Source: The New York Times
Chapel Hill, N.C. — The first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump featured plenty of magical thinking, but it was a nonreligious event. Neither candidate mentioned God. The second debate may be no different: Voters see Mr. Trump as either a prophet or an angel of death, but the only religion that interests him is his own faith in his “winning temperament.”
As to Mrs. Clinton: The news stories that have dogged her — the email server; Benghazi; the “basket of deplorables” quote — don’t have much to do with religion. She has been private about her Methodist faith, and no earnest Sunday school memories will sway voters who view her as fundamentally untrustworthy.
Yet religion helps explain why Mrs. Clinton has struggled to unite the Democratic base. I’m not talking about the faithful who look for the resurrection of Bernie Sanders, but a real left-wing religious revival. Its prayers, preaching and theological battles look very much like the revival that energized the civil rights movement a half-century ago. Today’s revival is divided against itself, as it was back then.
This revival’s more moderate leaders can’t corral the young radicals who want revolution and who reject not just the Democratic nominee, but the basic assumptions of modern politics. The clash goes deeper than policy or strategy. It is a theological rift: Is religion founded in submission to unchanging principles or is it a protean revolutionary force, a tool of self-empowerment?
I live in North Carolina, ground zero of the Moral Monday movement, a protest campaign against cuts to public funding, voting restrictions, discriminatory laws and other state legislation. Led by the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, a minister and president of the North Carolina N.A.A.C.P., this is a civil rights movement modeled on the prophetic preaching and nonviolent tactics of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his allies.
Dr. Barber’s Moral Monday rallies are religious spectacles, featuring clergy from various faiths, a liturgy of sermons and songs — and more than 900 arrests of nonviolent protesters since the rallies began three years ago. When Dr. Barber marched in Charlotte last month after the police there shot Keith Scott, he condemned violent protest but alsodenounced anyone who ignored the “systemic violence” of racism and poverty.
“America has claimed to be founded on deep moral traditions, constitutional, religious and otherwise,” Dr. Barber told me. “We need a recovery of that kind of conversation in the public square.” He has taken this call for revival to a national stage, collaborating with Dr. James A. Forbes Jr., senior minister emeritus of Riverside Church in New York City, and other progressive Christian leaders to start a national tour called simply The Revival. (Their next event, on Monday, is in Minneapolis.)
Categories: America, Religion, The Muslim Times, USA