How Christian is Moral Monday?

– Demonstrator being arrested during a protest at the Legislative Building in Raleigh, N.C. in May. (Photo credit: Gerry Broome / Associated Press)

In a previous blog post, I questioned the extent to which the Moral Monday protests in North Carolina are driven by Christian moral sensibility. The Civitas Institute, a conservative North Carolina organization, recently used police records to create a list of all the protesters who have arrested during Moral Monday protests. Conveniently, Civitas’ list also includes each arrestee’s occupation, employer, political affiliation, and other demographic information. I recently decided to comb this database to see how true it is that the protests were “not an act of political partisanship” as faith leaders claim, but instead “a matter of faith with respect to our understanding of the biblical teachings.”

There are a few notes that need to be made. First of all, arrest records only tell us about the protesters being arrested. It’s possible (even likely) that their beliefs would tend to be more radical than the Moral Monday protesters who choose to obey police instructions. But I would argue that by refusing to repudiate those being arrested, the less-radical Moral Monday protesters tacitly approve of their peers as representatives of the protest.

Secondly, to respect the privacy of the arrestees I will avoid mentioning any protestor specifically by name, instead I refer broadly to their congregations or organizations. Civitas Institute allows any person to ask for their name to be removed from their database, and their staff confirmed to me via email that no one has requested to be removed. Nonetheless, the purpose of this post is to reveal the underlying beliefs of the protesters, not to expose or confront the protesters themselves. Anyone with an overwhelming desire to have the name of a protester can find it at Civitas.

The first question the database can help us answer is just how many of the arrested are clergy. Ten arrested individuals listed their occupation as “minister,” one as “Parish director,” one as “rector,” one as “deacon,” one as “administrator,” one as “reverend,” and forty as “pastor.” All in all, fifty-five faith leaders were among the arrested. Out of 722. So despite the large media focus on pastors and ministers being arrested, only 7.6 percent of arrested Moral Monday fit that description.

As for which kinds of pastors and ministers are being arrested, that also seems interesting. 72 percent of them are registered Democrats; none of them are Republicans. The largest representation is by Baptists (mostly traditionally African-American churches), followed by Presbyterians and Unitarian Universalists. Noticeably absent are any Catholic, Orthodox, or Mormon clergy, or any clergy of a non-Christian, non-Unitarian faith.

Checking out each church they list as their employer, it’s clear these are no run-of-the-mill church congregations, but are for the most part severely liberal. Take Wedgewood Baptist Church, whose website literally lists people who won’t fit in at their church, including:

• “People who are judgmental”

• “People who need to control and/or organize other human beings.”

• “People who are uncomfortable with questions and doubts.”

• “People who think sexual orientation and gender identity are a choice. (By the way, and for the record, when did you choose your sexual orientation and gender identity? In what year? In what month? On what day? At what time? What minute? What second?)”

Or you might prefer Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, whose openly lesbian pastor refused to wed any straight couples back in 2011. Or Binkley Memorial Baptist Church, whose website provides links to pro-abortion organizations Planned Parenthood and IPAS. If you have cash to spare, you might attend the United Church of Chapel Hill’s Racial Equity Workshop for a low $275. Or if it’s those pesky Zionists who have been bugging you lately, take part in The Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation at the Church of Reconciliation.

Of course, active clergy aren’t the only people who could reasonably be considered “faith leaders.” Civitas was kind enough to include in the list the known affiliations of all arrested protesters. Combing through the list of affiliations, it’s clear that some, like members of the North Carolina Council of Churches, ought to be considered faith leaders too. In total, there are 26 protesters affiliated with Christian or interfaith organizations who aren’t leaders of congregations.

Adding the two groups, merely 11 percent of arrested protesters can feasibly be called “faith leaders”. In fact, combing over the list of organizations protesters are affiliated casts doubt on the idea that the protests are primarily religious to begin with. While there are 17 different religiously oriented organizations, such as the NC Council of Churches, there are 173 other nonreligious organizations, like the Organic Consumers Association. There are more environmental organizations (27), foreign policy/military organizations (19), and explicitly Democratic organizations (19) than religious organizations on the list. Other common organizational focuses are racial advocacy, labor, community organizing, education reform, the death penalty, and gay rights.

Several organizations on the list should be troubling for many moderate and conservative Christians. There are 13 different Occupy Wall Street offshoots, despite Occupy Wall Street’s troubled past with Christian churches. The leaders of pro-abortion organizations were arrested, including the CEO of North Carolina Planned Parenthood and the director of the pro-choice PAC Lillian’s List. In fact, abortion has taken the center stage at recent Moral Mondays as protesters take a stand for abortion-on-demand (or “women’s rights” as a sympathetic media puts it).

To recap, out of 722 arrested protesters, only 11 percent could fairly be called “faith leaders” using the broadest terms. Out of the 190 organizations the arrested protesters are affiliated with, only 9 percent are explicitly religious. These numbers only make clear what many on the secular and Christian right have charged; Moral Monday’s idea of what’s “moral” has more to do with modern liberal progressive thought than any religious understanding. But looking at the churches of many of those arrested at Moral Monday, some Christians no longer seem able to tell the difference.