The Battle for the Bible: What Jesus Really Said About the Poor
Instructor: Liz Theoharis
Date: Friday, November 12, 1:00 – 6:00 pm | Saturday, November 13, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Format: This two-day intensive course will be held online, through synchronous sessions. Registrants are expected to attend full-time, for both days.
The Bible is often interpreted in ways that justify inaction in the face of poverty, state that poverty is eternal, and claim that if God wanted to end poverty, God would do so. Rarely in our public discussion or our congregations is there reference to the truly radical economic teachings of the Bible and the call for abundant life for absolutely all. Students explore what the Bible really says about the poor, prosperity, and justice and what we are called to do in this moment in history about it. Attention will be paid to passages like “the poor will be with you always”, “if you do not work, you shall not eat”, “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” and other biblical roadblocks for a more just society.
The Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis is Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival with the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. She is the Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary. She is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Rev. Dr. Theoharis is the editor of We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign (Broadleaf Press, October 12, 2021). She is the author of Always with Us?: What Jesus Really Said about the Poor (Eerdmans, 2017) and co-author of Revive Us Again: Vision and Action in Moral Organizing (Beacon, 2018). She has been published in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Guardian, The Nation, The Hill, Boston Review, CNN, Religion News Service, Sojourners, Religion Dispatches, the Grio, La Jornada, Salon, Slate, and elsewhere.