God once declared everything in the world “very good.” Can you imagine it? A Vision of Hope for a Broken World Shalom is what God declared. Shalom is what the Kingdom of God looks like. Shalom is when all people have enough. It’s when families are healed. It’s when churches, schools, and public policies protect human dignity. Shalom is when the image of God is recognized in every single human. Shalom is our calling as followers of Jesus’s gospel. It is the vision God set forth in the Garden and the restoration God desires for every relationship. What can we do to bring shalom to our nations, our communities, and our souls? Through a careful exploration of biblical text, particularly the first three chapters of Genesis, Lisa Sharon Harper shows us what “very good” can look like today, even after the Fall. Because despite our anxious minds, despite division and threats of violence, God’s vision remains: Wholeness for a hurting world. Peace for a fearful soul. Shalom.

“On these pages, the Garden of Eden meets the world we live in.” – Shane Claiborne, activist and author God once declared everything in the world “very good.” Can you imagine it? Through careful exploration of the biblical text, particularly the first three chapters of Genesis, Lisa Sharon Harper shows us what “very good” can look like today—in real time. Shalom is what God declared. Shalom is what the Kingdom of God looks like. Shalom is when all people are treated equitably and have enough. It’s when families are healed. It’s when churches, schools, and public policies protect human dignity. Shalom is when the image of God is recognized, protected, and cultivated in every single human. It is the vision God set forth in the Garden and the restoration God desires for every broken relationship. Shalom is the “very good” in the gospel. Because despite our anxious minds, despite divisions, and despite threats of violence, God’s vision remains: wholeness for a fragmented world. Peace for a hurting soul. Shalom.

God once declared everything in the world "very good." Can you imagine it' A Vision of Hope for a Broken World Shalom is what God declared. Shalom is what the Kingdom of God looks like. Shalom is when all people have enough. It's when families are healed. It's when churches, schools, and public policies protect human dignity. Shalom is when the image of God is recognized in every single human. Shalom is our calling as followers of Jesus's gospel. It is the vision God set forth in the Garden and the restoration God desires for every relationship. What can we do to bring shalom to our nations, our communities, and our souls' Through a careful exploration of biblical text, particularly the first three chapters of Genesis, Lisa Sharon Harper shows us what "very good" can look like today, even after the Fall. Because despite our anxious minds, despite division and threats of violence, God's vision remains: Wholeness for a hurting world. Peace for a fearful soul. Shalom.

A new breed of evangelicals, with a fiery passion for economic justice, racial reconciliation and a care for the environment, has abandoned the religious right. Harper, a rising star in this movement, describes the roots of this political shift, the agents of change driving it and the extent of the evangelical rejection of the right-wing political agenda. Here, Harper offers a powerful indictment of the religious right demonstrating how it has abandoned the gospel in its racist and sexist core beliefs.

This is the story of a young man infected the AIDS virus by his parents.

"Extraordinary. . . . Let this story of family, race, and resistance create anger in your spirit and ultimately inspire your heart to join the work to heal our nation and eventually our world."--Otis Moss III (from the foreword) Drawing on her lifelong journey to know her family's history, leading Christian activist Lisa Sharon Harper recovers the beauty of her heritage, exposes the brokenness that race has wrought in America, and casts a vision for collective repair. Harper has spent three decades researching ten generations of her family history through DNA research, oral histories, interviews, and genealogy. Fortune, the name of Harper's first nonindigenous ancestor born on American soil, bore the brunt of the nation's first race, gender, and citizenship laws. As Harper traces her family's story through succeeding generations, she shows how American ideas, customs, and laws robbed her ancestors--and the ancestors of so many others--of their humanity and flourishing. Fortune helps readers understand how America was built upon systems and structures that blessed some and cursed others, allowing Americans of European descent to benefit from the colonization, genocide, enslavement, rape, and exploitation of people of color. As Harper lights a path through national and religious history, she clarifies exactly how and when the world broke and shows the way to redemption for us all. The book culminates with a powerful and compelling vision of truth telling, reparation, and forgiveness that leads to Beloved Community. It includes a foreword by Otis Moss III, illustrations, and a glossy eight-page black-and-white insert featuring photos of Harper's family.

Why do people have a common faith but different political loyalties? How does the Christian faith shape how we should vote and participate in the political process? In Left Right and Christ, authors DC Innes (on the right) and Lisa Sharon Harper (on the left) discuss and explore how the Christian faith speaks directly to American politics today, but with different understanding and applications. Addressing Questions like: Does God care about politics? Should we? Is it the government's role to take care of the sick? Does a free country mean that everyone is free to come here? Is the earth so fragile that the government should step in to protect it?