Christian Humanism - The Conflicts of Religious Morality

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/9/21151095/black-women-trump-gop-conservatism-gap-2020

Cornel West Moves Anderson Cooper To Tears

Jun 10, 2020

Dr Cornel West looks at the unrest in the United States

Jun 4, 2020

ABC News (Australia) - Civil right's activist, Harvard Professor

and scholar of African American studies, Dr Cornel West,

discusses the  protests and unrest in the United States.

Cornel West: The Future Of America Depends On How We Respond 

The 11th Hour | MSNBC | Jun 2, 2020

Harvard University professor, author, and thinker Cornel West

joins to discuss the unrest that's broken out across America in the

wake of George Floyd's fatal arrest and the response from

Trump and law enforcement officials. Aired on 6/1/2020.

https://www.history.com/news/equal-rights-amendment-failure-phyllis-schlafly

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was on track to become the 27th amendment

to the U.S. Constitution. Then a grassroots conservative movement halted its momentum.

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It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable.

The Religious Right's movement is a concocted blend of all three in its latest display under Trumpian efficacy for white nationalism and white supremacy supported by the conservative churches of America. How then did the Church of Jesus land on the wrong side of Christian Humanism and social justice?

Historically, it seems the church repeats its error regularly century after century. How odd that its testimony of a God of Love is so exactly opposite its own testimony in social or political vocation. Let's review then the history of how America go here in today's series of articles.

- R.E. Slater

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The Christian Right

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Introduction

The Christian right or the religious right are Christian political factions that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies. Christian conservatives seek to influence politics and public policy with their interpretation of the teachings of Christianity.

In the United States, the Christian right is an informal coalition formed around a core of conservative evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. The Christian right draws additional support from politically conservative mainline Protestants and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The movement has its roots in American politics going back as far as the 1940s and has been especially influential since the 1970s. Its influence draws from grassroots activism as well as from focus on social issues and the ability to motivate the electorate around those issues.

The Christian right is notable for advancing socially conservative positions on issues including school prayer, intelligent design, embryonic stem cell research, homosexuality, euthanasia, contraception, sex education, abortion, and pornography. Although the term Christian right is most commonly associated with politics in the United States, similar Christian conservative groups can be found in the political cultures of other Christian-majority nations.

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Criticism of the Christian Right

Criticisms of the Christian right often come from Christians who believe Jesus' message was centered on social responsibility and social justice. Theologian Michael Lerner has summarized: "The unholy alliance of the Political Right and the Religious Right threatens to destroy the America we love. It also threatens to generate a revulsion against God and religion by identifying them with militarism, ecological irresponsibility, fundamentalist antagonism to science and rational thought, and insensitivity to the needs of the poor and the powerless." Commentators from all sides of the aisle such as Rob Schenck, Randall Balmer, and Charles M. Blow criticized the Christian right for its tolerance and embrace of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election despite Trump's failure to adhere to any of the principles advocated by the Christian right groups for decades.

Interpretation of Christianity

See also: Christian left

One argument which questions the legitimacy of the Christian right posits that Jesus Christ may be considered a leftist on the modern political spectrum. Jesus' concern with the poor and feeding the hungry, among other things, are argued, by proponents of Christian leftism, to be core attributes of modern-day socialism and social justice. However, others contend that while Jesus' concern for the poor and hungry is virtuous and that individuals have a moral obligation to help others, the relationship between charity and the state should not be construed in the same manner.

According to Frank Newport of Gallup, "there are fewer Americans today who are both highly religious and liberal than there are Americans who are both highly religious and conservative." Newport also noted that 52% of white conservatives identify as "highly religious" while only 16% of white liberals identify as the same. However, African-Americans, "the most religious of any major racial or ethnic group in the country", are "strongly oriented to voting Democratic[.]" While observing that African-American Democrats are more religious than their white Democrat counterparts, Newport further noted, however, that African-American Democrats are "much more likely to be ideologically moderate or conservative."

Some criticize what they see as a politicization of Christianity because they say Jesus transcends political concepts.

Mikhail Gorbachev referred to Jesus as "the first Socialist".

Race and diversity

The Christian right has tried to recruit social conservatives in the black church.[126] Prior to the 2016 United States presidential election, African-American Republican Ben Carson emerged as a leader in the Christian right.[127] Other Christian African-Americans who identify with conservatism are Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas,[128] rapper Kanye West,[129] and pastor Tony Evans.

LGBT rights

Whilst the Christian right in the United States is making a tough stand against the progression of LGBT rights, other Christian movements have taken a more lenient approach towards the matter, arguing that the biblical texts only oppose specific types of divergent sexual behaviour, such as paederasty (i.e. the sodomising of young boys by older men). During the Trump administration, there is a growing push for religious liberty bills that would allow individuals and businesses claiming anti-LGBT beliefs that are religious in origin to exempt themselves from obeying anti-discrimination laws intended to protect LGBT people.

Use of dominionism labeling

Some social scientists have used the word "dominionism" to refer to adherence to Dominion Theology as well as to the influence in the broader Christian Right of ideas inspired by Dominion Theology. Although such influence (particularly of Reconstructionism) has been described by many authors, full adherents to Reconstructionism are few and marginalized among conservative Christians. In the early 1990s, sociologist Sara Diamond defined dominionism in her PhD dissertation as a movement that, while including Dominion Theology and Reconstructionism as subsets, is much broader in scope, extending to much of the Christian Right. She was followed by journalists including Frederick Clarkson and Chris Hedges and others who have stressed the influence of Dominionist ideas on the Christian right.

The terms "dominionist" and "dominionism" are rarely used for self-description, and their usage has been attacked from several quarters. Journalist Anthony Williams charged that its purpose is "to smear the Republican Party as the party of domestic Theocracy, facts be damned."Stanley Kurtz labeled it "conspiratorial nonsense," "political paranoia," and "guilt by association", and decried Hedges' "vague characterizations" that allow him to "paint a highly questionable picture of a virtually faceless and nameless 'Dominionist' Christian mass." Kurtz also complained about a perceived link between average Christian evangelicals and extremism such as Christian Reconstructionism:

The notion that conservative Christians want to reinstitute slavery and rule by genocide is not just crazy, it's downright dangerous. The most disturbing part of the Harper's cover story (the one by Chris Hedges) was the attempt to link Christian conservatives with Hitler and fascism. Once we acknowledge the similarity between conservative Christians and fascists, Hedges appears to suggest, we can confront Christian evil by setting aside 'the old polite rules of democracy.' So wild conspiracy theories and visions of genocide are really excuses for the Left to disregard the rules of democracy and defeat conservative Christians – by any means necessary.

Lisa Miller of Newsweek said that many warnings about "dominionism" are "paranoid" and that "the word creates a siege mentality in which 'we' need to guard against 'them.'" Ross Douthat of The New York Times noted that "many of the people that writers like Diamond and others describe as 'dominionists' would disavow the label, many definitions of dominionism conflate several very different Christian political theologies, and there's a lively debate about whether the term is even useful at all." According to Joe Carter of First Things, "the term was coined in the 1980s by Diamond and is never used outside liberal blogs and websites. No reputable scholars use the term for it is a meaningless neologism that Diamond concocted for her dissertation," while Jeremy Pierce of First Things coined the word "dominionismist" to describe those who promote the idea that there is a dominionist conspiracy.

Other criticism has focused on the proper use of the term. Berlet wrote that "some critics of the Christian Right have stretched the term dominionism past its breaking point," and argued that, rather than labeling conservatives as extremists, it would be better to "talk to these people" and "engage them." Sara Diamond wrote that "[l]iberals' writing about the Christian Right's take-over plans has generally taken the form of conspiracy theory", and argued that instead one should "analyze the subtle ways" that ideas like Dominionism "take hold within movements and why."

