By L.A. Williams
Christian Action League
January 1, 2014
RALEIGH — If your resolution is to improve your morality in the new year, don’t look to the so-called “Moral Monday” protests as an example to emulate, said the Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League.
Weekly marches on the Legislature to protest spending cuts, tax reform and other GOP measures resulted in hundreds of arrests last year and were back in the news last week as the Raleigh News and Observer praised the shenanigans of the Rev. William Barber in an editorial.
While lauding the head of the N.C. Chapter of the NAACP for organizing the demonstrations — events which put liberal clergy arm in arm with Planned Parenthood, NARAL and other pro-abortion groups — the N&O never addressed the main criticisms that Dr. Creech expressed regarding the group’s efforts: first, that the Moral Monday claims have no biblical basis; and, second, that marchers’ insistence that charity should be a function of government makes their ideology little more than “socialism with a religious veneer.”
Dr. Creech said the protesters took passages of Scripture that deal with the individual believer’s responsibility to the poor and needy and tried to impose them on government.
“Government’s primary role, if not exclusive responsibility, is to protect the God-given rights of the people — their right to life, liberty, and their property. Government is required to protect the private property of its citizens. But when it confiscates that private property through taxation to give it to someone it believes needs it as an act of charity, that is not charity,“ Dr. Creech said late last June when interviewed about the matter by the Christian Post.
“Instead it is stealing — even an act of tyranny by the government. This redistribution of wealth approach by government is actually an ‘immoral’ approach to solving the problems of poverty.”
He pointed out that Barber, extremely outspoken when media cameras rolled at the protests, has remained silent when it comes to policies that contribute to the breakdown of marriage and the family — one of the biggest contributors to the poverty Barber claims to be battling.
“You don’t see this group addressing matters such as alcohol or drug use and abuse,” said Dr. Creech. “Further, he stood against the marriage amendment that we worked so hard to get approved in 2012.”
The Institute on Religion and Democracy also challenged the morality of the Moral Monday protesters, including that of a number of Duke Divinity School professors who joined the mayhem.
“The moral path is not to picket alongside organizations known primarily for their rabid support of unrestricted abortion-on-demand. And the moral path is not to sacrifice the virtues of individual charity at the altar of government welfare,” read a recent blog post from the organization. “All indications are that Moral Monday is a purely political protest at its heart.”
WWNC radio host Pete Kaliner called out Barber’s ideology as “Christian Socialism” in August, highlighting tips to clergy included in a N.C. NAACP handbook supporting the protests.
“The N.C. NAACP guide uses the Christian belief that God calls us to do for others as justification for the government to do these things,” Kaliner wrote.
He said the Lectionary offered free to ministers seems to argue that works are necessary for salvation and that “Biblical warnings against tyrannical government only apply when a single political party controls government.”
“The purpose of the lectionary is to help Leftist clergy justify greater government intervention in peoples’ lives and the economy,” Kaliner added. “… This helpful guide seems more like a roadmap to state servitude than some holy blueprint for governance.”
Alternately referred to as “Marxist Mondays,” “Money Mondays” and “Moron Mondays,” by those examining the group’s motives, the protests are expected to begin again when the Legislature convenes in May.
Dr. Creech said Christians should give to those less fortunate as a part of their personal commitment to Christ and that they should have no part of Moral Mondays’ “politics of guilt.”
“It is a false guilt,” he said, “a guilt that facilitates a crushing cultural debt that not only infringes on our liberty, but also robs our children of a society based on a strong work ethic, real love for our neighbor, and future economic promise.”