Freedom Road Podcast

Brian McLaren (author, speaker, activist) thinks outside of the box. He’s a true prophet who decodes the current moment and casts vision for what’s coming. Join host, Lisa Sharon Harper, and Brian McLaren as they dive deep on the state of white men in the post-Trump era--and what spiritual re-formation will require of them in this shifting age.

This fall Evangelicals launched an honest, raw conversation about our values for integrity and leadership. We decided this conversation was too good and the stakes are too high not to share with our podcast audience! We asked this core question: In our churches, are the principles of our faith guiding our politics? OR Is our politics guiding our principles? Join Lisa Sharon Harper as she hosts Rev...

Interfaith leaders came together in the wake of the death of Mr. George Floyd by officers who knelt on his neck and body as he pled with them, “I can’t breathe!” In the weeks before and since Mr. Floyd’s death, multiple other black men, women and children have been killed by police. Listen as 14 of the most prolific and prophetic faith leaders in our nation engage the National Town Hall on Policin...

In the context of the most divided nation since the 1960’s millions of Americans came together online for The Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington. Join host, Lisa Sharon Harper, in conversation with three leading voices of The Poor People’s Campaign: Rev. Liz Theoharis (Co-Chair), Yara Allen (Director of Theomusicology) and Callie Greer (Impacted Anti-Poverty Activist). Three...

In this raw, honest, beautiful episode host, Lisa Sharon Harper, is joined by three guests, all of whom have intersections with the issue of disability. Shannon Dingle, Lisa Anderson, Amy Kenny and Lisa engage a rare kind of conversation--the kind that changes them in rare time, as we listen in. See the world through the eyes of these three disabled women. Be inspired and be changed forever. 

Much like the issue of slavery in the early 19th century, the issue of LGBTQ inclusion is splitting denominations across the United States. On opposite sides of the fault-line are those calling for inclusion and those engaging processes and crafting policies that exclude LGBTQ+ people from various levels of membership and leadership. Churches usually avoid this conversation, because the stakes are...

Join host, Lisa Sharon Harper, in conversation with the women of the Pantsuit Politics Podcast, Beth Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland. On this collaborative extended episode, released on both platforms, listen in as Lisa, Beth and Sarah talk COVID-19, sci-fi movies, canaries in mines and wrestle over one hard question: What will alliance with women of color require of White women in 2020? Be prep...

The issue of abortion has the level of power it does in our nation because we never talk about it. So, we’re going to talk about it. Listen in as host, Lisa Sharon Harper, is joined by Rev. Susan Chorley (Exhale), Rev. Shekinah Hamlin (Christian Church Disciples of Christ) and Andrea Lucado (evangelical journalist) to talk about Abortion and Reproductive Justice. This is a #mustlisten conversation...

Listen in on this powerful conversation between Lisa Sharon Harper (host) and Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III (Lead Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ). The two dive deep on the power of pilgrimage and legacy. As the son of a Civil Rights hero, Moss shares how pilgrimage helped him understand his father better and himself as a man of African descent in the US. 

Join host, Lisa Sharon Harper, and guest Belinda Bauman as they go off-script and dig deep in this vulnerable and raw conversation about the relationship between power and solidarity. #silenceisnotspiritual #solidaritysunday

Advent is about God's embodied solidarity with humanity. In December 2015 Dr. Larycia Hawkins, political science prof at Wheaton College in Illinois placed a hijab on her head, took a picture and posted a message on Facebook in solidarity with Muslim women who were being targeted and forced to take off their hijabs in public spaces within democracies around the world. Standing in embodied solidari...

This month on Freedom Road Podcast join host, Lisa Sharon Harper, and special guest State Representative Ruth Anna Buffalo--the first Native American woman Democrat elected to North Dakota's State Assembly. In honor of Native American History Month, the two recount stories from their recent pilgrimage through the stories of Buffalo's people, the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation on the Fort Berth...

