(OPINION) ETH – Hillary Clinton has suddenly become an expert in matters of the Church. She recently stated that many young people are leaving the Church today because Christianity has become “too judgmental” and “alienating” for them, according to the lifelong Methodist and former Secretary.
According to the Christian Post, Clinton made this controversial comment while interviewing social justice advocate and Pastor William J. Barber II of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, last week on her “You and Me Both with Hillary Clinton” podcast. During the recent podcast, she stressed that “black lives matter” is a “theological statement.” and that the Church in America, according to her, needs to “take a hard look at itself and try to figure out how it can be a real partner in this moment of moral awakening.”
“Jesus and justice are the same thing,” Clinton argued, but there is a “concerted effort by one political party to basically try to own Christianity and it overlooks the role of the African-American church.” I wonder if she has ever taken a hard look into what the Bible says about the “shedding of innocent blood”? Anyway, she went on to say “You know, to say that Jesus and justice are the same thing seems to me to be so obvious.
I mean, how can you be a Bible reading person, a church-attending person, and not understand how profoundly true that simple phrase really is,” Clinton said to Barber before asking him how as a veteran pastor and activist he is “trying to open up people’s minds and hearts to understand what Christianity should mean and what should be expected of us who claim to be followers of Jesus.”
Barber also explained that people need to first admit “from at least Western culture and American culture” that “the genocide of First Nations people and the enslavement of African Americans,” along with the exclusion and oppression of women, “affected and infected theology in a bad way.” “One of my professors said, ‘To be a Christian’ — to be born again, sprinkle whatever you call it — ‘and to claim the Holy Spirit, is to have a quarrel with the world’s systems of injustice.’
And if whatever you claim you have doesn’t produce a quarrel with injustice, then your claim of it being the Spirit with the big S is suspect,” Barber said. It was then that Clinton responded with “When you think about the very deliberate, concerted effort by one political party to basically try to own Christianity and it overlooks the role of the African-American church, it overlooks, as you say, a lot of theology, a lot of history.
It also overlooks this moment in time. Black Lives Matter I view as very profoundly as a theological statement,” she said. Later in the podcast, Clinton questioned Barber on how the Church should be responding to the moment particularly since so many people have been alienated by religion.
“How do you see now what the Church should be doing? Because a lot of people are leaving the Church. A lot of young people are leaving the Church, in part because the way they understand what Christianity has become … so judgmental, so alienating that they think to themselves, well, I don’t need that,” she said.
