With Tammy Rosing and Becca Forsyth in rural Pennsylvania and New York State
By Cedar Monroe
Does faith have a larger role in this stage of organizing for transformative social change in the United States? Can a religious strategy help us organize amongst the poor, the most disorganized section of the working class?
Freedom Church of the Poor is asking these questions and providing a working model for such a strategy. In the US, where religious divisions and rhetoric have played a key role in the strategy of the powers-that-be, religion was a vital tool and moral voice in the movement to take down the slave economy, the industrial union movement, and the civil rights / Black Freedom struggle. What role does the battle for the Bible play today amidst the growing power of white Christian nationalism in shaping state and national policy?
As the first of several articles about religious strategy in social movements, I interviewed two ministers from rural areas of Pennsylvania and New York: Tammy Rosing from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and Becca Forsyth from Elmira, New York. Both were recently commissioned through Freedom Church of the Poor, a project of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights & Social Justice, which hosts weekly online worship services and Bible studies.
Tammy has organized with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, with Put People First! PA, the National Union of the Homeless and the Nonviolent Medicaid Army. They bring their work as a minister in Freedom Church of the Poor into all these spaces. Becca just started a chapter of the National Union of the Homeless in Elmira, and has been involved in the Poor People’s Campaign as well. She is also production coordinator for Freedom Church of the Poor.
So why should we engage in a religious strategy?
Blame ourselves, blame our neighbors
The clearest reason to engage in religious strategy in this current moment is because the Bible is a powerful tool of the ruling class, particularly wielded against poor people. Tammy cites a county commissioner who said; “Poverty is a choice.” This is a common element of a distorted moral narrative that blames poor people for their poverty, a belief deeply embedded in American evangelical Christian narratives. They point out; “We are the Bible Belt of Pennsylvania, we have to be prepared to respond, because people get swept up in the distortion of things.”
Tammy points out that the three sectors of our base that are current direct targets are: queer and trans people, undocumented people, and unhoused people. They mentioned the local Pride event last year, when counter protesters spoke, characterizing queer people as the source of the nation’s problems, a view that has been pushed loudly and often by religious televangelists and evangelical preachers. In a County Commissioners meeting in 2024, Tammy got into a discussion with a woman speaking against immigrants, by citing that the Bible, in fact, calls for us to love our neighbors and care for the stranger. This discussion was part of a larger fight in Lancaster County that Tammy wrote about elsewhere.
Becca notes the importance of “fighting white Christian nationalism, the biggest threat we face right now.” She notes the ways that family members see the turmoil in the Middle East as a sign that “this is our time, the opening of the Book of Revelation” and hope for the return of Jesus. This widespread theology that not only justifies global war, and genocide in Palestine, also places hope in a future outside the world we now live in.
Perhaps the deeper element of ruling class strategy is to make poor people believe that their suffering is a result of personal failing. This belief in personal failing can be even more intense in poor white communities, where Becca notes that the racist phrase; “If you are free, white, and over 21, you should be able to do whatever you want” has been taught to whole generations of white men. Her husband suffers from viral encephalitis and saw his debilitating illness not as the result of mosquito-borne illness driven by climate change and environmental destruction, but as his fault — as God’s punishment for doing something wrong.
The ruling class has been wildly successful in convincing poor and dispossessed people that their suffering is their own fault, a result of their own personal failings. This enables the ruling class to continue to extract labor and resources for capital accumulation, without significant, united challenge. The more they can convince poor people to blame themselves for their conditions, the less likely the poor will organize against the ruling class.
Unfortunately, those who point this out often become targets. Both Becca and Tammy report conflict and threats from local officials who oppose their work and political education. A local politician, who is also a pastor, has been consistently attacking Becca’s work with the homeless union and harassing her for organizing with what he calls the ‘voluntarily unhoused’. “Calling things out,” says Becca, “puts a target on your back.”
A theology of liberation
The Freedom Church of the Poor frames part of their work as engaging in the “Battle for the Bible.” In other words, if the powers-that-be use the Bible to convince the poor and dispossessed to blame themselves and hope for the end of the world, then a key organizing strategy is to interpret the Bible in a way to provide resources and hope. Reading the Bible through a historical lens that centers the leadership of the poor and marginalized provides a powerful counter narrative to those who would use it to defend and maintain the status quo.
