Last night, in a small rural,
southern town we had our Monday night Bible study. We met in a church building that is associated
with a pretty conservative fellowship.
As we finished up, a couple of the ladies wanted to pray with my
wife. I excused myself from their
presence. One of the ladies had an
infant on her lap so I volunteered and took the baby to the foyer while they prayed.
It seemed like a fitting end to
MLK day 2015. A white, middle aged, gray
haired, conservative from a former generation holding and enjoying the company
of an adorable little girl who happens to be black. This would have been unthinkable not that long
ago. We have come a long way in matters
of civil rights. I am thankful for a father
who may not have been on the front lines of the civil rights movement, but who
was an advocate of integrating churches and who loved people regardless of any
labels people might have stuck on them.
I remember my dad asking the church to pray for Jimmy Carter’s church
when, during his Presidential campaign, it was faced with its all white
character. The church had a policy of
refusing membership to ‘Negros’ and ‘Civil rights agitators’. My Father’s position was not commonly shared
40 years ago. Dad never made a big deal
of it all. It was just the right thing
to do and doing the right thing shouldn’t be a big deal.
Fast forward 38 years and I’m
holding, and praying for a black baby in a church that 50 years ago may not
have admitted the child’s grandmother; times have changed. But there is another reason this is
especially appropriate for a day in which we celebrate civil rights. This Bible study is part of a Crisis Pregnancy
Center; the mother of this baby is a single mom who chose life. Nothing is a greater violation of the rights
of an individual than the act of abortion.
The disproportionate number of black children that are aborted ought to
make us question how much progress we have really made.
I would like to challenge you to
plan now to educate yourself concerning the plight of the unborn, especially
the unborn of color. If you combined all
the deaths since 1973 of African Americans from AIDS, Violent Crimes,
Accidents, Cancer and Heart Disease it would only be a little more than 1/3 the
number of African Americans that have been aborted.
I remember my dad mocking the KKK
to their face as they collected money at a four way stop in a little southern
town. I knew he held them in justifiable
distain. But I wonder if in the judgment,
the KKK will stand up to condemn the abortion providers and those of us who
have remained silent at this the greatest tragedy in human or civil rights
history.
For your review, what does it
mean to be in-human.
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