TN: Moral Vision, Demands Ahead of Moral Monday Rally

Repairers of the Breach 

MEDIA ADVISORY FOR: April 12, 2023 

Contact: Phoebe Rogers, phoebe.rogers@berlinrosen.com, 914-343-9063

Erica Noll, erica.noll@berlinrosen.com, 424-237-6790

*PRESS CALL WEDNESDAY 11 AM EDT*

Lessons From Nashville: Bishop Barber, Tennessee, National Faith Leaders, to Lay Out Moral Vision, Demands Ahead of Moral Monday Rally 

–

Clergy to Call on Legislative Leaders to Repent or Resign 

Zoom Link Here, RSVP Required

NATIONWIDE - Bishop William J. Barber II,  Tennessee and national faith leaders and Rep. Justin Jones will join a virtual press conference Wednesday, April 12, to lay out demands and a moral vision to move the country forward ahead of Monday’s Moral Monday rally in Nashville. 

They will call on clergy nationwide to join next week’s Moral Monday rally aimed at highlighting the senseless deaths of America’s children to assault weapons and the urgent need for gun control and declaring boldly that attempts to silence the voices of dead children will fail. And they’ll call on clergy in every state to challenge extremists who are using state capitols to make end runs around the U.S. Constitution and the heart of our democracy. 

If leaders of legislatures in state houses across the country don’t want to listen to debate, they should step down, the faith leaders will declare. If they lie, shut down debate, cut off microphones and encourage expulsions, they need to step down. 

“As clergy, as prophetic voices, we can no longer just do the pastoral work. We must do the prophetic work of changing policy,” Bishop Barber said. “When it comes to our people, our lives and our children, there’s too much death from poverty, too much death from denial of health care, too much death from guns. None of these deaths have to exist. They are policy murder. We can stop it.”

The Moral Monday in Nashville comes just a week before the Moral Monday Ten-Year Anniversary and Recommitment Rally in Raleigh, North Carolina at the State Capitol on April 24. Ten years ago, 17 North Carolinians walked into the NC General Assembly to bear witness to the immoral attacks on the most vulnerable residents in the state. The movement went on to see one of the largest direct action campaigns at a state legislature in U.S. history.

Ten years later, North Carolinians from across the state are coming back to Raleigh to demand that elected leaders govern from the moral center and from the state constitution’s mandate for “the good of the whole.” Whether in Tennessee, North Carolina, West Virginia, or Mississippi- Moral Mondays continue to build power and shift the moral narrative of this country.  

EVENT DETAILS

WHAT: Bishop Barber, Faith Leaders, Tennessee Three to Lay Out Moral Vision, Demands Ahead of Moral Monday Rally

WHO:  Bishop William J. Barber II, President, Repairers of the Breach 

Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Director, Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary 

Rev. Kazimir Brown, Executive Director, Repairers of the Breach 

Rev. Hanna Broome, National Faith and Justice Organizer, Repairers of the Breach 

Rev. Teri Hord Owens, General Minister and President, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) 

Rev. Gordon Meyers, Retired Pastor, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America 

Rev. Rob Stephens, Minister and Organizer, United Church of Christ 

Rev. Dr. Alvin O’Neal Jackson, Retired Pastor, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) 

Rabbi Jonah Pesner, Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism 

Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, Interim President & General Secretary, National Council of Churches of Christ in USA 

Rep. Justin Jones 

Caitlin Swain, Attorney, Forward Justice 

Rev. Stephen Handy, pastor, McKenzie United Methodist Church 

Rev. Chris Buice, pastor, Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church 

WHEN: Wednesday, April 12, 11 am EDT

WHERE: Zoom link here. Must RSVP. 

*For questions or to coordinate interviews, please email phoebe.rogers@berlinrosen.com*

###