Dan Olinger, a professor at the fundamentalist Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, said, "We want to be good citizens and participants, but we're not really interested in using the iron fist of the law to compel people to everything Christians should do." Bob Marcaurelle, interim pastor at Mountain Springs Baptist Church in Piedmont, said the Middle Ages were proof enough that Christian ruling groups are almost always corrupted by power. "When Christianity becomes the government, the question is whose Christianity?" Marcaurelle asked.

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Christian democracy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christian democracy is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching, as well as Neo-Calvinism. Christian democratic political ideology advocates for a commitment to social market principles and qualified interventionism. It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ideas and traditional Christian values, incorporating the social teachings espoused by the Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and Pentecostal traditions in various parts of the world. After World War II, the Protestant and Catholic movements of the Social Gospel and Neo-Thomism, respectively, played a role in shaping Christian democracy. Christian democracy continues to be influential in Europe and Latin America, although it is also present in other parts of the world.

In practice, Christian democracy is often considered centre-right on cultural, social and moral issues, and is a supporter of social conservatism, but it is considered centre-left "with respect to economic and labor issues, civil rights, and foreign policy" as well as the environment. Specifically with regard to its fiscal stance, Christian democracy advocates a social market economy.

Worldwide, many Christian democratic parties are members of the Centrist Democrat International and some also of the International Democrat Union. Examples of major Christian democratic parties include the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, the Austrian People's Party, Ireland's Fine Gael, the Christian Democratic Party of Chile, the Aruban People's Party, the Dutch Christian Democratic Appeal, the Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland , the Spanish People's Party and the Nationalist Party in Malta.

Today, many European Christian democratic parties are affiliated with the European People's Party. Those with soft Eurosceptic views in comparison with the pro-European EPP are members of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe, or the more right-wing European Christian Political Movement. Many Christian democratic parties in the Americas are affiliated with the Christian Democrat Organization of America.

Political viewpoints

As a generalization, it can be said that Christian democratic parties in Europe tend to be moderately conservative, and in several cases form the main conservative party in their respective countries (e.g. in Germany, Spain, Belgium, and Switzerland: Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland (CVP), Christian Social Party (CSP), Evangelical People's Party of Switzerland (EVP), and Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU)). In Latin America, by contrast, Christian democratic parties tend to be left-leaning and to some degree influenced by liberation theology. These generalizations, however, must be nuanced by the consideration that Christian democracy does not fit precisely into the usual categories of political thought, but rather includes elements common to several other political ideologies, including conservatism, liberalism, and social democracy.

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Rise of the Religious Right

https://medium.com/@pineappletrivia/rise-of-the-religous-right-d7527f422e78

by pineappletrivia

March 20, 2019

How One Religion Became a Political Powerhouse

[This story was originally published in The Stony Brook Press]

The 2016 presidential election was a nervewracking time to be a Christian. The very fate of the country seemed to be hanging in the balance, and a choice was presented to the people: choose the party of God, or give the country to the morally corrupt. Dedicated church members called their friends, desperately urging them to vote and making sure they would reach out to their friends too. From the pulpits, pleas made by pastors urged whoever was listening to take responsibility for the country and make the “right choice” in the voting booth. Many evangelical pastors in the past have warned against Christians taking an involved stance in politics — so why is the idea of being a Christian so synonymous with being a conservative? Where did this all come from?

The rise of the religious right as a dominant political force isn’t something that appeared overnight. The early ’70s were a boon for Christianity. They were seen as a return to the status quo on the heels of the drugs and spiritualism of the 1960s. New churches were being built and old churches were now full and thriving. One such church was Thomas Road Baptist, led by Pastor Jerry Falwell. During this time, many Christian leaders, spearheaded by Falwell, began urging their congregations to take an active role in politics.

“The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country,” Falwell said from his Thomas Road Baptist pulpit in 1976. “If [there is] any place in the world we need Christianity, it’s in Washington.”

In 1979, Falwell founded the Moral Majority, a political organization focused on electing government officials who supported “Christian values.” The effects of this organization were felt most strongly during the 1980 presidential election. Falwell pushed for every church in America to hold registration drives, urging Christians to vote for his chosen candidates. During his campaign, Ronald Reagan sought the advice of organizations like Moral Majority to appeal to this newfound well of supporters, even appointing the organization’s former executive director, Robert Billings, as an adviser.

After the election, evidence suggested the direct influence of Falwell and his coalition of “the Christian Right” was, at least in part, the cause of his victory. Soon after, the Republican party welcomed its new supporters and adopted policy platforms to cater to them: platforms such as pro-life, abstinence-only sex-ed and support for prayer in schools. Moral Majority disbanded in 1989, but the mantle of a champion for Christian values in politics has been carried by other institutions such as Christian Coalition and Focus on the Family ever since.

The religious right was founded on the marriage of religious values and political ideals. The religious leaders rallied their troops and looked for political leaders to champion. Both Falwell and Billings have passed away and many other prominent pastors have retired or stepped out of the spotlight. The reins were let go. Slowly, they were picked up again by the other side of the movement. Political figures, like Reagan or Bush, espousing their belief in Christ, dominated the conversations between evangelicals and changed their agendas to court their support.

Throughout the ensuing decades, a cultural exchange in political values happened. Republicans cemented a party platform on anti-abortion and Christians developed an opinion on immigration. Slowly, the Republican platform became the de facto Christian platform, for better or worse.

Today, the narrative brought forth by the church is less brazen. The main focus is outreach, to spread the word to as many people as possible. Outsiders are welcomed with open arms. “Come as you are,” they say, “God accepts all.” On the surface, the church appears as it says it is, a welcoming environment for everyone and a place free of any judgment. The church operates under the pretense that it doesn’t endorse political views, but it certainly facilitates them.

Church happens on Sundays, but its members’ lives go on for six more days after that. They go home, read their conservative newspapers, watch their conservative news networks, talk with their conservative friends. On Sunday, it’s all brought to the church once again. The pastor makes a joke about immigrants. Everyone laughs. “Don’t take it too seriously,” they say. “It’s just a joke.” The pastor calls for a prayer meeting after the message. The topic is for our leaders to make the right choices in their governing. It’s a neat trick where nothing is said but everything is understood.

As the Republican party took a heavier hand in guiding the ideas of the religious right, the people’s trust in the party grew implicit. They didn’t need to think hard about their views. They just needed to trust the party they’ve been told Christians voted for. So what if this candidate made a few off-color remarks or some issues on their platform aren’t perfect? At least they were against abortion. This lack of accountability in political thought made a crack. The teachings of the Bible and platform of “The Party of God” started to split.

Years passed and still this disconnect went unchecked. The rise of the right reached its apex in 2000 with the election of George W. Bush. A proud and open born-again Christian was elected to the highest office in the country. Soon after, the September 11 attacks struck at the heart of the nation. For many, this was the first time they had experienced a tragedy of this scale up close and personal. The country was struck to its core and needed to reexamine its identity. All eyes turned to the man in the Oval Office. It was official; the country needed to go to church. God Bless America. The citizens adopted their national identity into their own and to criticize one was to criticize the other. The mission of the modern right was clear. Too long had the country been overrun by moral outliers. The nation was corrupted and it was time to restore it to a time when it was morally just. Make America Great Again.

The modern church encourages you to come as you are, but the people inside demand that if you want to stay, you need to fit in. So much pressure is emphasized on not making trouble. Those who do are dropped and swept under the rug. Openly gay members now find themselves in a hostile environment. They’re still allowed to come, but suddenly their invitation to the after-church luncheon is noticeably absent. Gun control isn’t up for debate. If you try to start, all your friends abruptly have someone else they need to talk to. You can call someone out for their racist or homophobic comment but the frustration will be cast on you for making a scene. The behavior is learned quickly. Fit in or get out. Not by design, but rather a symptom of its own shortcomings, the church slowly molds itself into a homogenized cult of personality where everyone can get along, because everyone shares the same beliefs, inside and outside the church.

