At 5:15pm ET tomorrow, August 20, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove & I will host Texas Representatives James Talarico & Venton Jones for a live conversation. Download the Substack app to join us live. We’ll send a video to Our Moral Moment subscribers afterwards.
Throughout my life, as I have watched the principalities and powers of the world shift and change, I have tried to take time in every season to discern what this particular moment demands. When I accepted the call to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ more than 40 years ago, I understood that my life’s work would be to proclaim good news to the poor. I have done that as a local pastor, as an NAACP state chapter President, as a national moral leader, and as a bishop of the church universal. At every stage of my life, I have tried to discern my assignment by re-reading Luke 4 in the current context.
The gospel I preach is the good news to the poor that Jesus proclaimed. As a citizen of the United States today, I know that Donald Trump’s authoritarian regime is an existential threat to all of us, but especially to poor people and low-wage workers here in my country and around the world. I cannot be true to my calling to preach good news to the poor without directly challenging MAGA’s madness.
As a preacher I have always been clear that the gospel is political, but it is not partisan. I am a registered Independent, and I have stayed out of partisan politics for decades to speak to the moral issues that matter to Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
But in this moment I recognize that the context of an authoritarian regime demands a clarity that traditional nonpartisan campaigns sometimes lack. We must be clear: the MAGA movement aims to undermine American democracy through the Republican Party. While many Republicans have tried to resist this, they have lost their party to an authoritarian regime. Republican leadership is complicit in immoral policy violence and must be challenged directly. And Democrats must be pushed to fight back and lead an opposition that can not only defeat the Trump regime but also reconstruct a society that works for all of us.
So I want to be clear that I will oppose extremists who have been taking over the Republican Party since the Southern Strategy. And I will support Democrats who are serious about addressing poverty and low-wages, voting rights, healthcare, just immigration, equality, human rights, and establishing justice. I will do this as a Christian to resist the heresy of so-called religious nationalism that has misled so-many fellow Christians to support Republicans even as they betray our most fundamental values.
This is why I have joined the leadership of the Save America Movement and will act in that capacity to oppose Republicans who are undermining American institutions and support Democrats who embrace the agenda of poor and low-income people and fight for an America where everyone can thrive.
It is also why I joined my friend Senator Bernie Sanders’ Fight OligarchyTour in Asheville, North Carolina. I wanted to share this invitation to join a nonviolent love army with you. There are, no doubt, many battalions forming. Each of us must join where we are and bring what we have. But we cannot stay on the sidelines. Now is the time to do what we can to save America and build a movement that can reconstruct democracy.
Deep thanks, Rev. William Barber, for your great vision and courageous ongoing focus, like Jesus, on poor and low income, including disabled people! Yes, for 40 years now. As an elder Senior I have witnessed throughout my life that American leaders and spokesmen— at best mention the “middle class”. Even when Barack Obama was president he omitted references to poor and low income people. Only the “middle class”. No wonder so many of us don’t bother to vote and don’t see a real difference between the two parties. We’ve been overlooked and invisible and apparently, less than human and not worth mention even to Dems and so-called liberals. Like you, Sen. Bernie Sanders has consistently cared about the lives and needs of low income working class Americans. Bernie’s wife, Jane, is beautifully and authentically caring, too. God surely knows and cares and loves the least of these, the most vulnerable.
I have seen the fear in the eyes of men in brown skins, who travel in pairs to do business outside the neighborhood where they reside. One of the two scans the environment for potential ICE encroachment, while the other conducts business. Immigrant enclaves live under extreme stress and cruelty today. When their rights and human decency is challenged, so is mine. The Holy family fled from an insecure tyrant who did not hold back violence and death on innocents. Many of our immigrants thought they were escaping capricious and dangerous chaos. They did not anticipate arriving to face similar governmental behaviors again. And I didn’t expect my government to become so oppressive - I don’t recognize my country as it has developed over the last six months. The struggles of my neighbors, to live safely in freedom in the broader society, with similar responsibilities and accountabilities, are not separate from mine. I do not want human rights and dignity trampled. I cannot abide it when my neighbor’s rights and protections are unjustifiably stripped away, because we either share the same boat together or we will surely drown separately.