Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr, a new civil rights leader takes center stage- Rev.Dr. Barber

[octoberlib]

Barber is at his magnetic best again, offering a thundering rebuke. “It hurts me to say the so-called Values Summit is not about Judeo-Christian values; it’s not about Christianity, but about the values of the heretical, rhetorical extremism, funded by a whole lot of money,” he says. “Their values are cash and not Christ. Greed and not grace.



“But I do not have any deep hatred for the president, because there is so much potential for good. I love him as a human being. But I can’t like, because what the president did was irreligious and irreverent. You can’t go boasting about taking people’s healthcare. That’s not Christian.”Barber views this new movement not just as a challenge to the extremist Republicanism embodied by Trump’s presidency, but also to what he describes as “white evangelicalism and its connection to white nationalism”.

This hardline Christianity has arguably been the dominant religious force in US rightwing politics for decades. White evangelicals are the religious group most likely to vote Republican, holding substantial voting blocks in swing states such as Florida, and they voted overwhelmingly for Trump, following a string of high-profile endorsements from denomination leaders who were buoyed by his commitment to rolling back access to abortion and protecting the second amendment. However, Barber, a mainstream Protestant, brands it a “heretical form and presentation of faith to cover up for people’s greed and desire for power”.

The Bible, after all, he says, contains little on abortion, which 70% of evangelicals think should be illegal in most or all cases, or homosexuality – the majority of the denomination disapprove of same-sex marriage – but has thousands of passages on how to treat the disenfranchised.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/25/william-barber-martin-luther-king-jr-civil-rights-leader