Grace Spring Forum Online with Lenny Duncan — United States of Grace: Celebrate Pride
Monday, June 7, 2021
"The dreamers—those of us still engaged in building and often rebuilding the promises and vision of this country, those of us who are wrestling… we are America. We are the America that I'm writing about." — Rev. Lenny Duncan
At thirteen, Lenny Duncan was a poor, queer Black teenager from Race Street in West Philadelphia, who climbed aboard a Greyhound bus and left his family behind. What Duncan found, in small towns and big cities across America, is what makes his new memoir so rich, so heartbreaking and so surprisingly patriotic.
Lenny Duncan is a pastor of the Jubilee Collective, a community in Vancouver, Washington; the board chaplain for ReconcilingWorks; and the author of Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US and United States of Grace: A Memoir of Homelessness, Addiction, Incarceration, and Hope.
Each year the cathedral chooses a theme for inspiration and reflection, and in 2021 our theme is healing. Join Dean Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation with Duncan about America, and survival, hope and grace.
Support the author and local booksellers — buy his books at The Collective – Oakland. #TheForum #USofGrace
About the guest
LENNY DUNCAN (he/him) is a writer, witness, agitator, and pastor of the Jubilee Collective, a community in Vancouver, Washington, where he lives, organized around the idea that maybe Jesus is an anti-racist and loves queer, trans, and two-spirited people, too. Duncan has spent time in all 48 contiguous states, sleeping by the side of the highway or in penthouses along the way. His first book, Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US (2019), was a surprise hit for his publisher. Duncan is the board chaplain for ReconcilingWorks. He has been featured on NPR's Morning Edition and Code Switch.
About the host
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young is the dean of Grace Cathedral. He is the author of The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau and The Invisible Hand in Wilderness: Economics, Ecology, and God, and is a regular contributor on religion to the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner.
About The Forum
The Forum is a series of stimulating conversations about faith and ethics in relation to the important issues of our day. We invite inspiring and illustrious people to sit down for a real conversation with the Forum's host, Malcolm Clemens Young, the dean of Grace Cathedral, and with you. Our guests range from artists, inventors and philosophers to pop culturists and elected officials, but the point of The Forum is singular: civil, sophisticated discourse that engages minds and hearts to think in new ways about the world. https://gracecathedral.org/the-forum/
