lpetrich
Contributor
Where are Christian churches in the Black Lives Matter movement? - Deseret News
There were plenty of more secular people involved, "spiritual but not religious", nominally religious participants, even nonreligious and agnostic and atheist ones, even if they did not want to draw attention to their heterodoxy. Among them was a Jewish atheist lawyer who was a close friend of MLK, though MLK would argue that he believes in God without knowing it. Another one was a certain Bernard Sanders.
Susan Jacoby writes in her book "Freethinkers" that the religious component of the 1950's-1960's civil-rights movement was overstated. It was mostly the black community's churches that were involved. There wasn't nearly as much support from white people's churches, and there were plenty of Religious-Right sorts of churches opposed to it, and also the likes of the Ku Klux Klan.Rep. John Lewis, who passed away on July 17, spent much of his childhood in church and even preached to his chickens for fun. His faith was a core part of who he was then, and it shaped the kind of political leader he became.
Religion also played a central role in the protest movement that made Lewis famous. The fight for racial equality in the ’50s and ’60s began in Black churches, and religious leaders remained prominent voices throughout, said the Rev. Watson Jones III, pastor of Compassion Baptist Church in Chicago.
“The civil rights movement was birthed out of the church,” he said. “Prayers and preaching led to protests and picket lines.”
The same can’t be said of the current battle against racial inequality, the Rev. Jones added. Religious leaders are generally welcome to be part of the Black Lives Matter movement, but they don’t call the shots.
“We’re in there, but we’re not at the forefront of it,” he said.
There were plenty of more secular people involved, "spiritual but not religious", nominally religious participants, even nonreligious and agnostic and atheist ones, even if they did not want to draw attention to their heterodoxy. Among them was a Jewish atheist lawyer who was a close friend of MLK, though MLK would argue that he believes in God without knowing it. Another one was a certain Bernard Sanders.