This problem has no easy solution. Like Falwell did all the way back in the ’70s, conservative media spins a narrative of moral depravity in society, insisting the Republican philosophy is the only way to set the country on the right track. It drives a wedge between people at a time when a lack of cooperation is the biggest problem plaguing politics today. But it’s hard to fix a problem when no one believes it exists. To many, they’re compartmentalized. Everything in church is religion and this is just politics. Yet white evangelicals account for 70 percent of Trump’s core base. The causes have not gone away, and it seems this problem will only get worse before it gets better, if it ever does. I can only offer the same warnings given by many others: be cautious. Always challenge the reasons for your own beliefs. Don’t accept anything at face value and encourage others to do the same.

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The Real Origins of the Religious Right

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133

by Randall Balmer

May 27, 2014

They’ll tell you it was abortion. Sorry, the historical record’s clear: It was segregation.

*Randall Balmer is the Mandel family professor in the arts and sciences at

Dartmouth College.  His most recent book is Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter.

One of the most durable myths in recent history is that the religious right, the coalition of conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists, emerged as a political movement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. The tale goes something like this: Evangelicals, who had been politically quiescent for decades, were so morally outraged by Roe that they resolved to organize in order to overturn it.

This myth of origins is oft repeated by the movement’s leaders. In his 2005 book, Jerry Falwell, the firebrand fundamentalist preacher, recounts his distress upon reading about the ruling in the Jan. 23, 1973, edition of the Lynchburg News: “I sat there staring at the Roe v. Wade story,” Falwell writes, “growing more and more fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Court’s act and wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.” Evangelicals, he decided, needed to organize.

Some of these anti- Roe crusaders even went so far as to call themselves “new abolitionists,” invoking their antebellum predecessors who had fought to eradicate slavery.

But the abortion myth quickly collapses under historical scrutiny. In fact, it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools. So much for the new abolitionism.

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Today, evangelicals make up the backbone of the pro-life movement, but it hasn’t always been so. Both before and for several years after Roe, evangelicals were overwhelmingly indifferent to the subject, which they considered a “Catholic issue.” In 1968, for instance, a symposium sponsored by the Christian Medical Society and Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, refused to characterize abortion as sinful, citing “individual health, family welfare, and social responsibility” as justifications for ending a pregnancy. In 1971, delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, passed a resolution encouraging “Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” The convention, hardly a redoubt of liberal values, reaffirmed that position in 1974, one year after Roe, and again in 1976.

When the Roe decision was handed down, W. A. Criswell, the Southern Baptist Convention’s former president and pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas—also one of the most famous fundamentalists of the 20th century—was pleased: “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person,” he said, “and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”

Although a few evangelical voices, including Christianity Today magazine, mildly criticized the ruling, the overwhelming response was silence, even approval. Baptists, in particular, applauded the decision as an appropriate articulation of the division between church and state, between personal morality and state regulation of individual behavior. “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision,” wrote W. Barry Garrett of Baptist Press.

***

So what then were the real origins of the religious right? It turns out that the movement can trace its political roots back to a court ruling, but not Roe v. Wade.

In May 1969, a group of African-American parents in Holmes County, Mississippi, sued the Treasury Department to prevent three new whites-only K-12 private academies from securing full tax-exempt status, arguing that their discriminatory policies prevented them from being considered “charitable” institutions. The schools had been founded in the mid-1960s in response to the desegregation of public schools set in motion by the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. In 1969, the first year of desegregation, the number of white students enrolled in public schools in Holmes County dropped from 771 to 28; the following year, that number fell to zero.

In Green v. Kennedy (David Kennedy was secretary of the treasury at the time), decided in January 1970, the plaintiffs won a preliminary injunction, which denied the “segregation academies” tax-exempt status until further review. In the meantime, the government was solidifying its position on such schools. Later that year, President Richard Nixon ordered the Internal Revenue Service to enact a new policy denying tax exemptions to all segregated schools in the United States. Under the provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which forbade racial segregation and discrimination, discriminatory schools were not—by definition—“charitable” educational organizations, and therefore they had no claims to tax-exempt status; similarly, donations to such organizations would no longer qualify as tax-deductible contributions.

On June 30, 1971, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued its ruling in the case, now  Green v. Connally (John Connally had replaced David Kennedy as secretary of the Treasury). The decision upheld the new IRS policy: “Under the Internal Revenue Code, properly construed, racially discriminatory private schools are not entitled to the Federal tax exemption provided for charitable, educational institutions, and persons making gifts to such schools are not entitled to the deductions provided in case of gifts to charitable, educational institutions.”

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Paul Weyrich, the late religious conservative political activist and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, saw his opening.

In the decades following World War II, evangelicals, especially white evangelicals in the North, had drifted toward the Republican Party—inclined in that direction by general Cold War anxieties, vestigial suspicions of Catholicism and well-known evangelist Billy Graham’s very public friendship with Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. Despite these predilections, though, evangelicals had largely stayed out of the political arena, at least in any organized way. If he could change that, Weyrich reasoned, their large numbers would constitute a formidable voting bloc—one that he could easily marshal behind conservative causes.

“The new political philosophy must be defined by us [conservatives] in moral terms, packaged in non-religious language, and propagated throughout the country by our new coalition,” Weyrich wrote in the mid-1970s. “When political power is achieved, the moral majority will have the opportunity to re-create this great nation.” Weyrich believed that the political possibilities of such a coalition were unlimited. “The leadership, moral philosophy, and workable vehicle are at hand just waiting to be blended and activated,” he wrote. “If the moral majority acts, results could well exceed our wildest dreams.”

But this hypothetical “moral majority” needed a catalyst—a standard around which to rally. For nearly two decades, Weyrich, by his own account, had been trying out different issues, hoping one might pique evangelical interest: pornography, prayer in schools, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, even abortion. “I was trying to get these people interested in those issues and I utterly failed,” Weyrich recalled at a conference in 1990.

The Green v. Connally ruling provided a necessary first step: It captured the attention of evangelical leaders , especially as the IRS began sending questionnaires to church-related “segregation academies,” including Falwell’s own Lynchburg Christian School, inquiring about their racial policies. Falwell was furious. “In some states,” he famously complained, “It’s easier to open a massage parlor than a Christian school.”

One such school, Bob Jones University—a fundamentalist college in Greenville, South Carolina—was especially obdurate. The IRS had sent its first letter to Bob Jones University in November 1970 to ascertain whether or not it discriminated on the basis of race. The school responded defiantly: It did not admit African Americans.

Although Bob Jones Jr., the school’s founder, argued that racial segregation was mandated by the Bible, Falwell and Weyrich quickly sought to shift the grounds of the debate, framing their opposition in terms of religious freedom rather than in defense of racial segregation. For decades, evangelical leaders had boasted that because their educational institutions accepted no federal money (except for, of course, not having to pay taxes) the government could not tell them how to run their shops—whom to hire or not, whom to admit or reject. The Civil Rights Act, however, changed that calculus.

Bob Jones University did, in fact, try to placate the IRS—in its own way. Following initial inquiries into the school’s racial policies, Bob Jones admitted one African-American, a worker in its radio station, as a part-time student; he dropped out a month later. In 1975, again in an attempt to forestall IRS action, the school admitted blacks to the student body, but, out of fears of miscegenation, refused to admit  unmarried African-Americans. The school also stipulated that any students who engaged in interracial dating, or who were even associated with organizations that advocated interracial dating, would be expelled.

The IRS was not placated. On January 19, 1976, after years of warnings—integrate or pay taxes—the agency rescinded the school’s tax exemption.

For many evangelical leaders, who had been following the issue since  Green v. Connally, Bob Jones University was the final straw. As Elmer L. Rumminger, longtime administrator at Bob Jones University, told me in an interview, the IRS actions against his school “alerted the Christian school community about what could happen with government interference” in the affairs of evangelical institutions. “That was really the major issue that got us all involved.”

