I grew up hearing that faith is best measured not by what you say but by what you do. My grandfather used to tell me that people who have real wealth don’t brag about it, and people who live their faith don’t trumpet it. Their actions speak louder than their words.

After the Charlie KIrk memorial, I wrote about how Bishop Mariann Budde’s sermon at the National Cathedral prayer service after Trump’s inauguration really reflected the true meaning of being a Christian. I was amazed at the reaction I received from so many people who recognized the same thing I did, i.e. actions speak louder than words.

And, as one reader put it in a DM to me, “You can’t just say you’re Christian and think you’re getting a free pass to heaven.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Related: Bishop Budde’s inaugural remarks, not the impiety at Kirk’s memorial, are what Christianity is really about

These lessons echoed in my mind when I sat down with Bishop William Barber, a man who has spent his life putting Christianity into action. From Moral Mondays in North Carolina to the Poor People’s Campaign, Barber has been one of the clearest voices reminding America that if our politics and our faith ignore the poor, then we have abandoned both the gospel and our democracy.

“Christianity is more than just saying, 'God bless me,”' he told me. “It is more than just finding a scripture that you can quote. It’s more than saying, you know, I follow the Ten Commandments. Christianity, to say one is a Christian, is to say one that I follow the example of Jesus Christ. So ultimately, Jesus Christ is the standard and the judgment of what it means to be Christian. And you can’t escape that.”

Barber calls this “the Jesus problem.” Time and again, he said, people in power have tried to justify greed and injustice with the word Christianity. He told me how slaveholders claimed Christ and how, today, politicians wrap themselves in the cross while cutting food stamps and health care.

But all of them, Barber said, eventually collide with what Jesus actually said and did.

“Jesus started his ministry declaring good news for the poor. He was raised in the ghetto of Nazareth. He went on to say that to be Christian is to have a concern for the broken, the blind, the captives, and all of those made to feel unacceptable. And then he ended his ministry declaring that every nation would be judged by how it treated the least of these.”

That clarity makes it impossible, Barber argued, to accept the silence of today’s clergy in the face of cruelty. He pointed to the contrast at the funeral of Charlie Kirk, where Kirk’s widow spoke humbly and beautifully of forgiveness while the president indulged in scorn and hatred of his enemies, and both drew applause.

“Not one minister stood up and said, ‘No, Mr. President, that’s wrong,’” Barber said. “Christianity has to have a certain courage. Love always challenges hate. Justice always challenges injustice, and that courage is desperately needed.”

Barber and I talked about the looming ramifications of Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill, and how, to put it bluntly, it steals from the poor to give to the rich. I told Barber I penned an op-ed about the devastating effects of the bill, and how it acts as a blueprint to gut Medicaid, slash food stamps, shutter hospitals, and deliberately create more medical and health care deserts.

“This is not policy. It’s mass cruelty, and it will have massive, devastating consequences. It will be fatal,” I wrote after the bill was signed into law.

Related: The deadly 'big beautiful' budget bill will turn America into a morgue

“We’ve got 140 million poor and low-wage people in this country,” Barber said. “And we’re spending more time giving $2 trillion tax cuts to the super wealthy than we are to lifting people out of poverty. We’ve got 87 million people uninsured or underinsured. We’re cutting millions from Medicaid. I saw a Yale and University of Pennsylvania study said this recent ugly bill will be deadly. It will cost 51,000 people their lives. None of this lines up with our Christian way of thinking. It doesn’t even line up with a constitutional way of thinking.”

When he spoke those words, I couldn’t help but think back to the Reagan era, when the same policies weighed heavily on the poor. When I worked on the Hill during that time period, it was glaring to see how “trickle down” economics, as Reagan preached, backfired and only benefited the wealthy.

I told Barber that after Donald Trump was inaugurated, I wrote that while Reagan was known for a trickle-down economy, Trump would be known for trickle-down discrimination, and that Trump will do more damage than Reagan ever did.

Related: After the Crash: Finding Light Amid Trump's Dark Agenda

Barber agreed that this time it is more severe. “We’ve not raised the minimum wage since 2009. That’s 16 years. Work has gone up, prices have gone up, but wages have stayed stagnated. And there’s no reason for it. We should be talking about abolishing poverty. Instead, our debates are about how to transfer more wealth to the wealthy.”

Barber calls poverty what it is, and that is political violence. “Right now we have something in the neighborhood of 800 people dying a day from poverty, and yet we don’t call it an epidemic. When 500 people were dying a day from COVID, we said it was an epidemic. Poverty is political violence.”

We also discussed how Robert F. Kennedy famously embarked on a crusade for the poor in the 1960s to shine a spotlight on the severe living conditions of those who lived in poverty. I also recalled how his brother Ted Kennedy, who I long admired, was also a strong advocate for the poor during his 47 years in the Senate.

Related: Why We Could Use Sen. Ted Kennedy Now

“I do. I think that’s what we’ve been trying to do with the Poor People’s Campaign, a national call for moral revival. But it’s got to come from the bottom up. Poor people now represent 36 to 42 percent of the electorate in every battleground state,” he pointed out. “Poor and low-wage people represent the largest potential swing vote in the nation. If just 20 percent of those who didn’t vote were to vote, they could fundamentally shift elections in this country.”

Barber’s hope lies not in politicians suddenly waking up, but in poor and low-wage Americans realizing their own power. “You don’t have to be victims anymore,” he said. “You have political power that can shift the concept and the politics of this nation. It’s our time that we mobilize around an agenda and do exactly that.”

As we ended our conversation, I thought about his insistence that just calling something “Christian” doesn’t make it so, and isn’t a “ticket to heaven.”

“Just saying something is Christian doesn’t mean a thing if it does not line up with the character of Jesus Christ,” he summed up. “And the Jesus I know, the Jesus I follow, said the nations will be judged by how they treat the least of these.”

Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit Advocate.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.