Led by Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, a Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and former North Carolina president and national board member of the NAACP, Repairers of the Breach is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) not-for-profit training activists, artists, and faith leaders to organize and mobilize. Their advocacy around a moral policy agenda prioritizing love, truth, and justice thrust them into the conversation regarding Christian Nationalism.
ROTB views religious nationalism, which promotes the view that America was founded on Christian values and should be governed as such, as a “distorted moral narrative” that is “used in defense of regressive public policies.” In order to address systemic injustices through a moral framework, ROTB believes that faith communities can shift the moral narrative to one of love and inclusivity. Religious nationalism runs contrary to their goal of “peace within and among nations, the dignity and wellness of all people, equal protection under the law, and the responsibility to care for our common home.”
ROTB was founded in 2015 with the mission of reclaiming the language of morality from religious extremists that became prominent in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. This effort is carried our through their Moral Fusion Organizing initiative, which supports grassroots and national movements for social change by advocating for multi-identity and multi-issue organizing. By reclaiming the moral language of the public square, ROTB challenges “so-called conservatives” who “hijack the powerful language of faith” in partisan debates. ROTB’s Poor People’s Campaign joins religious leaders of all races and faiths to combat systemic poverty, thereby promoting multiculturalism and cooperation in the face of pressing partisan divides regarding how to address poverty in the United States. Examples of efforts by the Poor People’s Campaign include the Moral March on Washington, teach-ins, and Moral Monday Rallies across the country.
Katherine Dattner is an honors political science major at the University of Connecticut. Her interests include public policy and international relations.
For more information about the organizations and individuals resisting Christian Nationalism in the United States today, check out our Pluralist Resistance to Christian Nationalism project page.