Tom Dispatch
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
May 2, 2023
“In order to fully recover, we must first recover the society that has made us sick.”
I can still hear those prophetic words, now a quarter-century old, echoing through the Church Center of the United Nations. At the podium was David, a leader with New Jerusalem Laura, a residential drug recovery program in North Philadelphia that was free and accessible to people, no matter their insurance and income status.
Dr. Liz Theoharis of the Poor People’s Campaign discusses the role of media in suppressing the working class movement—and how stories of people fighting back can be used to inspire others.
The Real News Network
Interview by Maximillian Alvarez
March 28, 2023
In the midst of the largest strike wave in the US in a century, corporate media is more focused on amplifying the bigotry and fearmongering of right-wing politicians and their base than on covering working class movements.
CNN
by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
March 22, 2023
CNN — “What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?” (Isaiah 3:15, New International Version Bible)
Congressional Republicans have proposed the first of what promises to be a series of bills to limit access to food assistance for needy families.
By Samantha Drake
The Pennsylvania Gazette
February 22, 2023
For Liz Theoharis C’98, activism has been a way of life—from assisting her parents with their justice work, to community service as a Penn undergrad, to cochairing the recent revival of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign of 1968. The Presbyterian minister, social justice leader, and biblical scholar is committed to reframing the narrative around poverty and the poor while pushing for lasting policy changes.
Tom Dispatch
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
February 7, 2023
A few weeks ago, the world’s power brokers — politicians, CEOs, millionaires, billionaires — met in Davos, the mountainous Swiss resort town, for the 2023 World Economic Forum. In an annual ritual that reads ever more like Orwellian farce, the global elite gathered — their private jets lined up like gleaming sardines at a nearby private airport — to discuss the most pressing issues of our time, many of which they are chiefly responsible for creating.
We must resist Christian nationalists’ heretical form of religion, which parallels the “morality” of the Roman Empire that Jesus challenged.
Fellowship Magazine
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
January 17, 2023
Social media was abuzz on the topic of white Christian nationalism for much of the summer, with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene selling T-shirts that proudly proclaim her identity as a Christian nationalist, encouraging followers to join in. As each part of the Jan. 6 hearing unfolded, the influence of white Christian nationalism showed through — whether it’s the Jericho march directly preceding the Jan. 6 attack, or the “crusade” to challenge election results that followed.
By E. West McNeill and Liz Theoharis
Albany Times Union
Dec. 31, 2022
Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency last week as a winter storm of historic proportions bore down on western New York, warning families: “We want all New Yorkers to get where they need to go safely to celebrate the holidays with loved ones.” As we continue to deal with the aftermath of that deadly storm, we would do well to remember the millions of families in New York that were already experiencing the storms of poverty, inequality and policy violence, not to mention those who have nowhere safe to celebrate the holidays.
Tom Dispatch
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
December 20, 2022
Last week, I was in Washington, D.C.’s Union Station. The weather had turned cold and I couldn’t help noticing what an inhospitable place it had become for the city’s homeless and dispossessed. Once upon a time, anyone was allowed to be in the train station at any hour. Now, there were signs everywhere announcing that you needed a ticket to be there. Other warning signs indicated that you could only sit for 30 minutes at a time at the food-court tables, while barriers had been placed where benches used to be to make it that much harder to congregate, no less sit down.
Sojourners
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
November 4, 2022
“Come on, come on, come on! Don’t you want to vote? … Yes, I’m gonna vote … for justice!” was the song that closed out a Zoom rally with hundreds of poor and low-income people, moral leaders, clergy, activists, and advocates who are part of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Yara Allen, co-director of theomusicology and movement arts for the Poor People’s Campaign, led the song as participants registered to text bank five million poor and low-propensity voters before the midterms in order to enliven and enlarge the electorate of low-income voters.
Interview by Union Theological Seminary
November 2022
“We envision a world without poverty, without racism, without the destruction of the earth. This kind of common good is big, but it is completely possible,” Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis urged. “We have no real scarcity. We just have a scarcity of political will and moral consciousness to do the right thing.”
Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis is a Union alumna and serves as Director of the Kairos Center for Religion, Rights, and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary, and Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
