Liz Theoharis

Books

You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take: Lessons From the Movement to End Poverty

by The Rev. Dr Liz Theoharis & Noam Sandweiss-Back

Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, one of the nation’s leading anti-poverty organizers and moral voices, and her co-author, Noam Sandweiss-Back, argue it is possible to abolish poverty. But this won’t happen through the goodwill of the powerful or the charitable actions of well-meaning people alone. It will happen through a mass movement, open to all, and led by the poor themselves.

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We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor

Edited by Liz Theoharis and Charon Hribar

Broadleaf Press, September 9, 2025 (available for pre-order now)

A book of prayers, rituals, and liturgies that grows out of communities committed to abolishing poverty.

Prayer has long sustained movements for social change. Ritual gives shape to our desire for justice, and liturgy lends power to our work. In We Pray Freedom, we learn from activists and movement builders the songs, stories, and ritual practices that keep them going for the long haul.

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Articles & Interviews

How prayer, ritual and culture are sustaining the movement for liberation in times of crisis

Liturgies of liberation offer “a shared moral vision for a better world.”

Faith & Leadership
By Liz Theoharis & Charon Hribar
July 22, 2025

In a world consumed by political polarization, economic crises and rising violence, there is a growing hunger for spiritual practices that do not retreat from reality but help us face it with courage, clarity and collective action. In this moment, the resurgence of ritual, prayer and cultural arts within social movements offers more than comfort and belonging; it provides strategy, sustenance and a shared moral vision for a better world.

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Winning Hearts and Minds

The Struggle to Thrive and Not Just Barely Survive in Trump’s America

Tom Dispatch 
By Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back 
July 20, 2025

Most days, in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Bible Belt, the old sanctuary at Christ Lutheran Church sits empty. Decades ago, it was home to a congregation of 3,000 people. By the late 1990s, that number had dwindled to seven. At the turn of the millennium, Jody Silliker, a young minister fresh out of seminary, was sent to shutter the downtown church, a mile from the state legislature in Harrisburg.

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The War on Trans People

And What It Means in the Age of Trump

Tom Dispatch
By Aaron Scott, Liz Theoharis and Moses Hernandez McGavin
June 3, 2025

This year, Pride Month arrives at an especially dire moment for the LGBTQ+ community. Under the second Trump administration, homophobic vitriol and violence are on the rise. On Elon Musk’s X platform, a “deepfake” video of Donald Trump canceling Pride Month has gone viral.

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How to fight back against Trump? Look to poor people’s movements

Anti-poverty activism has provided a model for transformational power, based on four strategic principles

The Guardian
by Rev Dr Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back
June 1, 2025

For tens of millions of people, Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is a grotesque nightmare. The proposed legislative cuts, including historic attacks on Medicaid and Snap, come at a time when 60% of Americans already cannot make ends meet.

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Interview: A Better World radio show with McNair Ezzard

A Better World radio show on WPVM FM
With McNair Ezzard
May 25, 2025
Asheville, North Carolina

Millions of people know that a world of injustice, poverty and oppression are no longer sustainable. Groups across America are working to change this type of world. One such powerful group is the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice in New York. For the last twenty years, Kairos has grown into a national network of grassroots, community and religious leaders and organizations on the front lines of struggles against systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and militarism.

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Interview: Getting organised to fight poverty

Poverty Unpacked podcast
April 26, 2025

Ending poverty requires mass movements. Charitable actions by individuals can make an important difference but are ultimately a drop in the bucket. Real change only happens when people come together and stand up against the injustice of poverty. Indeed, there is a long history of organising with notable successes for current day activists to learn from and feel encouraged by.

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About the Author

The Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis is a theologian, pastor, author, and anti-poverty activist. She is the Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice and Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Rev. Dr. Theoharis has been organizing in poor and low-income communities for the past 30 years. Her books include: You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty (Beacon, 2025), We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor (Broadleaf Press, 2025) and Always with Us?: What Jesus Really Said about the Poor (Eerdmans, 2017) and she has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, Sojourners and elsewhere. Rev. Dr. Theoharis is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and teaches at Union Theological Seminary. She has been awarded the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum, the Selma Bridge Award, the Women of Spirit Award from the Presbyterian Church (USA) and many others.