But it was actually the heyday of the religious left, a movement that animated and propelled that activist government forward. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”The religious left could find no better creed than those very words. King’s assassination was not the death knell of the religious left, but the budding conservative reaction already visible in 1968 announced a new landscape in religious activism. In light of his puzzling proximity to evangelical groups, Donald Trump has inspired hopes of a revival of the religious left, as though religious activism were a pendulum. But we must change that, for King was the prime catalyst of the short-lived but no less remarkable religious left.

Source: Washington Post January 15, 2018 12:37 UTC