NPR

Provoked By Trump, The Religious Left Is Finding Its Voice

The Trump Administration has inspired a new activism on the part of liberal religious groups. Like the Moral Majority of the late '70s, they fear an assault on their most basic Christian values.
Dozens of clergy members, immigration activists and others participate in a protest against the imprisonment and potential deportation of an immigration activist. Religious liberals are becoming increasingly outspoken in their opposition to many Trump Administration policies.

Religious conservatives have rarely faced much competition in the political realm from faith-based groups on the left.

The provocations of Donald Trump may finally be changing that.

Nearly 40 years after some prominent evangelical Christians organized a Moral Majority movement to promote a conservative political agenda, a comparable effort by liberal religious leaders is coalescing in support of immigrant rights, universal health care, LGBTQ rights, and racial justice.

"We believe that faith has a critical role to play in shaping public policies and influencing decision makers," says the Rev. Jennifer Butler, an ordained Presbyterian minister and founder of the group Faith in Public Life. "Our moral values speak to the kinds of just laws that we ought to have."

Her group, part of what could be considered a religious left, claims to have mobilized nearly 50,000 local clergy and faith leaders, with on-the-ground operations in Florida, Georgia,

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