***

Weyrich saw that he had the beginnings of a conservative political movement, which is why, several years into President Jimmy Carter’s term, he and other leaders of the nascent religious right blamed the Democratic president for the IRS actions against segregated schools—even though the policy was mandated by Nixon, and Bob Jones University had lost its tax exemption a year and a day before Carter was inaugurated as president. Falwell, Weyrich and others were undeterred by the niceties of facts. In their determination to elect a conservative, they would do anything to deny a Democrat, even a fellow evangelical like Carter, another term in the White House.

But Falwell and Weyrich, having tapped into the ire of evangelical leaders, were also savvy enough to recognize that organizing grassroots evangelicals to defend racial discrimination would be a challenge. It had worked to rally the leaders, but they needed a different issue if they wanted to mobilize evangelical voters on a large scale.

By the late 1970s, many Americans—not just Roman Catholics—were beginning to feel uneasy about the spike in legal abortions following the 1973  Roe decision. The 1978 Senate races demonstrated to Weyrich and others that abortion might motivate conservatives where it hadn’t in the past. That year in Minnesota, pro-life Republicans captured both Senate seats (one for the unexpired term of Hubert Humphrey) as well as the governor’s mansion. In Iowa, Sen. Dick Clark, the Democratic incumbent, was thought to be a shoo-in: Every poll heading into the election showed him ahead by at least 10 percentage points. On the final weekend of the campaign, however, pro-life activists, primarily Roman Catholics, leafleted church parking lots (as they did in Minnesota), and on Election Day Clark lost to his Republican pro-life challenger.

In the course of my research into Falwell’s archives at Liberty University and Weyrich’s papers at the University of Wyoming, it became very clear that the 1978 election represented a formative step toward galvanizing everyday evangelical voters. Correspondence between Weyrich and evangelical leaders fairly crackles with excitement. In a letter to fellow conservative Daniel B. Hales, Weyrich characterized the triumph of pro-life candidates as “true cause for celebration,” and Robert Billings, a cobelligerent, predicted that opposition to abortion would “pull together many of our ‘fringe’ Christian friends.”  Roe v. Wade had been law for more than five years.

Weyrich, Falwell and leaders of the emerging religious right enlisted an unlikely ally in their quest to advance abortion as a political issue: Francis A. Schaeffer—a goateed, knickers-wearing theologian who was warning about the eclipse of Christian values and the advance of something he called “secular humanism.” Schaeffer, considered by many the intellectual godfather of the religious right, was not known for his political activism, but by the late 1970s he decided that legalized abortion would lead inevitably to infanticide and euthanasia, and he was eager to sound the alarm. Schaeffer teamed with a pediatric surgeon, C. Everett Koop, to produce a series of films entitled  Whatever Happened to the Human Race? In the early months of 1979, Schaeffer and Koop, targeting an evangelical audience, toured the country with these films, which depicted the scourge of abortion in graphic terms—most memorably with a scene of plastic baby dolls strewn along the shores of the Dead Sea. Schaeffer and Koop argued that any society that countenanced abortion was captive to “secular humanism” and therefore caught in a vortex of moral decay.

Between Weyrich’s machinations and Schaeffer’s jeremiad, evangelicals were slowly coming around on the abortion issue. At the conclusion of the film tour in March 1979, Schaeffer reported that Protestants, especially evangelicals, “have been so sluggish on this issue of human life, and  Whatever Happened to the Human Race? is causing real waves, among church people and governmental people too.”

By 1980, even though Carter had sought, both as governor of Georgia and as president, to reduce the incidence of abortion, his refusal to seek a constitutional amendment outlawing it was viewed by politically conservative evangelicals as an unpardonable sin. Never mind the fact that his Republican opponent that year, Ronald Reagan, had signed into law, as governor of California in 1967, the most liberal abortion bill in the country. When Reagan addressed a rally of 10,000 evangelicals at Reunion Arena in Dallas in August 1980, he excoriated the “unconstitutional regulatory agenda” directed by the IRS “against independent schools,” but he made no mention of abortion. Nevertheless, leaders of the religious right hammered away at the issue, persuading many evangelicals to make support for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion a litmus test for their votes.

Carter lost the 1980 election for a variety of reasons, not merely the opposition of the religious right. He faced a spirited challenge from within his own party; Edward M. Kennedy’s failed quest for the Democratic nomination undermined Carter’s support among liberals. And because Election Day fell on the anniversary of the Iran Hostage Crisis, the media played up the story, highlighting Carter’s inability to secure the hostages’ freedom. The electorate, once enamored of Carter’s evangelical probity, had tired of a sour economy, chronic energy shortages and the Soviet Union’s renewed imperial ambitions.

After the election results came in, Falwell, never shy to claim credit, was fond of quoting a Harris poll that suggested Carter would have won the popular vote by a margin of 1 percent had it not been for the machinations of the religious right. “I knew that we would have some impact on the national elections,” Falwell said, “but I had no idea that it would be this great.”

Given Carter’s political troubles, the defection of evangelicals may or may not have been decisive. But it is certainly true that evangelicals, having helped propel Carter to the White House four years earlier, turned dramatically against him, their fellow evangelical, during the course of his presidency. And the catalyst for their political activism was not, as often claimed, opposition to abortion. Although abortion had emerged as a rallying cry by 1980, the real roots of the religious right lie not the defense of a fetus but in the defense of racial segregation.

***

The Bob Jones University case merits a postscript. When the school’s appeal finally reached the Supreme Court in 1982, the Reagan administration announced that it planned to argue in defense of Bob Jones University and its racial policies. A public outcry forced the administration to reconsider; Reagan backpedaled by saying that the legislature should determine such matters, not the courts. The Supreme Court’s decision in the case, handed down on May 24, 1983, ruled against Bob Jones University in an 8-to-1 decision. Three years later Reagan elevated the sole dissenter, William Rehnquist, to chief justice of the Supreme Court.

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The History of the Religious Right

in Selected Pictures

Vice President Pence at a Focus on the Family Rally

Founder James Dobson of Focus on the Family

Jim Daly of Focus on the Family

Dr. Jerry Falwell Jr. with President Trump at Liberty University

Jerry Falwell, Founder of the Moral Majority

MAGA one baby at a time, one church at a time

President Trump conscripts the Religious Rightusing the Bible as a Signal Indicator

Eric Metaxas conscripts the Religious Right
in a plea for Christian Dominionism

Christian Humanism - John Lewis: Love in Action

John Lewis and John Cobb on Love

https://www.openhorizons.org/john-lewis-and-john-cobb-on-love.html

by Jay McDaniel

​

John Lewis

I think sometimes people are afraid to say I love you. But we’re afraid to say, especially in public life, many elected officials or worldly elected officials, are afraid to talk about love. Maybe people tend to think something is so emotional about it. Maybe it’s a sign of weakness. And we’re not supposed to cry. We’re supposed to be strong, but love is strong. Love is powerful.

The movement created what I like to call a nonviolent revolution. It was love at its best. It’s one of the highest form of love. That you beat me, you arrest me, you take me to jail, you almost kill me, but in spite of that, I’m going to still love you. I know Dr. King used to joke sometime and say things like, “Just love the hell outta everybody. Just love ’em.”

*

I think all of us in life, not just in the Western world, but all over the world, we need to come to that point. We need to evolve to that plane, to that level where we’re not ashamed to say to someone, “I love you, I’m sorry, Pardon me, Will you please forgive me? Excuse me.” What is it? Have we lost something? Can we be just human and say I love you? I think so — so many occasions we think of love as being romantic and all of that, but just love because it’s good in itself, just love living creatures.

*

​

But the teaching, the training, the reading, and coming in contact with great teachers. Martin Luther King Jr. had a tremendous influence on me and the reading and the study of Gandhi.