Tammy notes: “When I talk about Jesus, people don’t even know how to respond to me… Jesus was taking on the Roman empire, that’s why they crucified him.” They recall being in a homeless encampment handing out food and going up to a church youth group that was also visiting. The purpose of the youth group was different: they wanted to “save souls for eternity, because suffering now is temporary.” Tammy challenged them to think about what they might do right now, because people are out here suffering and sleeping on the streets.
While religion in the hands of the ruling class attempts to keep people focused on an afterlife, the Bible actually has a lot to say about people’s material conditions and the rights of the poor. Becca says that “the Bible is the strongest organizing book ever written.” She frames the apostles as community organizers who met people where they were, carrying on Jesus’ commitment to organize the poor and dispossessed under the Roman Empire.
Interpreting the Bible in this way has a long history. Black enslaved workers and abolitionists framed their fight for freedom against the Southern Slave Power as a Biblical and a moral struggle. They used the stories of the Bible and the words of Jesus to develop their own demands for freedom. Latin American campesinos did the same in revolutionary movements of the second half of the twentieth century, relying on Catholic Social Teaching and a materialist reading of the Bible.
Studying the Bible in this way is a powerful form of political education that can especially speak to people in the Bible Belt. In her organizing, Becca uses methods like lectio divina, encouraging people to reflect on and apply Biblical passages to their own life and material conditions. Tammy finds language like “abolishing poverty” as providing an entry point for learning and education in poor communities, beginning with the work of Jesus himself.
It makes strategic sense to use this reverence for the text and the story of Jesus to reflect on people’s material conditions and revolutionary potential. The Bible, after all, says a lot more about the leadership of poor people than the theologies hijacked by the ruling class. Jesus was undisputedly a poor man among poor people, telling them they were worthy. For poor people in the U.S., this is a powerful message. We have several centuries of interpretations of Black enslaved workers and of Latin American campesinos – and they have a continued message to the poor and dispossessed in the U.S. today.
Houses of worship, projects of survival
Projects of survival, a tactic developed by the Black Panther Party, offer support for poor and dispossessed people while emphasizing that our material needs ultimately cannot be met without a fundamental transformation of society. From breakfast and feeding programs, to shelters and free medical clinics, projects of survival provide these kinds of direct assistance while also organizing people into a broader political project. Tammy notes that these efforts could build “a modern-day underground railroad ” particularly around the three most targeted sectors of our base: undocumented, queer and trans, and unhoused folks.
While any community space can do this work, houses of worship generally have significant access to funding, volunteers, and infrastructure like buildings and land. They often function as some of the only so-called “third spaces” in a community– that is, spaces where people can gather without having to pay a fee. Tammy points out that this can also be a “good opportunity to get all kinds of faith leaders, and people whose spirituality is important to them, in a good space and incorporate leadership development.”
Projects of survival can also help confront the tendency of liberal churches and charity efforts to engage in a savior complex. “They can’t envision the poor organizing themselves and underestimate us,” reflects Tammy. “We don’t need saviors, we need folks to follow our leadership.”
Clergy can also play a role in strategic support. In the U.S., clergy are able to go into courtrooms as witnesses, visit jails and prisons, and call on rights to religious freedom to feed and care for struggling people. Having licenced ministers in the Freedom Church of the Poor, and allied clergy from established denominations and faith traditions, can give leaders more access to people. Becca noted how powerful it was to have clergy show up in Elmira when people were facing charges for violating the city’s camping ban and sit in the courtroom. This allows movement leaders the ability to both be a moral witness and to organize people who are being targeted. Such public moves also provide moments of political education that can be used in the movement going forward.
There’s a better way waiting
Amidst rising attacks on our communities and deepening economic despair, it is more critical than ever to build a broad-based movement to end poverty led by the poor — and history shows that waging the battle for the Bible is an essential component of that process. Leaders like Tammy Rosing and Becca Forsyth and projects like Freedom Church of the Poor provide a powerful model for how to put this into practice. As Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the political operators who serve them lean even more into their divide and conquer strategy, poor people’s movements can work to beat them at their own game, reclaiming religion and morality for those whose fight for survival.
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Cedar Monroe organized in Washington State with the Poor People’s Campaign and served as a chaplain to folks experiencing homelessness and incarceration for over a decade. He is currently on the University of the Poor Journal’s Editorial Committee and a PhD student living in Cork, Ireland.
Featured image by David Greene, used with permission.
