LIBERATING EVANGELICALISM TOUR – OCTOBER 2023-SEPTEMBER 2024
This will be updated as event details become finalized.
If you would be interested in co-hosting an event in your area, please fill out this form here.
Liberating Evangelicalism Events (details and additional events will be forthcoming)
October 20-22, Phoenix Arizona. Crisis in the Holy Land: What Can We Do? (in conjunction with Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East. Open for all interested evangelicals. But registration required. More information and registration can be found here.
October 24-27 2023: Pasadena, CA. Evangelism Next: Evangelism in a Post-Christendom Era. (In conjunction with Fuller Seminary’s Missiological Lectures). More information can be found here. New event: Oct 24, 2023 at Fuller Seminary. Event will also be live streamed on zoom. Panel discussion on What is Evangelical and what is Justice? Featuring: Lisa Sharon Harper, Mae Cannon, Russell Jeung, Soong-Chan Rah, Susan Maros and more.
October 27-29: Norman, OK: Stomp Dance/Native Art & Craft Fair/Gourd Dance. Held at Norman First American United Methodist Church. More events with this event will be forthcoming.
November 8, 2023: Palo Alto, CA. AI and the Church: An Introduction. At New College, Berkeley. 
February 2-3 2024: Washington DC (weekend after National Prayer Breakfast). Topic: Christian Nationalism (in collaboration with Christians for Social Action).
March 2, 2024: Norman OK. Wild Onion Dinner
Come celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Norman First American United Methodist Church and kick off wild onion dinner season on March 1, 2024.
Wild Onion Dinner season in Oklahoma begins in Norman, Oklahoma at the Norman First American United Methodist Church (“NFAUMC”) on March 2, 2024. The Wild Onion dinner is
a long-time Native tradition practiced by Oklahoma tribes that ushers in the beginning of spring. The menu includes: wild onions; salt park or fried chicken; banaha or pashofa, beans or mashed potatoes; grape dumplings or dessert; and salad and frybread – all for only $15 for adults, $12 for students, and $8 for children under 10. The event will also include vendors, raffles, and live music.
This year’s event is particularly noteworthy but it will begin a year of events celebrating the 30th anniversary of the founding of NFAUMC. At the end of the year, NFAUMC will begin constructing a new sanctuary – a long-time dream of the church’s founders. In the past 30 years, NFAUMC has been a leading church in Oklahoma that seamlessly includes Christian worship with traditional Native spiritual practices. It has been a unique space where Native peoples can be truly Native and Christian.
March 2, 2024, Boston, MA
Join the Massachusetts Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival on Saturday, March 2, at 11 am as we march and rally bringing the demands of poor and low-wealth people for living wages, healthcare, housing, education, environmental justice, and voting rights directly to our lawmakers. Together we are taking back the mic! Raising our voices! And registering our votes as demands!
We cannot slide quietly into the dark! That’s why Massachusetts is joining states across the nation who will be holding simultaneous assemblies and marches at their state capitals. We are going to raise our voices and to make our votes demands. We are going to Boston to deliver a moral indictment of the cynical priorities and immoral policies of the leadership of the Massachusetts Legislature. Our state capitals are not just symbolic; they are the policy hubs whose decisions directly impact people facing systemic poverty and the interlocking injustices. Join with us, poor people, clergy and faith leaders, and advocates in building an action that will send a message to the legislators responsible for the unrelenting policy violence against the 2.3 million poor and low-income people in our state that we won’t be silent anymore.
Date: Saturday, March 2
Time:
9:30-10:00AM – Gather at the Site of the Boston Massacre – Corner of State and Washington Streets, at the Old State House.
10:00AM – Join us as we march from the Old State House to the 54th Regiment Memorial in the Boston Common across the street from the Massachusetts State House.
11:00AM – Rally at the 54th Regiment Memorial in Boston Common across the street from the Massachusetts State House.
Across the nation, poor people make up 30% of the electorate, here in Massachusetts, there are 1.3 million poor and low-income eligible voters. This is the power of the sleeping giant! Organizing and mobilizing poor and low-income voters means that we can build the Massachusetts we believe in! It’s time for us to take back the mic from those who want to talk about everything else but the death-sentence of poverty in these yet to be United States. That’s why we are mobilizing around the issues that impact our communities most. If you believe in freedom, if you believe in living wages, healthcare, voting rights and stopping voter suppression, equal rights for all, worker and labor rights, environmental justice, access to housing, fully-funded public education, abolishing poverty, and the unity of love not the division of hate, join us on March 2 in Boston!
For more information, contact the Massachusetts campaign email: massachusetts@
Details and register at: bit.ly/mappcmarch2
Similar events will be happening across the country. . Here is a link to the national campaign for people to connect with those leading the effort in your state – https://www.
April 8
Myths & Facts about Israel, Hamas and Gaza–zoom
April 12, Stomp Dance and Indian Taco Sale, Norman OK
Summer 2024: E4J Zoom Conference (TBA)
LIBERATING EVANGELICALISM THEME
Christian evangelicalism, particularly of late, has often been equated with partisan politics and the faulty assumption that all evangelicals are white. Liberating Evangelicalism seeks to challenge this assumption by creating spaces for a biblically-based, justice-centered movement that is open to all who seek to build a Jesus-centered vision for social justice.
We imagine spaces where people who are usually marginalized are at the center rather than the margins of the conversation, a place to build visions of liberation and inclusion, and a place for belonging and community-building with peoples across diverse political and theological perspectives.
By “liberating evangelicalism,” however, E4J does not presume a particular attachment to Christian evangelicalism.
Some may seek to reclaim the term “evangelical” while others, suspicious of its history and contemporary expression, intend to jettison it from their faith identity altogether. We seek to create spaces that allows for diverse engagements with biblically-rooted faith traditions. In building these spaces, we also do not presume any particular theological or political perspectives or position in partisan politics.
In addition, while these spaces are united by a common devotion to projects of biblical justice and equality, we acknowledge that we do not have consensus on all topics. It is challenging to have open conversations on vitally important issues where polarizing personalities and partisan positions function as roadblocks.
By learning to be in conversation with each other in these divisive times, we hope to model the practice of Jesus who associated with all members of society in order to enable the body of Christ to learn from all perspectives, particularly those who are most socially marginalized. Thus, we adopt a centered-set instead of a bounded-set approach to theology and politics.
A centered approach focuses on our goals and what brings us together. It recognizes that while there are positions that constitute the center of our theology and practice, it does not attempt to exclude from the conversation all those who are not in the center. A bounded set by contrast, focuses on who is inside and outside the boundaries of our community.
This space will not legislate who is “in” or “out” but will bring followers of Jesus together to work for a gospel that is actually good news for everyone.
Summer Institute