When I saw the film several years ago of Gandhi and saw the march to the sea, it reminded me of the march from Selma to Montgomery. That there come a time where you have to be prepared to literally put your physical body in the way to go against something that is evil, unjust, and you prepare to suffer the consequences.

But whatever you do, whatever your response is, is with love, kindness, and that sense of faith. In my religious tradition is this belief that it’s going to work out. It is going to work out. It’s all going to be all right. And people will ask me from time to time, “What shall we do, John, during the sit-ins or during the freedom rides?” And I would say, “We need to find a way to dramatize the issue. We need to find a way to get in the way, but it should be in a peaceful, loving, nonviolent fashion.” Hate is too heavy a burden to bear.

- John Lewis interview with Krista Tippett in On Being

John Cobb

​One wonders whether history must always be like this, with "us" feeling that we are justified in taking any action that will support our side against "them."  We process folk say "No." All of us are composed of our relations to our own past but also to the myriad of "others."  We are truly members one of another.  The wounds of others wound us. Their genuine fulfillment fulfills us.  This is true not only of those we call "friends."  It is true of those we call "foes."

Whitehead noticed in the extraordinary "Galilean origins of Christianity" an emphasis on "the tender elements in the world which slowly and in quietness operate by love."  A Hindu, Gandhi, noticed that Jesus called us to love our enemies, and he incorporated not only love of the British but also Hindu love of Muslims and vice versa into his successful struggle to free India from British rule.  A Christian, Martin Luther King, learned from  Gandhi that we need not treat Jesus' teaching as simply impractical idealism, and he broke his people out of segregation.  Another Christian, Nelson Mandela, invented a truth and reconciliation program that also expressed a realistic love of enemy. Indeed, if we search through history, alongside the thousands of instances of treachery and cruelty, of deceit and revenge, here and there people have attained freedom and justice while expressing love for their oppressors, 

​This has two advantages.  Hatred and violence toward others may win a battle here and there, or even build an empire, but the hatred engendered in the defeated festers in them and endangers whatever may have been gained.  Killing leads to more killing, but the independence of India has not resulted in a bitter Britain.  Whereas even today the scars on the white Southern psyche from the Civil War corrupt American politics,  the desegregation of public facilities is genuinely accepted by most white Southerners without rancor,  It is hatred, deceit, and violence that are unrealistic solutions to human problems.  They are leading the world toward the suicide of the human species. Love is the realistic answer.

-- John Cobb, Love is the Realistic Answer

John Lewis — Love in Action

The On Being Project:

We take in the extraordinary wisdom of Congressman John Lewis on what happened in Selma on Bloody Sunday and beyond — and how it might inform common life today. A rare look inside the civil rights leaders’ spiritual confrontation with themselves — and their intricate art of “love in action.” (Original Air Date: March 28, 2013)

About the Guest:

John Lewis is a member of the United States House of Representatives from Georgia’s 5th District. He is the author of “Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement,” “Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change,” and “March,” a three-part graphic novel series.

Visit our website to read the transcript, download the episode, or listen to the unedited interview: https://onbeing.org/programs/john-lew...

Visit our On Being Classics Library, where this episode is featured:
https://onbeing.org/libraries/classics/

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FILE - In this Thursday, May 10, 2007 file photo, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, R-Ga., in his office on Capitol Hill, in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)AP

John Lewis: Good Trouble - Official Trailer

Using interviews and rare archival footage, JOHN LEWIS: GOOD TROUBLE chronicles Lewis’ 60-plus years of social activism and legislative action on civil rights, voting rights, gun control, health-care reform and immigration. Using present-day interviews with Lewis, now 80 years old, Porter explores his childhood experiences, his inspiring family and his fateful meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957. In addition to her interviews with Lewis and his family, Porter’s primarily cinéma verité film also includes interviews with political leaders, Congressional colleagues, and other people who figure prominently in his life.

Rep John Lewis’ Speech at March on Washington

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John Lewis: ‘Good troublemaker’ and tireless activist

a look at the life of the civil rights icon

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/john-lewis-good-troublemaker-and-tireless-activist-a-look-at-the-life-of-the-civil-rights-icon

by Catherine Park

July 18, 2020 | NewsFOX TV Digital Team

John Lewis  - the good troublemaker and the conscience of Congress.

ATLANTA - Rep. John Lewis was known as one of the foremost prolific advocates for securing civil liberties, protecting human rights and building what he called “The Beloved Community” in America, according to his biography.

After a battle with pancreatic cancer, Lewis died at the age of 80 on July 17, but his legacy left an indelible mark on the history of the nation.

The representative from Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, known for getting into “good trouble,” was outspoken on civil rights issues, spending a large part of his life peacefully protesting and seeking justice and equity for the underrepresented.

A timeline of his life’s work showcases Lewis’ commitment to the tireless pursuit of equality over more than six decades, from the early days of the civil rights movement to 2020.

Feb. 21, 1940

Born in Troy, Alabama, John Lewis grew up in a segregated society where, even as a young boy, he was inspired by the activism surrounding the larger civil rights events that happened in his home state.

1955-1956: Montgomery Bus Boycott & Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, a 13-month protest that started in December of 1955 when John Lewis was 15 years old, ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling segregation on public buses unconstitutional. Lewis cited the impact of the boycott, along with the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as some of the key elements that pushed him to get involved in the civil rights movement, according to his biography.

"It was during the Montgomery Bus Boycott that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., then a young preacher and the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, emerged at the forefront of the movement for civil rights and social justice in America," Lewis said on the 59th anniversary of the boycott. "Today the work that Rosa Parks began and Dr. King directed is studied by non-violent activists all over the world, who use it to discover the ways and the means they can use to challenge injustice in every corner of the globe."

"We are fortunate that the example of Rosa Parks and Dr. King are so accessible to us as Americans. They are no longer with us, but the ideas they stood for define a great legacy and the work they have left for us to do still remains... What they did and how they did it can inform the activism of today and help push our nation forward into the next phase of our destiny until we reach the day when this nation becomes a truly multi-racial democracy that values the dignity and the worth of every human being."

1960: John Lewis and others organize citywide sit-in to end segregated lunch counters

In one of his first notable demonstrations during the civil rights era, Lewis organized a sit-in as a student attending Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee in response to the segregated lunch counters across the state on Feb. 13, 1960.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), to which Lewis was was appointed chairman, was largely responsible for organizing student activism during the civil rights movement, including sit-ins and other activities.

1961: John Lewis and the Freedom Riders

During the Freedom Rides, which began in May of 1961, Lewis volunteered to help challenge the segregated interstate bus terminals across the South, and even risked his life on more than one occasion.

Lewis, then 21 and already a veteran of sit-in protests, was the first Freedom Rider to be assaulted, according to Smithsonian Magazine. While trying to enter a whites-only waiting room in Rock Hill, South Carolina, two men set upon him, battering his face and kicking him in the ribs.

Less than two weeks later, he joined a ride bound for Jackson. "We were determined not to let any act of violence keep us from our goal," Lewis said. "We knew our lives could be threatened, but we had made up our minds not to turn back."

A mug shot of civil rights activist and politician John Lewis, following his arrest in Jackson, Mississippi for using a restroom reserved for "White" people during the Freedom Ride demonstration against racial segregation on May 24, 1961. ((Photo by Kypros/Getty Images))

1963: March on Washington

By 1963, John Lewis was named one of the “big six” leaders of the civil rights movement. At the age of 23, he helped organize and was a keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, according to his biography.

“A first draft of Lewis’ prepared speech, circulated before the march, was denounced by Reuther, Burke Marshall, and Patrick O’Boyle, the Catholic Archbishop of Washington, D.C., for its militant tone,” according to The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

“‘In the speech’s original version, Lewis charged that the Kennedy administration’s proposed Civil Rights Act was ’too little and too late,’ and threatened not only to march in Washington but to ‘march through the South, through the heart of Dixie, the way Sherman did. We will pursue our own ‘scorched earth’ policy’. In a caucus that included King, Randolph, and SNCC’s James Forman, Lewis agreed to eliminate those and other phrases, but believed that in its final form his address ‘was still a strong speech, very strong,’” the Stanford MLK institute continued.

