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About Jacqui

The Rev. Dr. Jacqueline J. Lewis, PhD, uses her gifts as author, activist, preacher, and public theologian toward creating an antiracist, just, fully welcoming society in which everyone has enough. Jacqui was honored as the Franklin D. Roosevelt Institute Freedom of Worship Laureate in 2025, joining the ranks of noted leaders like the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Bishop William Barber and Sister Simone Campbell. She is a Democracy Fellow at the Public Religion Research Institute.  

After graduating with an M.Div. with honors from Princeton Theological Seminary, Jacqui was ordained in the PCUSA and fell in love with urban ministry. She led three collaborating churches in Trenton, New Jersey, on a journey to become multiracial communities. Intrigued by how faith can heal souls and transform the world, she returned to graduate school and earned both an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in Psychology and Religion from Drew University. Jacqui's research brought her to study the cultural diversity at Middle Church. Middle Church called her to join the staff in January 2004, and she became Senior Minister in 2005. Middle is the church of her dreams—a Christian universalist, multicultural, multiethnic rainbow coalition building a more just society with worship, education, activism, and the arts. Middle Church understands what Jacqui preaches: Love liberates. Love. Period.

In her activism, organizing, preaching, speaking, writing, and teaching, Jacqui advocates for global peace, racial equality, religious freedom, gun control, economic justice, equal rights for all genders/sexual orientations, and a multiethnic democracy in which vote and voice matter. Because of her dynamic leadership, Middle Church was featured in a national broadcast on CBS. A Bold New Love: Christmas Eve with Middle Collegiate Church aired on December 24, 2018, to more than 1,000,000 viewers. Jacqui has been a frequent commentator on NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNOW, and PBS, and on National Public Radio. Jacqui created two national television programs: Just Faith, an on-demand television program on MSNBC.com, and Chapter and Verse at PBS. She has been featured in documentary Jesus, Crown of Thorns; and in Life Stories, a division of the Kunhardt Film Foundation. Middle Church and Jacqui have been featured in AP, RNS News, The Washington Post, the New York Times, NowThis, The Wall Street Journal and other major periodicals. 

Jacqui has used her womanist theological voice on stages and in pulpits around the globe, including at the Festival of Homiletics, The Children’s Defense Fund’s Haley Farms, The Wild Goose Festival, Princeton Theological Seminary, Drew University, Iliff Seminary, Union Theological Seminary, the Apollo Theater, the Chautauqua Institution, the Low Country Mental Health Conference, the Kripalu Retreat Center, the Center for Action and Contemplation, and the American Church in Paris.

Jacqui’ writing has been featured in periodicals like The Amsterdam News, Essence, and Ebony; in electronic formats like the Huffington Post and her Fierce Love Substack, and in books like Becoming Creoles, and Faith and Reckoning After Trump. She is the author of Ten Essential Strategies for Becoming a Multiracial Congregation; The Power of Stories; You Are So Wonderful! A rhyming celebration of diversity: The Just Love Story Bible, and Fierce Love: A Bold Path to a Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World, which you can order now (hyperlink to fierce love https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/671314/fierce-love-by-rev-dr-jacqui-lewis/)

Jacqui’ podcast, Love. Period. is available on all streaming platforms.

For twenty years, Jacqui has curated an annual justice conference at Middle Church. This year as our nation turns 250 years old, Middle Church offers Freedom Rising: Love and Liberation Now is October 23-25, 2026. https://www.freedomrisingconference.com/

Artists like America Ferrera, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Ani DiFranco; and authors like Marianne Williamson, Frederick Joseph and Brian McLaren have shared the stage with activists like Williiam Barber III, Valarie Kaur and Linda Sarsour; and spiritual leaders like Raphael Warnock, Sharon Brous and Otis Moss III. With Jacqui’s leadership, Middle Church and our partner Freedom Rising have uniquely convened diverse voices of moral courage and revolutionary love for world-healing conversations, connections, and community development. 

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