2019 marked the 400th year since Africans first stepped foot on North American shores. Antony and Isabela (their given slave names) were brought from Angola aboard a Portuguese slave ship bound for Mexico. The White Lion, an English warship, pirated the Portuguese ship and stole its human cargo. The first “20 and odd” Africans brought to this land in chains stepped off the White Lion in the year o...

In this second episode of the Freedom Road Podcast two-part series on Immigration, Exploitation and Labor in the U.S. join host, Lisa Sharon Harper, and company as they travel from The Alamo to the Borderlands; shining light on America's labor system--a system perpetually dependent on the no-cost and low-cost labor of black and brown immigrant labor.

Over the next two episodes pilgrimage with us on Freedom Road Podcast as we stand on the land where whips cracked backs to bleed more work from black and brown bodies. Stand with us in a literal valley of dry bones—a mass grave filled with the bodies of men and boys swept up in the post-antebellum terror of peonage. Sit with us as we speak with a descendant of America’s Bracero program and faith l...

Join host, Lisa Sharon Harper, and Timothy McMahan King (author of Addiction Nation, slated for release June 11) for a profound conversation about King's battle with addiction and what it taught him about the soul of America. This is a #mustlisten, #musttakenotes, then #mustshare episode. 

Throughout the 19th century nearly every protestant denomination in the U.S. split over disagreements on the institution of slavery. Not since then have we witnessed such tectonic fissures in the body of Christ. In the 21st century, the issue is LGBTQ inclusion. Nearly every denomination in the U.S. has or is experiencing the tension. In this moment of profound division many churches are tempted t...

Momma Ruby Sales is back. As the nation commemorates the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and the invaluable contributions of the Civil Rights Movement, listen in and grab your pen and paper to take notes as Ruby Sales (SNCC activist and celebrated theologian) shares the pearls of wisdom she gleaned from the Southern Freedom Movement.

This month on Freedom Road, Lisa Sharon Harper, celebrates Women’s History Month with four women of the Ruby Woo Pilgrimage! Listen in as Meighan Stone (Council on Foreign Relations, Indivisible and former president of The Malala Fund), Andrea Ackerman and Melissa O’Keefe (Christ City Church DC) and Barbara Noe Kennedy (Travel Writer) reflect on the wisdom they gleaned from our nation’s foremother...

Peek behind the scenes of our #BlacknessandHistory episode with Ruby Sales (SNCC, SpiritHouse Project) with this bonus mini-episode! Listen in as Auntie Ruby and, host, Lisa Sharon Harper, rap the session. Their taped conversation was so electric that it kept going after the mics were turned off--only they weren't turned off! Sound engineer, David Dault, who also joins the conversation, captured l...

Have you ever had one of those moments when it feels like everyone that experienced it just lived for a split second in another realm? We have. While recording this episode.  This conversation on #BlacknessandHistory between host, Lisa Sharon Harper, and Civil Rights Movement veteran, Ruby Nell Sales (SNCC organizer, celebrated theologian and founder of The SpiritHouse Project), hits new levels of...

Join host, Lisa Sharon Harper, in this mind-blowing conversation with East Harlem pastor and author Jose Humphreys, indigenous scholar Dr. Randy Woodley, South African activist Rene' August and white Evangelical consultant Alexei Laushkin. Run and get pen and paper and #takenotes as these four Freedom Road Consultants consider the nature of justice, what justice will require of the church and shar...

Host Lisa Sharon Harper welcomes guests Waltrina Middleton, Amena Brown, and Catherine Sherman to discuss how art and justice can work together

What responsibility does the church (particularly the Evangelical church) bare for the state of US public life? In this episode Lisa Sharon Harper sits down for a timely reunion with her coauthors of the book, Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith. Join Lisa as she explores the possibility of national healing through the lament and repentance of the church with guests Soong-Chan Rah, Mae...

Join us as Lisa Sharon Harper digs deep into the Pain of Patriarchy with Susan Sharkey (visual artist, #metoo⁠ ⁠/church abuse survivor) and Emily Joy (poet and co-creator of #Churchtoo).