According to Stanford, the march pressured the John F. Kennedy administration to introduce a strong federal civil rights bill in Congress.

“After the march, King and other civil rights leaders met with President Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House, where they discussed the need for bipartisan support of civil rights legislation. Though they were passed after Kennedy’s death, the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 reflect the demands of the march,” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University wrote.

Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., (center) is escorted into a mass meeting at Fish University in Nashville. His colleagues are, left to right, John Lewis, national chairman of the Student Non-Violent Committee and Lester McKinnie, on of the leaders in the racial demonstrations in Nashville recently. King gave the main address to a packed crowd. (Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

1964: Mississippi Freedom Summer

In June of 1964, John Lewis coordinated SNCC efforts to organize voter registration drives and community action programs during the Mississippi Freedom Summer, according to his biography.

When SNCC activist Robert Moses launched a voter registration drive in Mississippi in 1961, “he confronted a system that regularly used segregation laws and fear tactics to disenfranchise black citizens,” according to SNCC. It was during this time that Lewis helped create political momentum for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, according to his biography.

1965: March on Selma and Bloody Sunday

Lewis, as well as Hosea Williams, along with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., led over 600 peaceful protesters across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965.

They intended to march from Selma to Montgomery to demonstrate the need for voting rights in the state, but marchers were attacked by Alabama state troopers in a violent confrontation that came to be known as "Bloody Sunday."

Dr Martin Luther King Jr., arm in arm with Reverend Ralph Abernathy, leads marchers as they begin the Selma to Montgomery civil rights march from Brown's Chapel Church in Selma, Alabama, on March 21, 1965; (L-R) an unidentified priest and man, John Lewis, an unidentified nun, Ralph Abernathy), Martin Luther King Jr, Ralph Bunche, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Fred Shuttlesworth. ((Photo by William Lovelace/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images))

News coverage of “Bloody Sunday,” outraged the nation. Lewis, who was severely beaten on the head, said: “I don’t see how President Johnson can send troops to Vietnam—I don’t see how he can send troops to the Congo—I don’t see how he can send troops to Africa and can’t send troops to Selma,” according to The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

Despite more than “40 arrests, physical attacks and serious injuries, Lewis remained a devoted advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence,” his biography stated.

A sign marking the Selma to Montgomery voting rights march is seen on March 5, 2015 in Selma, Alabama. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

1966: John Lewis becomes director of the Voter Education Project

John Lewis left the SNCC in May of 1966 and continued his commitment to the civil rights movement as associate director of the Field Foundation, participating in the Southern Regional Council's voter registration programs, according to his biography.

He went on to become the director of the Voter Education Project (VEP) and was instrumental in adding nearly 4 million minorities to the voter rolls.

1977: John Lewis appointed to ACTION

John Lewis was the recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize in 1975 and in 1977 and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to direct more than 250,000 volunteers of ACTION, the umbrella federal volunteer agency that included the Peace Corps and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), according to his biography.

“In 1971, the VISTA program was transferred from the Office of Economic Opportunity to the former Federal agency ACTION (the Federal Domestic Volunteer Agency). In 1973, Congress enacted the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 (DVSA), the VISTA program's enabling legislation,” according to the Federal Register.

The VISTA program continues to retain its purpose, as stated in the DVSA, “to strengthen and supplement efforts to eliminate and alleviate poverty and poverty-related problems in the United States by encouraging and enabling individuals from all walks of life, all geographical areas, and all age groups, including low-income individuals, elderly and retired Americans, to perform meaningful and constructive volunteer service in agencies, institutions, and situations where the application of human talent and dedication may assist in the solution of poverty and poverty-related problems and secure and exploit opportunities for self-advancement by individuals afflicted with such problems.”

1981: John Lewis elected to the Atlanta City Council

Lewis was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981 after leaving ACTION, and during his time serving on the council, he was an advocate for ethics in government and neighborhood preservation.

One notable action Lewis pursued during his first year on the council was to preserve the neighborhoods in Atlanta by opposing the Great Park plan

.Lewis was convinced that the road would negatively impact the neighborhoods through which it would pass, as well as the city as a whole, according to The Atlanta Weekly. He believed it would clog up downtown traffic and would further deprive the poor, black inner-city communities of opportunities. "I don't think the people in the mayor's office ever really thought about what this would do for Atlanta," he said. "To this day, I don't know anything that would justify building it."

"Almost from the first day of council I got in trouble, what I call good trouble," Lewis said in a 1982 interview with The Atlanta Weekly. "I think it was the first session of council, I introduced a resolution saying that 'Atlanta will go on record opposing a four-lane road through the Great Park.' It was passed unanimously by council, and the mayor signed it. Then one and a half, two months later, word came down that the mayor had a plan for a road. I was surprised, dismayed," Lewis told the newspaper. "I don't know, but my feeling is that even before the plan came into being, the mayor had made a commitment to President Carter and to [Department of Transportation Commissioner] Tom Moreland, that he was locked in and had to tell planners to include the road."

In the end, the Great Park plan, including the road, passed the City Council, with Lewis, Bill Campbell and Myrtle Davis, the three newly elected black council members, voting against it.

A smaller version of the road would eventually become Presidential Parkway, later renamed John Lewis Freedom Parkway in August of 2018.

1986: John Lewis is elected to Congress

Lewis was elected to Congress in November 1986, and had served as U.S. representative of Georgia's Fifth Congressional District since then.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., stands on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in between television interviews on Feb. 14, 2015. Rep. Lewis was beaten by police on the bridge on "Bloody Sunday" on March 7, 1965, during a march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery.

He was the Senior Chief Deputy Whip for the Democratic Party and was also a member of the House Ways & Means Committee, a member of its Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, according to his biography.

He was also a key sponsor in many bills, including, but not limited to:

-Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Reauthorization Act of 2016 (H.R. 5067 114th)

-Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act of 2010 (H.R. 4994 111th)

-National Museum of African American History and Culture Act (H.R. 3491 108th)

-Selma to Montgomery National Trail Study Act of 1989 (H.R. 3834 101st)

2001-2002: John Lewis awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award and the NAACP Spingarn Award

In May of 2001, Lewis received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award and in 2002, he was awarded the NAACP Spingarn Award, which is given “first to call the attention of the American people to the existence of distinguished merit and achievement among Americans of African descent, and secondly, to serve as a reward for such achievement, and as a stimulus to the ambition of colored youth,” according to the NAACP website.

2011: John Lewis awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom

On Feb. 15, 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Lewis the nation’s highest civilian honor, the 2010 Medal of Freedom.

"John Lewis is an American hero and a giant of the Civil Rights Movement," a statement issued by the White House read.

Obama echoed the sentiment. “There’s a quote inscribed over a doorway in Nashville, where students first refused to leave lunch counters 51 years ago this February,” Obama said during the medal presentation ceremony in 2011. “And the quote said, ‘If not us, then who? If not now, then when?’ It’s a question John Lewis has been asking his entire life.”

Rep. John Lewis is presented with the 2010 Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama during an East Room event at the White House February 15, 2011 in Washington, D.C.

“It’s what led him back to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma after he had already been beaten within an inch of his life days before,” Obama continued. “It’s why, time and again, he faced down death so that all of us could share equally in the joys of life. It’s why all these years later, he is known as the Conscience of the United States Congress, still speaking his mind on issues of justice and equality. And generations from now, when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind — an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time; whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now.”

