chapel hill, n.c. <u+2014> the first debate between hillary clinton and donald j. trump featured plenty of magical thinking, but it was a nonreligious event. neither candidate mentioned god. the second debate may be no different: voters see mr. trump as either a prophet or an angel of death , but the only religion that interests him is his own faith in his <u+201c>winning temperament.<u+201d> as to mrs. clinton: the news stories that have dogged her <u+2014> the email server; benghazi; the <u+201c>basket of deplorables<u+201d> quote <u+2014> don<u+2019>t have much to do with religion. she has been private about her methodist faith, and no earnest sunday school memories will sway voters who view her as fundamentally untrustworthy. yet religion helps explain why mrs. clinton has struggled to unite the democratic base. i<u+2019>m not talking about the faithful who look for the resurrection of bernie sanders, but a real left-wing religious revival. its prayers, preaching and theological battles look very much like the revival that energized the civil rights movement a half-century ago. today<u+2019>s revival is divided against itself, as it was back then. this revival<u+2019>s more moderate leaders can<u+2019>t corral the young radicals who want revolution and who reject not just the democratic nominee, but the basic assumptions of modern politics. the clash goes deeper than policy or strategy. it is a theological rift: is religion founded in submission to unchanging principles or is it a protean revolutionary force, a tool of self-empowerment? i live in north carolina, ground zero of the moral monday movement, a protest campaign against cuts to public funding, voting restrictions, discriminatory laws and other state legislation. led by the rev. dr. william j. barber ii, a minister and president of the north carolina n.a.a.c.p., this is a civil rights movement modeled on the prophetic preaching and nonviolent tactics of the rev. dr. martin luther king jr. and his allies. dr. barber<u+2019>s moral monday rallies are religious spectacles, featuring clergy from various faiths, a liturgy of sermons and songs <u+2014> and more than 900 arrests of nonviolent protesters since the rallies began three years ago. when dr. barber marched in charlotte last month after the police there shot keith scott, he condemned violent protest but also denounced anyone who ignored the <u+201c>systemic violence<u+201d> of racism and poverty. <u+201c>america has claimed to be founded on deep moral traditions, constitutional, religious and otherwise,<u+201d> dr. barber told me. <u+201c>we need a recovery of that kind of conversation in the public square.<u+201d> he has taken this call for revival to a national stage, collaborating with dr. james a. forbes jr., senior minister emeritus of riverside church in new york city, and other progressive christian leaders to start a national tour called simply the revival. (their next event , on monday, is in minneapolis.) dr. barber<u+2019>s revival includes people of all colors and faiths. his pragmatic, ecumenical approach has borne fruit in north carolina, where new branches of the n.a.a.c.p. have sprung up in the western part of the state <u+2014> largely white, republican territory. he inspired wanda woodby , a presbyterian lay pastor who helped found a branch in yancey and mitchell counties. <u+201c>reverend barber with his moral agenda <u+2014> that<u+2019>s something you can believe in,<u+201d> she said. when dr. barber addressed the democratic national convention in july, he suggested that mrs. clinton was an agent of this revival, <u+201c>working to embrace our deepest moral values.<u+201d> some activists find dr. barber<u+2019>s revival a little too polite, too committed to big-tent solidarity to push for real change. <u+201c>i first got my sea legs in tactical organizing with the n.a.a.c.p. doing voter registration,<u+201d> said holden cession, 26, who identifies as queer and transgender and prefers the non-binary title mx. <u+201c>now, being a part of black lives matter, i see the differences. black lives matter basically says, we don<u+2019>t care about how you feel. we<u+2019>re not about appeasing you or making you feel good for being a liberal white person.<u+201d> next month, mx. cession may not vote at all: <u+201c>what does it mean to vote when we don<u+2019>t live in a democracy?<u+201d> mx. cession grew up in a conservative pentecostal family, a preacher<u+2019>s kid in the small town of rural hall, n.c. affirming christianity now requires <u+201c>a 30-page footnote breaking down what i mean,<u+201d> but mx. cession sees black lives matter in spiritual terms: <u+201c>we are the messiahs of our generation. we are the people that the ancestors were praying for.