“You Never Walk Alone”

That means you walk with others.

The 41-year-old Barker had been trying to rejuvenate his church, which had dwindled from 1,500 attendees in the 1950s to 20 or 30 people on most Sundays, by focusing on liberal causes, and he did not provide advance notice to church leaders about his plan but instead sent out a news release to reporters, hoping to encourage other progressive-minded pastors to join him in advocacy.

Barker's plan was to engage the loosened IRS regulations and endorse AOC for President. I’m not sure he went about it in the right way. He wanted to counter the Family Research Council, which hopes to organize 18,000 pastors to promote MAGA. But those churches are more loosely affiliated, or even non-denominational. Barker’s church was an ELCA congregation.

“I said, ‘Jon, we just agreed as a group that this is not a good idea,’” said Bishop Paul D. Erickson, who oversees churches in southeast Wisconsin, after catching wind of the plan.

Erickson urged Barker to reconsider because his advocacy could potentially jeopardize the tax exemption for the denomination’s other churches.

Barker was not, IOW, walking alone. That’s the hard part.