Faith & Justice | August 2025
August 2025Looking Back, Looking Ahead As we look back on the past few months, we’re also excited to give you a sneak peek at what’s coming this fall and winter. From new content to upcoming events, there’s so much good ahead—and we can’t wait for you to be part of it. Summer Wrap-Up: Food & JusticeThis summer, we turned our attention to food and justice through the themes of coloniality, liminality, and mutuality. Journeying together through Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee and invigorated by an in-person event baking bread with Reem Assil, we explored food as a vital spiritual practice for the work of justice. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry,” Jesus proclaims in John 6. These words invite us to think beyond individual satisfaction, toward the shared abundance of God’s kingdom. Bread is made to be broken and shared; it becomes life when it nourishes not just one, but many. Our hope is that as we move into the fall, we keep asking: How can our eating make us more just, more generous, more awake to the Spirit’s presence among one another? How can our eating move us toward more tangible experiences of mutuality? Coming Up This YearPerhaps you’ve walked by the school supply aisle this month and wished you could still feel the serotonin rush of picking your new trapper-keeper. Consider studying with us this year! (No supplies required, but we won’t stop you from decorating your notebook…) We’re reading some amazing books and we'll get to hear from the authors at our fall gathering (or watch their sessions throughout the coming months as we discuss their books). Here’s a glimpse of what’s ahead in 2025-2026… 🍂 Fall Semester: Spiritual Theology: The Way of Jesus — exploring what spiritual resilience looks like in uncertain times. Join us in Nashville on September 11-14 to learn from our four authors: Jeff Chu, Jara González-Justiniano, Brian McLaren, and Yolanda Pierce. Early bird pricing available through 8/31! ❄️ Winter Gathering: Save The Date! Join us January 29-31, 2026 in the Bay Area to learn with our special guest: author and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama. We are so thrilled to spend time engaging with his wisdom on storytelling, spirituality, and the work of justice. 🌱 Spring Semester: We’ll pursue our annual theme of Public Theology: The Work of Justice with a particular focus on storytelling. 📅 Online Workshops: Opportunities throughout the year for conversation, reflection, and action.
Join Us Online!🎥 Complimentary livestreaming access to all events: New this year, all members receive access to livestreams of all events! Tune in from anywhere and watch the conversations. Plus, catch up on events you’ve missed with recorded excerpts, shared monthly. No additional cost or event registration. 🎉 📚 Monthly Curriculum: We provide liturgies, readings, and reflections centered on monthly themes, curated especially for this community. For preaching or devotional reading, we also create justice-oriented lectionary reflections. Join the conversation online. 🤝 Stay Connected: Build community with folks from diverse walks of life who are also seeking to integrate faith and justice.
26 Preachers, 4 Cohorts, Countless ImpactWe’re thrilled to announce our Preaching Justice Fellows for 2025-26. In the coming year, 26 preachers from across North America, representing diverse Christian traditions, will work together to learn what it means to preach justice. We trust their work will enrich the Faith and Justice community and many more communities beyond.
Help Us Close the Fiscal Year StrongAs we come to the close of our fiscal year, we want to pause and thank you. Your generosity has carried us through a year of growth and impact—from online cohorts that provide vital support for laypersons and clergy to powerful, meaningful gatherings that many of us are still thinking about. Together, we’ve seen what’s possible when people believe in our mission and give so others can flourish. With just a few days left in our fiscal year, we invite you to consider making a special gift. Your support now will help us finish strong and step into the year ahead with the resources we need to sustain programs that help our mission of “Pursuing a theological imagination for the common good.” Every gift—large or small—makes a difference. Thank you for partnering with us in our work!
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The Faith and Justice Network
Seeking Faith, Learning Justice
September 2026 Kicking Off the Year on the Network and at Spark Lab NYC The Multivocal Chorus at Our Fall Gathering This past week, our fellows, Network members, partners, and new friends gathered for Spark Lab NYC, a three-day gathering exploring how stories can ignite faith and justice. The Riverside Church has a remarkable legacy of faith in public life, from Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic 1967 address to generations of congregants who have gathered there to imagine a more just world....
Dear Reader, We are turning a new page at the Center for Faith and Justice, and we want you to be among the first to hear about an important next step: CFJ is now an independent nonprofit. The change may sound administrative; what it makes possible is not. It gives CFJ a stronger foundation from which our work can grow and evolve. We are especially grateful to City Church San Francisco, whose creative vision helped make CFJ’s work possible and brought us to this milestone. What will not...
February 2026 Faith and Justice Awarded Key Role in $5M Lilly Endowment Storytelling Grant The Center for Faith and Justice is honored to serve as a key partner in a collaborative project awarded a $5 million grant from the Lilly Endowment. As part of the National Faith Storytelling Initiative, this effort builds on a theological framework we have cultivated for many years, centered on the pluriformity of the Gospel endings, to launch FIRE: Multivocal Expressions of Faith. FIRE seeks to...