Pacific School of Religion’s Professor of Practice program is a cross-disciplinary series that brings together leaders from social movements, industry, and the arts in conversation with our students and the public. Our Professor of Practice for the Spring 2023 semester is Nikole Lim, a speaker, educator, author, and founder of Freely in Hope, a nonprofit which equips survivors and advocates to lead in ending sexual abuse.
Lim will join Professor Leonard McMahon’s Pastoral Care for/with Marginalized Bodies class for four free public lectures based around the theme: Building a Violence-Free World: Caring for Survivors of Sexual Violence in our Communities. After each lecture, Professor McMahon and PSR Dean Susan Abraham will enter into conversation with Lim, introducing questions from participants.
Each lecture will center a theme but will incorporate stories from Lim’s work, visual poems by survivors, and contemplative practices to ground body, mind, and soul in the difficulty of the topic.
Lecture 4: Believing in Liberation
In the final lecture in the series, Lim will highlight the importance of recognizing survivors of sexual violence as liberators in our communities. She’ll define survivor leadership and illustrate the importance of listening to the prophetic voices of survivor-leaders. She’ll share organizational models that integrate survivor-led solutions along with steps to move organizations from silencing to uplifting the survivor’s voice.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. — Isaiah 61:3b-4
The public is encouraged to register for one or all of the free lectures using the button below.
Nikole Lim is a speaker, educator, and author of the book, Liberation is Here. Nikole shifts paradigms on how stories are told by platforming voices of the oppressed–sharing stories of beauty arising out of seemingly broken situations. Her heart beats for young women whose voices are silenced by oppression and she desires to see every person realize the transformative power of their own story.
As the Founder and International Director of Freely in Hope, Nikole has been deeply transformed by the powerful, tenacious, and awe-inspiring examples of survivors. Their audacious dreams have informed her philosophy for a survivor-led approach to community transformation. Nikole graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Film Production from Loyola Marymount University and a master’s in Global Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary. She is a student in Embodied Contemplative Psychotherapy through the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science. She is a native of the Bay Area and can often be found buying African fabric on the streets of Nairobi.