about, who are some of the folks that you’re you’re excited to work next to? Because we also have to be excited by one another. We have to be joyful with one another, we have to be inspired by one another, and this is a time to also be inspired.
JACQUI LEWIS:
Well, I want to lift up the name of Raphael Warnock, who you went to seminary with, who I’ve been an Auburn fellow with, who’s just an incredible leader. Bishop William Barber. Bishop Yvette Flunder. Tracy Blackburn…
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Those first two names people might be more familiar with. Can you talk a little bit… You know, we can give a little bio of Bishop Yvette Flunder, but also kind of who she is, because she is amazing.
JACQUI LEWIS:
Yeah, she’s a badass. Bishop Flunder is a bishop in the Fellowship of, I’m going to say, Reconciling Churches, and that’s not exactly right. But do Flunder, F-L-U-N-D-E-R. And she is a bishop in a queer-affirming Church. She raises up leaders. They are all over the globe, not just in this country. She’s a fierce preacher and she’s an incredible singer. She and Shirley, her wife, are just wonderful musical folks. You know, Raphael’s a senator, Barber is Poor People’s Campaign and now at Yale.
I want to lift up Dante Stewart, who’s a young leader. He’s only 32 years old and he’s an author, Shouting In the Fire. Cole Arthur Riley is also a young author who wrote a book called Black Liturgies. Traci Blackmon, UCC, my friend and wonderful leader. And I want to lift up people like Linda Sarsour, who is Muslim and is always in the streets, and Sharon Brous, who’s Jewish and is in the streets. Amichai Lau Lavie… All of our political moments are not exactly the same, but we are all trying to be in the streets for justice. Mark Thompson is an activist and a radio personality who I really lean into as a friend and colleague.
So those are just some of the people. But if you want to know more, people, register for the Freedom Rising Conference, which we moved to October 31 to November 2 so we can be in our building,Ppaul, so we can do it there. So we’ve got a great lineup of Otis Moss III, one of my favorite preachers on the planet and a great activist. He’s going to be there. So November October 31 to November 2, 2025, Freedom Rising: The Fierce Urgency of Now, all about what we need to be doing to make America loving, maybe for the very first time.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
And that is something that people can come in person, but there’s also an opportunity to do that online, and so it’s not too soon. And there is a website I think that you can look at and learn from past events.
JACQUI LEWIS:
Right, absolutely, at freedomrising.com, we’ve got all kinds of resources there – and they are free, often free resources for you. Talks that have happened, including by folks like Paul Raushenbush. We try to keep cycling those around so you can learn from the leaders.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
I just think what you’re doing is so amazing. So in this time, what I’m asking people… For a year or so, I was asking people what gives you hope, and I think I probably did ask you that. But right now I’m asking, what’s the one thing you would encourage people to think about doing? What’s the one thing? Because everybody feels like, ah, there’s nothing to do. There’s so much to do that there’s nothing I can do. What’s the one thing that you would hope people might do in this time?
JACQUI LEWIS:
I’m going to say two, because I’m hardheaded.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
You go, that’s fine, okay.
JACQUI LEWIS:
One thing is to really tune in to yourself, to really love yourself. Body scan, listen to your soul, take some time, read a book, take a bath, go for a walk. There’s just so much happening that it’s stressful, Paul, and we’re going to make mistakes with each other. Be cranky with each other. It’s not good for us not to understand that we are flesh and we need to love our flesh. Just love our flesh hard. That’s a quote from one of my favorite books, just love your flesh, take time for you. And that’s not selfish. That’s essential.
And then I think the next part is just to pick one place to pay attention to a neighbor. If you’re a person that lives in a big old White space, think about a Brown neighbor that you can talk to, learn from. Think about a queer neighbor you can learn from. Listen to a woman, if you’re a male-identified person. Dib into an account of a trans leader and listen, listen, listen, in the social media. Don’t be isolated from the so-called “other.” Get in there and learn from them.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
So you have a book coming out called the Just Love Children’s Bible. This is in September. I can’t tell you how excited I am. Now come on, tell me about the Just Love Children’s Bible.
JACQUI LEWIS:
It is amazing. Paul it is so beautiful. It’s a Beaming Book project, and my friend Shannon Daly Harris wrote the Old Testament, or Hebrew Scriptures. I did the New Testament, 26 stories, each one illustrated by this incredible artist named Cheryl Tuesday, and it’s gorgeous. The stories are progressive tellings of these stories that are familiar ones – you know, the Magnificat and the flood, but also lively illustrations that the children will see themselves in it. I’m talking bright colors, lots of Brown people who look like maybe they were, I don’t know, maybe they’re from Palestine and Israel. So it’s going to be a gorgeous asset, I think, for so many families.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
This is great, because sometimes it’s just like, you have the Bible there and, you know, Trump even has his Bible! But you have a Bible there that’s supposed to be just for show. But this one, I feel like you can open up you can explore.
JACQUI LEWIS:
Absolutely.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
And I’ll just say, as you know, I made this book called Together We Rise, about Jesus and the Easter story, and the best thing about it is that, no matter what the conversation – you’re talking to your kids about spirituality, about God, about ethics, about conversation. I mean, you’re having a conversation and then you’re being inspired. And so here it is, the Just Love Children’s Bible coming in September. We’re going to plug it then, but, people, now we have your fall completely filled out.
JACQUI LEWIS:
That’s right. The Bible in September…
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
…And the conference is in November.
Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis is the senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City. In her activism, preaching, speaking, writing and teaching, Jacqui advocates for racial equality, gun control, economic justice and equal rights for all sexual orientations and genders.
Jacqui, your voice is needed now more than ever. Thank you so much for being with us on the State of Belief!
JACQUI LEWIS:
Thank you so much for having me.
