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A group of religious leaders including Muslims, Christians and Jews have issued a call to arms asking members of Congress not to accommodate appointments to President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet that threaten minorities in America.

The group described Trump’s proposed administration as a “cabinet of bigotry” and expressed their concerns about the potential impact of a White House filled with individuals who seem to oppose people from diverse backgrounds during a press conference at Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Washington, D.C.

On Thursday’s edition of NewsOne Now, Rev. Jim Wallis, the Founding President of Sojourners Magazine, said, “People are feeling threatened by these appointments,” and later stated, “Donald Trump ran on religious bigotry, but the appointment of [Jeff] Sessions says we’re going to make this structural.”

With the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions to attorney general and the appointment of Steve Bannon as Trump’s top adviser, Wallis said, “Racism is now embedded in this new administration.” 

Rev. William Lamar, pastor of Metropolitan AME Church, told Roland Martin that Sen. Sessions “is definitely someone that we need to fight vigorously against.”  

Lamar also explained Trump’s election is a sign that many Whites in this nation are no longer willing to “accommodate” a diverse populous and said Trump’s supporters are attempting to “hold onto power, instead of sharing it.”

“We need to be aware that this is not an anomaly, but is profoundly American, and Americans of many generations have had to fight this and we must fight it in our own day,” he said.

Pastor Wallis painted a picture of the future of America that should frighten everyone and said branches of the government in Washington, D.C. will be “collaborating [and] coordinating voter suppression nationally.”

He continued, Brian Stevenson once said, ‘Slavery never ended, it just evolved’ and this is now the new evolution of slavery.”

Wallis added, “Washington can’t be looked to now by civil rights leaders for accountability … there is no help coming from Washington. So that means local clergy are going to have to say to local police departments, ‘We’re here to watch you and monitor you and film you.'”

Wallis threw down a gauntlet against Trump’s proposals to deport illegal immigrants and create a Muslim database and said, “We’re going to make you arrest them in our churches [and] in our seminaries … and when you try to register Muslims, we’re going to be first in line as priests and rabbis.”

Rev. Jennifer Butler, the Founding CEO of Faith in Public Life, explained 2,500 clergy members signed a letter to oppose Donald Trump’s “cabinet of bigotry,” and said, “We also want to see Republicans in particular speaking out vociferously about Steve Bannon.”  

Reminding viewers that Bannon is a White supremacist, Butler said, “We need to hear people speaking out and have a moral spine about that. This is rolling back years and years and decades of civil rights history and we can’t let that happen.”

Watch Roland Martin, Pastor Jim Wallis, Rev. William Lamar, and Rev. Jennifer Butler discuss the clergy’s response to Trump’s incoming administration in the video clip above.

PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

Watch NewsOne Now with Roland Martin, in its new time slot on TV One.

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