2019: John Lewis diagnosed with pancreatic cancer

It was announced in a statement on Dec. 29, 2019 that Lewis had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

“I have been in some kind of fight – for freedom, equality, basic human rights – for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now,” Lewis said in the statement. “This month in a routine medical visit, and subsequent tests, doctors discovered Stage IV pancreatic cancer. This diagnosis has been reconfirmed. While I am clear-eyed about the prognosis, doctors have told me that recent medical advances have made this type of cancer treatable in many cases, that treatment options are no longer as debilitating as they once were, and that I have a fighting chance. So I have decided to do what I know to do and do what I have always done: I am going to fight it and keep fighting for the Beloved Community. We still have many bridges to cross,” the statement continued.

“To my constituents: being your representative in Congress is the honor of a lifetime. I will return to Washington in coming days to continue our work and begin my treatment plan, which will occur over the next several weeks. I may miss a few votes during this period, but with God’s grace I will be back on the front lines soon. Please keep me in your prayers as I begin this journey,” Lewis said.

2020: John Lewis lends his voice to the calls for justice in the wake of George Floyd’s death

Lewis urged protesters seeking justice in George Floyd’s killing to embrace nonviolence and called on President Donald Trump not to crack down on “orderly, peaceful, nonviolent protests.”

“You cannot stop the call of history,” Lewis said.

Floyd, 46, died in Minneapolis police custody on Memorial Day. The moments leading to his death were captured on camera and spread across social media, igniting a chaotic, historic and emotional few weeks in the U.S.

The video showed Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin pinning Floyd to the ground and pressing his knee into his neck as Floyd repeated that he could not breathe. Floyd eventually became unresponsive and was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Protests broke out across the nation and around the world, demanding justice and police reform in the wake of Floyd’s death.

What started off as peaceful demonstrations turned violent in many cities across the U.S., with one of the more notably violent riots breaking out in Lewis’ own city, Atlanta.

“Despite real progress, I can't help but think of young Emmett today as I watch video after video after video of unarmed Black Americans being killed, and falsely accused,” Lewis said in a statement on the protests. “My heart breaks for these men and women, their families, and the country that let them down — again. My fellow Americans, this is a special moment in our history. Just as people of all faiths and no faiths, and all backgrounds, creeds, and colors banded together decades ago to fight for equality and justice in a peaceful, orderly, non-violent fashion, we must do so again.”

“To the rioters here in Atlanta and across the country: I see you, and I hear you,” the statement continued. “I know your pain, your rage, your sense of despair and hopelessness. Justice has, indeed, been denied for far too long. Rioting, looting, and burning is not the way. Organize. Demonstrate. Sit-in. Stand-up. Vote. Be constructive, not destructive. History has proven time and again that non-violent, peaceful protest is the way to achieve the justice and equality that we all deserve.”

In an interview with local media, Lewis quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: “Hate is too heavy a burden to bear. The way of love is a much better way.”

“During the ’60s, the great majority of us accepted the way of peace, the way of love, philosophy and discipline of nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living,” he continued. “There’s something cleansing, something wholesome, about being peaceful and orderly.”

“We’re one people, we’re one family,” he said in the interview. “We all live in the same house, not just the American house but the world house.”

Lewis also expressed support for H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, that passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 236 to 181 on June 25, according to a news release from his office.

“Many may seek to mischaracterize this legislation. Some will ignore the opportunities that this bill presents to improve our communities,” Lewis said in a statement. “For example, I greatly appreciate that the authors included my proposal, the Law Enforcement Inclusion Act, which permits Federal grant funds to be used to recruit and train officers from the neighborhoods they are charged to protect and serve. H.R. 7121 also provides law enforcement with the help and training they need to address mental health, drug use, and other complex societal issues. These proposals are partial solutions to the historic disconnect and distrust between communities of color and law enforcement.”

“Others may argue that the bill does not go far enough,” Lewis continued. “This legislation addresses one Federal part of a complicated puzzle of entrenched, systematic bias and inequality, and we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Going forward, we must demilitarize law enforcement and establish empathy in our justice system. Make no mistake – much more is needed from cities, counties, State, and Federal authorities in every corner of our country. Our work is cut out for us, and our mandate, from those whom we were elected to represent and serve, is clear.”

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Rep. John Lewis

quotes in a long life of activism

by The Associated Press The Associated Press

Updated July 18, 2020, 7:35 a.m.

Rep. John Lewis spoke to the crowd at the Edmund Pettus Bridge crossing reenactment marking 55th anniversary of Selma's Bloody Sunday on March 1, 2020 in Selma, Alabama. | JOE RAEDLE/GETTY

In a long life of activism, Rep. John Lewis never shied away from speaking out. A few quotations:

“To those who have said ‘Be patient and wait,’ we must say that we cannot be patient. We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now. The time will come when we will not confine our marching to Washington. We will march through the South, through the streets of Jackson, through the streets of Danville, through the streets of Cambridge, through the streets of Birmingham. We must say ‘Wake up America! Wake up!’ For we cannot stop and we will not and cannot be patient.”

- During his March on Washington speech in 1963 

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“As I was growing up in rural Alabama, I saw all around me the system of segregation and racial discrimination. The visible signs in the little town of Troy, the population of about 7,000, we saw the sign that said ‘colored only.’ White only. Colored waiting. .... In a little 5&10 store was a civil fountain, a clean fountain for white people to come and drink water, but in another corner of the store there was a little spigot, a rusty spigot, (that) said ‘colored drinking.’ And I became resentful of the sign and all the visible evidence of segregation and racial discrimination.”

- Interview conducted for “America, They Loved You Madly,” a precursor to the 1987 documentary “Eyes on the Prize.”

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“You saw these men putting on their gas masks and behind the state troopers are a group of men, part of the sheriff’s posse, on horses. They came toward us, beating us with nightsticks, trampling us with horses, and releasing their tear gas. I was hit in the head by a state trooper with a nightstick. My legs went from under me. I don’t know how I made it back across the bridge but apparently a group just literally took me back.”

- Recounting the Bloody Sunday confrontation of March 7, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, in an oral history interview conducted by the House historian, Dec. 11, 2014.

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“Selma is a place where we injected something very meaningful into our democracy. We opened up the political process and made it possible for hundreds and thousands and millions of people to come in and be participants.”

- Oral history interview conducted by the House historian, Dec. 11, 2014.

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“When I look out over this diverse crowd and survey the guests on this platform, it seems to realize what Otis Redding sang about and what Martin Luther King, Jr. preached about: this moment in our history has been a long time coming. But a change has come. We are standing here in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln, 150 years after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and only 50 years after the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. We have come a great distance in this country in the 50 years, but we still have a great distance to go before we fulfill the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. Sometimes I hear people saying, ‘Nothing has changed.' But for someone who grew up the way I grew up in the cotton fields of Alabama to now be serving in the United States Congress makes me want to tell them, ‘Come and walk in my shoes.‘”

- Speaking during the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington in 2013

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“He was my friend. He was my hero. I loved him. He was like a big brother.”

- Reflecting on his relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during interview on Jan. 17, 2015.

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“History will not be kind to us. So you have a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate, to speak up, speak out and get in good trouble. You can do it. You must do it. Not just for yourselves but for generations yet unborn.”

- Commencement speech at Lawrence University in 2015

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“Our goal was true freedom for every American. Since then, America has made a lot of progress. We are a different society than we were in 1961. And in 2008 we showed the world the true promise of America when we elected President Barack Obama.”

- Campaign speech for Obama in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sept. 6, 2012.

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“My dear friends: Your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union.”

- Speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sept. 6, 2012.

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“This is unreal. This is unbelievable. Some of you know I grew up in rural Alabama, very, very poor. Very few books in our home. I remember in 1956 when I was 16 years old, some of my brothers and sisters and cousins went down to the public library trying to get library cards and we were told that the library was for whites only and not for coloreds. And to come here and receive this award, this honor. It’s too much. I had a wonderful teacher in elementary school who told me, ‘Read my child, read.' And I tried to read everything. I love books.”