<u+201d> mx. cession rhapsodized about a rally in cleveland that erupted in spontaneous chanting and drum circles. inspired by traditions ranging from yoruba religion to native american practices, <u+201c>people were singing, dancing, burning sage <u+2014> it<u+2019>s this energy, this beautiful energy, that can<u+2019>t be recreated through enforced religion,<u+201d> mx. cession told me. black lives matter may lack the classic marks of a <u+201c>religious movement<u+201d>: phalanxes of clergy arm-in-arm, leading the marches; or heavy reliance on the space and staff of churches. many of its leaders are women, gay and transgender people historically marginalized by religious institutions. but when mx. cession described jesus as <u+201c>a radical brown-skinned palestinian man who was a political prisoner, who was about fighting the authorities,<u+201d> i heard an echo of the late 1960s: the black liberation theologians who fused a marxist analysis of white imperialism with the prophetic tradition. <u+201c>god is black,<u+201d> the theologian james cone wrote in 1970. he warned that african-americans should not make the mistake of <u+201c>picturing god as a god of all peoples. either god is identified with the oppressed to the point that their experience becomes god<u+2019>s experience, or god is a god of racism.<u+201d> to many activists then and now, the test of theology is not scripture, church tradition or scholarly consensus, but whether it empowers the oppressed. if it does, then it is true. this is the test that black lives matter activists apply to their grab bag of spiritual traditions. it may seem like the cynical adoption of spiritual authority for political purposes, and in a sense it is. all humans embrace ideologies that explain our reality and help us survive. nonetheless, black lives matter spirituality is not just a slightly more left-wing version of dr. barber<u+2019>s faith (he calls himself a <u+201c>theologically conservative evangelical biblicist<u+201d>). it is radically subjective: any creed other than the dogma of self-empowerment is a form of oppression. this do-it-yourself religion may be radical, but it is not necessarily liberal. many black lives matter activists are skeptical of liberalism<u+2019>s most fundamental assumptions: the human capacity for empathy <u+2014> the notion that it really is possible for people of all colors to understand one another <u+2014> and the faith that we can rely on the democratic process to manage conflicts between us. no one represents this anti-establishment spirituality and mistrust of mainstream politics better than micah white, who is biracial and one of the founders of the occupy wall street movement. mr. white, 34, was once a proud nonbeliever who protested for the right to organize an atheist student club at his high school in michigan. but he is not an atheist any longer. today mr. white calls himself a <u+201c>mystical anarchist<u+201d> and is fascinated by magic and kabbalah. in his 2016 book <u+201c>the end of protest,<u+201d> he argues that too many activists are <u+201c>secular ultramoderns<u+201d> who lose hope when they conclude that individuals are no match for the structures of global capitalism. even leon trotsky, mr. white told me, <u+201c>understood that revolution is not just material forces. it has to do with how people see the world. atheist activism just isn<u+2019>t effective.<u+201d> activists must rediscover the oldest theory of revolution: what mr. white calls <u+201c>theurgism,<u+201d> from the ancient greek for <u+201c>divine works.<u+201d> <u+201c>theurgism simply means divine intervention into our world in a way that sways the political process,<u+201d> he said. (like holden cession, mr. white is not planning to vote in the presidential election, although he is running for mayor of the small town in rural oregon where he moved after occupy. <u+201c>i only want to vote for truly revolutionary forces,<u+201d> he said.) occasionally, he seems to speak the same spiritual idiom as dr. barber. both men call for <u+201c>an awakening.<u+201d> yet dr. barber<u+2019>s revival is one more example of how <u+201c>the entire activist movement has been taken over by anti-revolutionaries,<u+201d> mr. white said. <u+201c>a moral agenda has a long-term view,<u+201d> dr. barber told me. he noted that progressives should learn from <u+201c>extremists like the koch brothers,<u+201d> who have figured out that <u+201c>you can no longer support a messiah candidate and expect change overnight,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>we have to walk by faith, and not by sight.<u+201d> voting for a self-proclaimed messiah or prophet is the easy temptation. the hard thing is supporting someone like mrs. clinton: a battle-scarred politician who seeks to <u+201c>do all the good you can,<u+201d> and who admits she is as flawed as everyone else in the city of man. that<u+2019>s the real leap of faith. molly worthen ( @mollyworthen ) is the author, most recently, of <u+201c>apostles of reason: the crisis of authority in american evangelicalism,<u+201d> an assistant professor of history at the university of north carolina, chapel hill, and a contributing opinion writer. follow the new york times opinion section on facebook and twitter (@nytopinion) , and sign up for the opinion today newsletter . a version of this op-ed appears in print on october 9, 2016, on page sr6 of the new york edition with the headline: what<u+2019>s god got to do with it?. today's paper | subscribe
what<u+2019>s god got to do with it?
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