‘We Pray Freedom’

LOUISVILLE — The Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and Dr. Charon Hribar, editors of an upcoming book on liturgies and rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor, were the guests last week on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast.” The two were on for an hour with hosts the Rev. Lee Catoe and Simon Doong. Listen here.

Theoharis and Hribar both work at the Kairos Center for Religion, Rights and Social Justice in New York City, which includes the Freedom Church of the Poor. Theoharis, a PC(USA) pastor, co-founded the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Their book “We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor,” will be published Sept. 9. Theoharis used the book while leading worship last month at the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School.

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The hosts asked their guests this question: What are the roles of prayers, rituals and liturgies in movements and efforts to abolish poverty? What are emotional, spiritual and practical ways they enhance those efforts?

In part, it’s because “people need ways to connect and feel grounded in community, especially in these really hard moments when communities all over the country are in crisis and are feeling isolated and scared,” Theoharis said. “They need to have spaces where people can find joy, hope and inspiration, and find places to grieve and mourn the tragedies that are happening. That’s the role prayers and rituals and liturgies play in our movement.”

The book “lifts up different stories of communities all over the country that are enacting these kinds of practices,” she said. “We’re not alone in this. We have the power to keep persevering and building through this kind of work.”

“Too often … we confine prayer and liturgy either to a one-on-one relationship between us and God, or to be inside structures and systems in church walls,” Hribar said. In Hribar’s 30 years doing grassroots antipoverty organizing, “we have found some of the most sacred and meaningful and closest relationships with God and with others and God’s Creation were outside those confined conversations between me and God, outside of church structures and systems.”

By compiling the resources and describing the community they came from, “We can find what is sacred and holy and puts us closer to other people and the Divine when we’re out in the streets protesting or coming together to lament and mourn — when we’re building and overcoming barriers and divisions in society,” Hribar said. “That actually is holy work in and of itself, and a place where prayer and liturgy emerges from.”

One example is the Rev. Tonny Algood, a friend who’s been doing anti-poverty and organizing work his entire life, Hribar said. Algood began bringing Communion to homeless encampments “and created the space for forgiveness and community-building outside those church walls,” Hribar noted. “There is all kinds of reconciliation that can come when we don’t confine liturgy to one place.”

Theoharis mentioned a Memorial Day action taken at a congressional office building in Washington, D.C., in which marchers presented demands and read the names of people killed in war and also by “the structural violence of poverty,” she said, including lack of health care and housing. They then proceeded down the halls singing “We remember you, we remember you.”

“Just singing that with that many people … with it ringing through the hallways over and over, watching the congressional aides and others coming out of their offices and saying, ‘What is going on?’” Theoharis said. “Maybe if we were doing other things, they wouldn’t have been engaged or drawn to figure out why these people are singing these very clear, specific words and reading people’s names.”

“I think there’s something about the way we can incorporate these practices into our movements,” Theoharis said. “We invite them to say, ‘You have a role in this too.’ These practices really have a space to do that.”

The Bible has many stories with their roots in protest, including Mary’s Magnificat, Theoharis said. Miriam is also known for her song. Taken together, they are an antidote to the “very powerful and formidable people and forces who have co-opted and captured the faith” and have forgotten “these radical roots, forgotten that the Bible is story after story of people yearning to be free.” Today, movement people of faith “organize mighty marches and protests” to “make the world into an image of justice and abundance, not the way of empire.”

Liturgy is by definition the work of the people, Hribar noted.

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One story in the book describes a community garden in Brooklyn, New York. During the Covid pandemic, the garden became a meeting space for domestic workers. When they gathered, they sang, prayed, danced, “and grew food and handed out bags and bags of it to one another. It was a faithful practice,” Hribar said, “a way to organize and live out what they saw as their faith in the moment.”

“There’s abundance,” Hribar said, “if only we can live it out and take care of one another in doing that.”

Catoe recalled the time his father thought he ordered 40 tomato plants but ended up getting 400. “I will never forget that summer. It built community,” he said. The more he talks to people about what “A Matter of Faith” aims to do, “the more I hear, ‘How about if we just listen to what’s coming out of community?’”

In progressive movement spaces, “there are people who don’t want to talk about [their] faith and spirituality, and that’s a missed opportunity,” Hribar said. Accounts of people’s faith “are throughout the Bible, so why aren’t we talking about this?” Many young people are gravitating toward movement spaces, and they’re looking for well-articulated theology as well as genuine accounts of faith, according to Hribar. “Can you create a space where both of those can exist and we can go back to the deep roots of our traditions? Most of those rituals come out of communities that have struggled before.”

Theoharis says she’s constantly on the lookout “for more people of faith who are willing and able to proclaim that Jesus = justice.” Scripture is clear “that the way we treat our immigrant neighbor is us showing whether we’re going to honor and worship God.” Making sure people have access to health care and that children and young adults can secure their education “aren’t just policy issues. They’re the real moral and ethical and church-centered questions of our day. We are pretty far away from what God requires of us.”

“Shying away from right and wrong when it’s about, ‘Are you including people from all different religious backgrounds, all races and ethnicities, all gender expressions and sexualities?’ — that’s what God cares about and actually judges when we fall short.”

Hribar said the book contains more than 80 contributions “from communities all across the country. It tells both the stories and the contexts of where these rituals come out of” and has resources “we want people to use wherever they are.” A companion website will be launched as the book is published.

At Synod School, which Theoharis used to workshop some of the “We Pray Freedom” resources,  “we had those 600 people singing this new music that has a theology and a commitment to justice. They did all kinds of harmonies as they were learning it,” Theoharis said.

“We really hope that the songs and prayers and liturgies and rituals contained in this resource and many more being produced as we speak can be a glue for people from lots of different faiths, including Christians who love Jesus and justice and who can proclaim that,” Theoharis said. “In the words of a song Charon wrote, ‘From the mountain high to the valley low, we’re gonna organize and organize.’”

A new episode of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” drops every Thursday. Listen to previous ones here.