People Get Ready: Twelve Jesus-Haunted Misfits, Malcontents, and Dreamers in Pursuit of Justice

About the Author
Peter Slade is professor of the history of Christianity and Christian thought at Ashland University. Slade's first book, Open Friendship in a Closed Society: Mission Mississippi and a Theology of Friendship (Oxford University Press, 2009), is an interdisciplinary study of an ecumenical racial reconciliation initiative in Mississippi. He has been a coeditor of and contributor to two volumes with the Project on Lived Theology: Lived Theology: New Perspectives on Method, Style, and Pedagogy (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Mobilizing for the Common Good: The Lived Theology of John M. Perkins (University Press of Mississippi, 2013).
Shea Tuttle is the author of Exactly as You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers (Eerdmans, 2019), coauthor with Michael G. Long of Phyllis Frye and the Fight for Transgender Rights (Texas A&M University Press, 2022), and coeditor of Can I Get a Witness? Thirteen Peacemakers, Community Builders, and Agitators for Faith and Justice (Eerdmans, 2019).
Jacqueline A. Bussie is the executive director of the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research. She previously taught religion, theology, and interfaith studies at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Her books include The Laughter of the Oppressed (T&T Clark, 2007), which won the national Trinity Prize; Outlaw Christian: Finding Authentic Faith by Breaking the Rules (Thomas Nelson, 2016), which won the 2017 Gold Medal Illumination Award for Christian Living; and Love Without Limits: Jesus' Radical Vision for a Love with No Exceptions (Fortress, 2018).
Meet twelve activists whose faith transformed twentieth-century America.
In a political climate where Christianity is increasingly seen as reactionary, People Get Ready offers a revolutionary alternative. Narrated by some of the most galvanizing voices of the current moment, this collection of succinct and evocative biographies tells the stories of twelve modern apostles who lived the gospel mission and unsettles what we think we know about Christianity’s role in American politics.
As the spiritual successor to Can I Get a Witness?, People Get Ready presents a diverse cast of twentieth-century “saints” who bore witness to their faith with unapologetic advocacy for the marginalized. From novelists to musicians to scientists, these courageous men and women rose to the challenges of their times. Just so, readers will reflect on their legacies in light of the challenges of today.
Contributors: Jacqueline A. Bussie, Carolyn Renée Dupont, Mark R. Gornik, Jane Hong, Ann Hostetler, M. Therese Lysaught, Charles Marsh, Mallory McDuff, Ansley L. Quiros, Daniel P. Rhodes, Peter Slade, Jemar Tisby, Shea Tuttle, and Lauren F. Winner.