- When accepting an award from the National Book Foundation in 2016

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“The future of our democracy is at stake. There comes a time when you have to be moved by the spirit of history to take action to protect and preserve the integrity of our nation. I believe — I truly believe — the time to begin impeachment proceedings against this president has come. To delay or to do otherwise would betray the foundation of our democracy.”

- Speaking on the House floor in favor of beginning impeachment proceedings against President Trump in September 2019.

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“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”

- Remarks atop the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 1, 2020.

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Credit...Illustration by Nicholas Konrad/The New York Times;
photograph by Nashville Police Department

John Lewis Risked His Life for Justice

His willingness to do so was essential

to the quest for civil rights.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/opinion/john-lewis.html

by The Editorial Board

July 17, 2020

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Representative John Lewis, who died Friday at age 80, will be remembered as a principal hero of the blood-drenched era not so long ago when Black people in the South were being shot, blown up or driven from their homes for seeking basic human rights. The moral authority Mr. Lewis exercised in the House of Representatives — while representing Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District for more than 30 years — found its headwaters in the aggressive yet self-sacrificial style of protests that he and his compatriots in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee deployed in the early 1960s as part of the campaign that overthrew Southern apartheid.

These young demonstrators chose to underscore the barbaric nature of racism by placing themselves at risk of being shot, gassed or clubbed to death during protests that challenged the Southern practice of shutting Black people out of the polls and “white only” restaurants, and confining them to “colored only” seating on public conveyances. When arrested, S.N.C.C. members sometimes refused bail, dramatizing injustice and withholding financial support from a racist criminal justice system.

This young cohort conspicuously ignored members of the civil rights establishment who urged them to patiently pursue remedies through the courts. Among the out-of-touch elder statesmen was the distinguished civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall, who was several years away from becoming the nation’s first Black Supreme Court justice when he argued that young activists were wrong to continue the dangerous Freedom Rides of early 1961, in which interracial groups rode buses into the Deep South to test a Supreme Court ruling that had outlawed segregation in interstate transport.

Mr. Marshall condemned the Freedom Rides as a wasted effort that would only get people killed. But in the mind of Mr. Lewis, the depredations that Black Americans were experiencing at the time were too pressing a matter to be left to a slow judicial process and a handful of attorneys in a closed courtroom. By attacking Jim Crow publicly in the heart of the Deep South, the young activists in particular were animating a broad mass movement in a bid to awaken Americans to the inhumanity of Southern apartheid. Mr. Lewis came away from the encounter with Mr. Marshall understanding that the mass revolt brewing in the South was as much a battle against the complacency of the civil rights establishment as against racism itself.

On “Redemptive Suffering”

By his early 20s, Mr. Lewis had embraced a form of nonviolent protest grounded in the principle of “redemptive suffering”— a term he learned from the Rev. James Lawson, who had studied the style of nonviolent resistance that the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi had put into play during British colonial rule. The principle reminded Mr. Lewis of his religious upbringing and of a prayer his mother had often recited.

In his memoir “Walking With the Wind,” written with Michael D’Orso, Mr. Lewis explained that there was “something in the very essence of anguish that is liberating, cleansing, redemptive,” adding that suffering “touches and changes those around us as well. It opens us and those around us to a force beyond ourselves, a force that is right and moral, the force of righteous truth that is at the basis of human conscience.”

The essence of the nonviolent life, he wrote, is the capacity to forgive — “even as a person is cursing you to your face, even as he is spitting on you, or pushing a lit cigarette into your neck” — and to understand that your attacker is as much a victim as you are. At bottom, this philosophy rested upon the belief that people of good will — “the Beloved Community,” as Mr. Lewis called them — would rouse themselves to combat evil and injustice.

Mr. Lewis carried these beliefs into the Freedom Rides. The travelers described their departing meal at a Chinese restaurant in Washington as “The Last Supper.” Several of the participants had actually written out wills, consistent with the realization that they might never make it home. No one wanted to die, but it was understood that a willingness to do so was essential to the quest for justice.

The Ku Klux Klan did its best to secure such a sacrificial outcome. It firebombed a bus at Anniston, Ala., and tried unsuccessfully to burn the Freedom Riders alive by holding the exit doors shut. “Walking With the Wind” describes the especially harrowing episode that unfolded on the Freedom Ride bus on which he arrived in Montgomery, Ala.

The terminal seemed nearly deserted, he wrote, but “then, out of nowhere, from every direction, came people. White people. Men, women and children. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. Out of alleys, out of side streets, around the corners of office buildings, they emerged from everywhere, from all directions, all at once, as if they’d been let out of a gate. … They carried every makeshift weapon imaginable. Baseball bats, wooden boards, bricks, chains, tire irons, pipes, even garden tools — hoes and rakes. One group had women in front, their faces twisted in anger, screaming, ‘Git them niggers, GIT them niggers!’ … And now they turned to us, this sea of people, more than three hundred of them, shouting and screaming, men swinging fists and weapons, women swinging heavy purses, little children clawing with their fingernails at the faces of anyone they could reach.”

Mr. Lewis’s fellow Freedom Riders tried in vain to escape the mob by scaling trees and terminal walls. “It was madness. It was unbelievable,” Mr. Lewis recalled “… I could see Jim Zwerg now, being horribly beaten. Someone picked up his suitcase, which he had dropped, and swung it full force against his head. Another man then lifted Jim’s head and held it between his knees while others, including women and children, hit and scratched at Jim’s face. His eyes were shut. He was unconscious. … At that instant I felt a thud against my head. I could feel my knees collapse and then nothing. Everything turned white for an instant, then black.”

“Burn Jim Crow to the Ground”

Two years later, in 1963, as Mr. Lewis was about to address the March on Washington, the elder statesmen of the movement prevailed on him to tone down his speech. Thrown out were the harshest criticisms of the John F. Kennedy administration’s civil rights bill as well as a fiery passage threatening that the movement would “march through the South, through the heart of Dixie, the way Sherman did. We shall pursue our own scorched earth policy and burn Jim Crow to the ground — nonviolently.”

Yet even the softened speech was radical for the context. At a time when civil rights leaders were commonly referring to African-Americans as Negroes, the Lewis speech used the term Black: “In the Delta of Mississippi, in Southwest Georgia, in the Black Belt of Alabama, in Harlem, in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and all over this nation the Black masses are on a march for jobs and freedom.”

To the dismay of many, the 23-year-old Mr. Lewis described the movement as “a revolution,” appealing to all who listened “to get into this great revolution that is sweeping this nation. Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until a revolution is complete. We must get in this revolution and complete the revolution.”

Mr. Lewis carried his faith in the power of nonviolence into the fateful Selma, Ala., voting rights demonstration — in March of 1965 — that was soon named Bloody Sunday to commemorate the vicious attack that state troopers waged on peaceful marchers. Mr. Lewis suffered a fractured skull and was one of 58 people treated for injuries at a hospital.

The worldwide demonstrations that followed the brutal police killing of George Floyd underscored the extent to which many people need visual evidence to grow outraged over injustice that is perpetrated all the time outside the camera’s eye.

A television broadcast of the violence meted out by the police on Bloody Sunday worked in the same way. It generated national outrage and provided a graphic example of the need for the Voting Rights Act, which was signed into law that summer.

The linchpin part of the law required certain states and parts of states to seek federal permission before changing voting rules. This seemed almost a godsend to the civil rights cohort and at least a partial repayment for the lives of the many men and women who had died in pursuit of voting rights.

Soon after the Supreme Court crippled the act in 2013, states began unveiling measures limiting ballot access. At the time of the decision, Mr. Lewis wrote that the court had “stuck a dagger into the heart” of a hard-won and still necessary law. With his customary eloquence, he urged Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act, describing the right to vote as “almost sacred” and “the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy.”

The passing of John Lewis deprives the United States of its foremost warrior in a battle for racial justice that stretches back into the 19th century and the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Americans — and particularly his colleagues in Congress — can best honor his memory by picking up where he left off.