I grew up hearing that faith is best measured by what you are doing, not by what you say. My grandfather told me that no one with real wealth would boast about it. Their actions speak more eloquently than their words.
After the Charlie Kirk Memorial Museum I wrote it How the Bishop Marian Budes A sermon at the National Cathedral prayer service after Trump’s inauguration truly reflects the true meaning of being a Christian. I was amazed at the reaction I received from many people who realised the same thing I did. In other words, actions speak more eloquent than words.
And as one reader put it in a DM to me, “You can’t think you’re just saying you’re a Christian and you’re getting a free pass to heaven.” I wouldn’t have been able to say it better to myself.
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These lessons resonated with me as I sat with Bishop William Barber, who spent his life involving Christianity in action. From moral Monday in North Carolina The poor people’s campaign, The barber was one of the clearest voices to remind America that if our politics and our faith ignored the poor, we abandoned both the gospel and democracy.
“Christianity doesn’t just say, ‘God bless me,'” he told me. “It’s not just that you find a Bible that you can quote. It’s not just that I know that I follow the ten commandments. It’s about saying that Christianity is Christian. So I follow the example of Jesus Christ.
Barber calls this the “yes problem.” Again and again, people in power said they tried to justify greed and injustice with the term Christianity. He showed us how slaveholders insisted Christ and how politicians today were crucified as they cut food stamps and health care.
But all of them eventually clashed with what Jesus actually said and done, Barber said.
“Jesus began ministry by proclaiming good news for the poor. He was raised in the ghetto of Nazareth. He said being a Christian is concerned with broken, blind people, prisoners and those who all felt unacceptable.
Its clarity claimed it was insisting on accepting the silence of today’s clergy in the face of cruelty. He pointed out a contrast at Charlie Kirk’s funeral. There, Kirk’s widow spoke humbly and beautifully of forgiveness while Kirk’s widow began to indulge in the light corn and hatred of his enemies.
“One minister stood up and said, ‘No, Mr. President, that’s wrong,'” Barber said. “Christianity requires a certain amount of courage. Love always challenges hatred. Justice always challenges injustice, and that courage is desperately necessary.”
Barber and I talked about The imminent impact Trump’s so-called Big beautiful billand to be honest, it steals from the poor and gives to the rich. I told Barber I wrote about OPEED The devastating effects of the bill, and how it will function as a blueprint for Medicaid, slash food stamps, and shutter hospitals, and intentionally create more Medical and Healthcare Desert.
“This is not a policy. It’s a massive abuse, and it’s going to have massive and devastating consequences. It’s fatal,” I wrote after the bill was signed into law.
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“There are 140 million poor and low-wage people in this country,” Barber said. “And we’re spending more time giving a $2 trillion tax cut to very wealthy people than lifting people out of poverty. We’ve made 87 million people uninsured or uninsured. We’ve cut millions from Medicaid. We’re thinking.”
When he spoke those words, I couldn’t help but remind myself of my Reagan days. When I worked on the hill during that period, it was dazzling to see how Reagan preached, backfired, and “trickled down” economics, just as it benefited the wealthy.
I was in Barber after Donald Trump took office. I wrote it Reagan was known for his trickle-down economy, but Trump is known for his trickle-down discrimination, and Trump will do more damage than Reagan has ever done.
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Barber agreed that this time it would be more serious. “We haven’t raised the minimum wage since 2009. It’s 16 years. Work has risen, prices have risen, but wages continue to stagnate. And there’s no reason. We should talk about abolishing poverty.
The barber calls what it is poverty, and it is political violence. “Now we have something close to 800 people who are dying a day from poverty, but we still don’t call it a trend. When 500 people were dying for a day in Covid, we said it was a trend. Poverty is political violence.”
I also explained how to do that Robert F. Kennedy He embarked on a crusade for the poor in the 1960s, shining a spotlight on the harsh living conditions of those living in poverty. I also remembered that his brother Ted Kennedy, who I had long admired, was also a strong advocate for the poor during his 47 years in the Senate.
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“I do. I think that’s what we’ve been trying to do in the campaign for the poor, a national call for a moral revival. But it has to come from the bottom up. The poor now represent 36-42% of voters in all battlefield states,” he pointed out. “The poor and low-wage people represent the largest potential swing vote in the country. If only 20% of those who didn’t vote, they could fundamentally change the elections of this country.”
Barber’s hopes are not that politicians are suddenly awake, but that they recognize their power in poor, low-paid Americans. “You don’t have to be a victim anymore,” he said. “You have political power that can change the concept and politics of this country. It’s our time to mobilize our agenda and do exactly that.”
When we finished the conversation, I thought about his claim that he wasn’t just calling him a “Christian” and not “tickets to heaven.”
“I’m just saying something, and Christians don’t mean anything unless they’re alongside the character of Jesus Christ,” he summed up. “And Jesus I know, Jesus I followed said that it is judged by how the nation treats these minimums.”
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