Rev. William Barber is having none of Franklin Graham’s framing of the nation’s “sin,” and held back not an ounce while going after him on MSNBC on Saturday. Barber’s appearance followed one on the same network by Graham.

Graham defended President Trump, amid the government shutdown and allegations from a former adult film actress that she had an affair with him in 2006, arguing that while the world is sinful, the president is “concerned with Christian values.”

He blamed politicians and their policies for the “sin” problem in America, and praised Trump for supporting Christians who want a license to discriminate in the form of so-called “religious freedom laws.”

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Graham also said he supported Trump’s wall on the Southern border. Barber criticized the plan, calling it racist and arguing that the Jesus he follows tore down walls.

Barber, appearing on “AM Joy,” told Graham to “stop lying” and even suggested he might be getting “bought off” to continue supporting Trump.

“I heard Franklin Graham a minute ago,” Barber said. “Ezekiel in the 22nd Chapter says, your politicians have become like wolves, when they attack the poor, when they attack the stranger, when they attack the least of these. And then it says, and your preachers are covering up for the politicians. What we see here is a mass cover-up by so-called white evangelicalism, that’s more about, as I’ve said before, cash than Christ. It’s heavily funded.”

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“You see Franklin Graham saying we have a sin problem. We do, but it’s not what they’re talking about. The Christian values are caring for the strangers, caring for the least of these, helping the poor. The Bible actually says you should make sure the immigrant is treated like your brother or sister. None of them would be treating their brother or sister like this,” he continued.

“We’ve seen 365 days of attacks: Attacks on voting rights, that’s sin, attacks on Muslims, that’s sin, attacks on healthcare, that’s sin, attacks on the LGBT community, that’s sin,” he said. “Attacks on living wages, giving the greedy and the wealthy tax breaks on the backs of the poor and the working poor, wherever you look in the scripture, that’s sin. And anyone attempting to justify that is engaging in a modern day form of heresy.”

Barber, who qnotes named the 2017 Person of the Year, is the national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and the president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach.

“It is just wrong what he’s saying,” Barber concluded. “And actually, I would say to my brother Franklin Graham, he needs to stop lying, tell the truth, and stop being bought off or paid, or whatever is calling him to misrepresent the faith like that. It is just wrong, it is just wrong.”

Watch his interview with host Joy Reid below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJppJxSBVjY

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Posted by Jeff Taylor / Social Media Editor Jeff Taylor is a journalist and artist. In addition to QNotes, his work has appeared in publications such The Charlotte Observer, Creative Loafing Charlotte, Inside Lacrosse, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. He graduated from the State University of New York at Brockport and has lived in Charlotte since 2006.@jefftaylorhuman.