No route back for the evangelicals

‘The arc of history is long – but it bends towards justice’. Some of the words of the great Martin Luther king in his classic ‘letter from Birmingham jail’. One suspects that even the patient King never suspected that more than half a century later that that arc would have barely moved. In his famous letter one of his gripes was with his so called brothers in Christ – the Christian evangelicals. King had grown tired of their false support which purported to recognise the justice of his cause but constantly excused their lack of action by claiming the ‘time wasn’t right’. King had listened to this cop out long enough and had embarked on his campaign of non violent protest. Among his followers was the great John Lewis who died yesterday at age eighty. Lewis had walked in 1965 on the march from Selma. He had also felt the lash of a sheriffs truncheon across the ear for having the temerity to help fellow blacks register for the vote. We can only imagine how he must have despaired at tramps America and recent events would make him think King was lucky not to live to see it. As for the evangelicals well where would you start? Having sold their soul to the devil there is no route back to respectability much less credibility. All they have left now is their beleaguered president, their beloved alt right justices, their corrupt leadership and their Covid. If these people are going to heaven standards have sunk fairly low. King believed that his people would ‘see the promised  land’ but was realistic enough to know that ‘ i may not get there with you’ and about that at least he was proven correct when a racist downbeat poked his Remington through the window of a doss house in Memphis, pulled the trigger and blew the black mans dreams away.