Nashville, Tennessee’s Bishop Joseph Walker, III believes that a major part of our country’s disparity between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is the absence of strong, consolidated, African-American Christian leadership at the local, state, and Federal levels.  Walker affirms that such leadership cannot afford to stay divided any longer on “national policy and the pulpit.” The unity of our country and of the African American community is strongly dependent on the moral leadership provided by both black clergy and black community leaders.  

The political framework of our nation has been significantly influenced by Christian conservative leaders who have set-up voters to back state and national candidates who have shaped our nation’s domestic policies.  According to Walker, African American Christian leadership has been absent from such public discourse, so the Christian conservative vote has largely been Caucasian. Without a consistent voice in the conversation, Bishop Joseph Walker believes that this has led to a “state of confusion with respect to what our [African American Clergy] response should be regarding national issues. Many of us are middle of the road.”

While holding a Governor-appointed post of the Tennessee Human Rights Commission, Joseph Walker further aligned himself with issues that affect America’s communities on both a moral and human rights level.  Bishop Joseph Walker iii, who received his Th.D. from Princeton, believes that national policy becomes a moral issue when it delegates how our government spends taxpayer funds to care for people, especially the poor and disenfranchised.

One textbook example of intertwining morality and policy is the Gulf Coast catastrophe in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Polarized as an African American issue, due to the high populace of African Americans displaced, the state and national government response was one that left outrage within the ranks of African American Christian leadership nationwide. This dissatisfaction came as a result of the lack of care given to the poor and displaced.