A Moral Declaration for America

Yale Center for Public Theology and Public Policy 

For Immediate Release: July 3, 2023

Contact: daniel@berlinrosen.com

Bishop Barber to President, Congress, American People: ‘We Are In A Battle For Civilization Itself’ 

In 2,700-Word ‘Moral Declaration for America,’ Calls on America to Stop Blame Game, ‘Wield Every Ounce of Influence and Power…to Force this Nation to be True to What it Said on Paper’ 

NEW HAVEN – As the nation prepares for its 247th birthday, and just days after the Supreme Court issued a series of decisions that destroyed affirmative action, trampled on the humanity of the LGBTQ+ community, refused to protect the right to vote for formerly incarcerated people, and prevented millions of people from getting a fraction of the heavy student debt relief they need, Bishop William J. Barber II DMin. sent a letter to the President, Congress and the American people calling on them to act now to save our democracy. 

Read the full letter here. 

“We find ourselves amid an orchestrated moral crisis, and it is up to people of moral conscience to hold this nation accountable to itself,” he writes, in a 2,700-word “Moral Declaration for America” released ahead of the July 4 holiday. “Finger-pointing at extremists is a wasteful exercise that wrongfully whittles this moment in our history down to a difference of opinion rather than a crisis of civilization. We cannot afford to interpret this moment as a difference of opinion. We are in a battle for civilization itself.” 

In the letter, Bishop Barber, who is founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School and president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, writes that while the extremists on the Supreme Court last week dealt significant blows to our civil and human rights protections, they are not the only ones to blame. 

He calls out politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, organizations and others who, “were complicit through their participation or inaction as we watched our democracy being slowly chipped away, and most recently bulldozed, over the last 10 years.” 

He called on people of moral conscience to move past the shock of the extremists’ contortion of the Constitution and turn inward and ask how we’ve all contributed to the crisis and what we can do to save our democracy. 

In the letter, Bishop Barber notes that Justice Clarence Thomas was nominated and appointed to the Supreme Court under a Democratic majority in the Senate in 1991. And he writes that from 2009-2011, Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress and did not use their power to reinforce the most important protections against voter suppression after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Low voter turnout, combined with severely weakened voter protections, allowed a demagogue to be elected as President. He also notes that Democrats can make compromises to move a pipeline, but when it comes to passing living wages, they throw their hands up in the air. 

“So, it's time to let go of the blame game,” he writes. “It is time for people with a moral conscience to wield every ounce of influence and power they have towards justice and to force this nation to be true to what it said on paper – "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  

He closes the letter with messages to the president, Congress, moral leaders, civil rights organizations and justice-loving Americans, imploring them to share in the task of building the America that has never yet been. He writes to President Biden that we cannot “wait for the perfect political moment” and encourages him to use his bully pulpit “to speak for justice, truth and reconciliation.” And he calls on Congress to put the well-being of our people, and not culture wars, at the forefront of policy-making. To people of moral conscience, he writes that they must “provide the unwritten checks and balances necessary for good governance…This nation is ours to make over and over again for as long as justice takes.” 

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