Every truly powerful preacher should go to the pulpit each Sunday with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other! So spoke a nationally recognized seminary professor! If America is to calm, conquer and create a new unity out of our present crisis and chaos, then prophets are needed to again call us back to our higher reality! God grant that our Judeo-Christian American values, as conceived by our founders, will prevail and He will raise up leaders of peace, justice, wisdom and, above all, sacrificial love through the hearts of our God centered citizens.
At my advanced age I still remain amazed at people’s blindness, ignorance and disinterest in their own history! President Harry Truman’s (1945-52) great quote hits all of us! “The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.”[1] How foolish can we be to miss the greatest history lesson of the last 4000 years plus! The lesson? All men and women have all failed the test for human perfection! All generations have eaten the hardness, distress, tragedy and pain of deception and diminishment rooted in human imperfection!
The loveable crazies in America shout and cry out for their imagined (really unworkable) Utopia…the place that doesn’t exist on earth. My dictionary calls the vision of Utopia an ideal state of perfect laws or an impractical system of political and social perfection! A utopian is an ardent and impractical reformer who is an extreme and visionary idealist! When will we catch on that imperfect people will never create or sustain perfect politics, government or justice! Is it not obvious that our American republic is the most successful, prosperous and liberating human experiment in union in all of history! Winston Churchill commented that “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.”[2]
I have no space for details here on what happened in Minneapolis between two imperfect men…one white and one black. It was simply Genesis 4 all over again! The sons of Adam and Eve had a conflict and Cain killed Abel; solve that old sin my Friend, and you’ll solve Minneapolis! Demanding perfect justice from another flawed human being is impossible. All we can hope for on earth is to find our “life key” and then strive for increased perfection. The big question is where do we get the mind, the heart and the power to succeed at this most worthy goal? We have only two choices: we either seek and trust the true God or we anoint our imperfect selves and play god!
I assume that most of my readers are Christians or spiritually hungry people so let me talk “to us”! I wish I had a dozen columns to make my case, but I must be brief and risk your misunderstanding! First, America both is and is not a racist nation! Many Americans are racists, many have racist attitudes without realizing it but multitudes of us are not! We are creating a “more perfect union” but the pace has been agonizingly slow, especially for “people of color” who have suffered most. Many know a guarded caution and trauma that whites can’t imagine! Our hearts must change, not just policies, and we believe only the Perfect One, Jesus, can do that for those who yield to His ways!
Second, in my thirty years as Chaplain of the Razorbacks I came to love scores of athletes, black, white and Hispanic. In fact, the Lord gave me one of my best life friends whose name most of you Hog fans would recognize. He was one of our greatest players, and he is black. I boldly proclaim him as one of the finest, balanced, gracious, successful and most spiritual men I have ever known! Black lives do matter to me and should to us all. That I matter to him, and them, is one of my greatest blessings!
Third, when I came to Fayetteville 55 years ago the church that called me as pastor was segregated. I commend gratefully them for following my leadership. We became one of the first white churches in Arkansas to welcome black students and families into the church as members! One of my favorite professors resolved the race issue for me more than half a century ago! Sharing his thought with my church sealed it for them, and I hope will do likewise for my dear Readers. My case is summarized completely with this one quote. My beloved professor put it this way: “How can I refuse to call someone ‘my brother’ when the Father in Heaven has called him my son!”
[Note: This article was originally posted in June 2020.]
[1] Quote from https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2009/spring/truman-history.html, accessed 6-17-20.
[2] He said it (House of Commons, 11 November 1947)—but he was quoting an unknown predecessor. From Churchill by Himself, 574 from https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government, accessed 6-16-20.
