People of faith are helping lead the charge for housing justice in California! On November 15, Bethlehem Lutheran Church and Pastor Todd Benson were featured in a major piece in California’s premiere news outlet.
We in the PICO California network are making great strides together and people are taking notice; and it’s all due to the tireless work of you – our leaders, organizers, and clergy – who are bringing a prophetic and powerful vision for housing, racial, and economic justice to your neighbors, congregations, and communities.
Leaders like Pastor Todd whose sermons to the congregants at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in West Oakland invoke sacred lessons from the Christian Gospels to a community afflicted by poverty and housing insecurity inspiring them to dream of and work towards something better for their families.
The piece in the Los Angeles Times written by noted narrative journalist Paloma Esquivel weaves together housing, faith, race, history, power, and the future of spirituality to tell the rich story of Bethlehem Lutheran and the Home is Sacred campaign.
Stories like this lift up our critical work to those not in our network – many of whom struggle with the same systems of oppression we are aiming to make more just but don’t know where to begin or where to look to harness their own power and begin creating change.
Through the stories of Pastor Todd, Bethlehem Lutheran, and so many leaders like him, we can stoke Californians to imagine the world as it can be and not just as it is, informing them of how powerful faith and love can be in the long arc towards justice.
