Anti-racism/Spiritual Imagination as a Tool for Change
February 13, 2022
Scripture tells us that our spiritual ancestors dreamed of a world where everyone will have what they need to thrive - a world where people are healed, the hungry are fed, captives are liberated, and prisoners are set free. Yet when we look at the pain all around us, this dream can feel far away. In the face of such profound suffering, it can be hard to believe that another world is possible at all. But even when it doesn't feel true, there are so many ways that our faith can be used to bring God's vision of abundance and liberation to fruition. Elle Dowd (she/her) will lead us in a workshop on the role of the Church in our collective liberation and the tool of spiritual imagination as one of the Church's most important contributions to the world.
How can your faith guide you in imagining a world free of racism and to take specific anti-racist action?
Ellie Dowd (she/her)
Elle Dowd (she/her/hers) is a bi-furious recent graduate of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, a current PhD student at the Chicago Theological Seminary, the campus minister of South Loop Campus Ministry and a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Elle has pieces of her heart in Sierra Leone, where her two children were born, and in St. Louis where she learned from the radical, queer, Black leadership during the Ferguson Uprising.
She was formerly a co-conspirator with the movement to #decolonizeLutheranism and currently serves as a board member of the Euro-Descent Lutheran Association for Racial Justice, does community organizing in her city as a board member of SOUL, serves on the Clergy Advocacy Board for Planned Parenthood, writes regularly as part of the vision team for the Disrupt Worship Project, and facilitates workshops in both secular conferences and Christian spaces. In 2021 she published a book with Broadleaf, Baptized in Teargas, about her conversion from a white moderate to an abolitionist is available now in print, e-book, or audiobook.
To get in touch with Elle and to keep up with updates, you can visit her website www.elledowd.com and subscribe to her newsletter.
You can also see her online ministry via Facebook.com/elledowdministry
or follow her on Twitter/SnapChat/Insta @hownowbrowndowd
or on TikTok @elledowdministry
And order her book Baptized in Teargas: From White Moderate to Abolitionist here https://bit.ly/2YICjBf
Or download the audiobook here https://christianaudio.com/baptized-tear-gas-elle-dowd-audiobook-download