Would you please study the Norman Rockwell print to the right(it is entitled The Golden Rule), and at the same time, pray that God will reveal His will to you concerning race? What will your role be in the building of the bridges of reconciliation between the races? Will you be a bridge builder or a bridge burner?I have not written in a while, because I have been waiting for the Lord to direct me towards something new to write, and many subjects have been going through my mind, but recently, God has shown me that I am not finished with the race issue. A few of the people that I have been sharing this blog with had loved what I had to say, until I wrote the blog entitled, Men of Color...All Men are Colored. Many people have emailed me or called me, some of them crying, and said that I had hit the nail on the head concerning love and reconcialtion between the races. Others, however, now suddenly have either nothing or no good things to say; I thought..."now that's a little odd." But I think I understand the problem, or maybe problems. You see, habits, of all kinds, are difficult to break, and we, as humans, have gotten into the habit of disliking, resenting, and sometimes dispising other people. for various reasons...either they don't act, look, or smell the way we think that we think they should, or maybe others obviously don't act right(which we should not have to tolerate), or maybe we have gotten into the habit of resenting people because they are different from us; another race perhaps; a "lower" class than us; on and on. I am so thankful that God is merciful, because if not, He would have obliterated me long ago. The problem, spiritually speaking, is that we often don't keep that "for the Grace of God" attitude about us, when we deal with other people. We somehow think that since we are "doing the right thing" in our lives, that there is something better about us than others. This thinking knows no racial barrier; it is a "human" trait. We look for reasons to latch on to this way of thinking, and many times, we hold onto it like a pit bull dog holds a piece of meat. Someone could hit us in the head with a pipe, and we would still rather find reasons to hate, seperate, snub, or any of the negative things that we do to mistreat others, because they are not in our elite club of normality.
OK, so I am irritating some people by talking about these things; my apologies! But...I have a question. When are we going to start living on this Earth together as human brothers and sisters, and realize that we are all in the same boat of life, and we must help each other to be successful humans? Weird isn't it? Here is the deal...Jesus Christ was always there in Heaven for eternity past; He created everything...what does that have to do with the subject at hand??? Here's what...when He created everything, He knew that satan would cause a sin curse to fall on all of mankind; He knew that He(Jesus) would come out of Heaven to be born a man, to live a perfect life, to die on a cruel cross, to rise again from the dead, to ascend back into Heaven, and is coming again for His children who have accepted Him as Savior; He did all of this for all races, and we are all one, one race...yes ALL one race of people... our lineage goes all the way back to the first man Adam, and guess what...so does the human lineage of Jesus; now...most likely, by the scattering of humans by the Great Flood, races as we know it came about because of climatic location. Some hold the belief that the different races of people bagan at the tower of Babel, when God confounded the languages of the people for trying to build a tower to Heaven, and thus, attempting to elevate themselves to God's level. There is much research available to prove that different tribes of humans have different physical characteristics that directly relate to survival in different locales of the Earth, and it seems that the main differences are color related. We are still just what we are...HUMAN!
We are all a bunch of "mixed breeds".
Once upon a time, I raised thoroughbred German Shepherds. I found that in spite of all the work that it takes to breed a pure bred dog, somewhere along the line, someone has mixed things up, and allowed a mixed breed dog to enter the bloodline; it is highly fraudulent, but I know that it has been done, and the fact remains that even the highest quality of pure bred dogs may have a "mut" in the family tree somewhere. An unscrupulous breeder confided in me once of his practice of "throwing" papers on a dog that had given birth to a litter of puppies. He had current papers on a female dog that had died, and the mother of the current litter looked like a German Shepherd, but in fact, was a "mut". She suddenly, on paper, "became" the dog that was deceased.
I often wonder if there are any pure races of people...do you know anyone who claims to be a 100% pure Italian, Frenchman, African, etc.? I think that all of us or at least a majority of us are "muts".
How did we get so mixed up? What about inter-racial marriages?
Maybe God originally planned for man to stay one race; read Numbers 12 in the Old Testament. Moses was condemned, by Miriam and Aaron for marrying an Ethiopian woman, but I can't find where God condemned him for it. I do read in the same chapter that God was angry at Miriam and Aaron for "bad mouthing" Moses, and God even turned Miriam into a leper! I cannot find real confirmation in the Word of God that God has steadfast rules for segregation. It's funny to me that the chiefest of all segregationalist groups, the KKK maintains that Jesus, the Jewish man, was a white man; what version of the Bible do they read? Either way, man managed to get things really mixed up, and the thing that is constant in the Word of God is that God is not willing that any should perish, including Negroes, Whites, Chinese, on and on. I was a member of a church once that over a 40 year period has moved its location 2 different times, for the specific purpose of distancing itself from African-American peoples. The membership simply did not want them in their church, and the second time, they sold their church building to Vietnamese Catholics whom they disliked also...the very odd thing about it is that over the same time period, they supported and still continue to support missionaries to countries all over the world. I suppose that they feel that they must obey God in the great commission in one way, as long as "those" people don't infiltrate their little club. After all, one of their sons or daughters might just fall in love with a black...God forbid!!! You see...we are all, or most of us are the product of an inter-racial marriage; we just refuse to acknowledge it or don't realize it. When our parents married, they thought that they were both white; true they were in a cultural sense of the word, but not in a heritage sense of the word. I asked my mother when I was small, what race I was, and she explained to me that we were French, Indian, and maybe German...we have found out since that it was not German, but English...ohhhh, I get it, these are mostly caucasian races, so that makes me a white man...who knows...I may have a lot of Indian blood in me. Recently, I saw an old photo of a woman that I believe to be my great grandmother...she looks a great deal like an Indian woman. Her husband was a native Frenchman, so if she is Indian,is that an inter-racial marriage, or not? OK, OK...I know you are saying that I have gone crazy, and that I am all mixed up about my theology...etc. NO I am not trying to promote inter-racial marriages. or demote them either. I am simply trying to make people see that we are what we are, and we have become what we are by "the traditions of men". When a man and woman decide that they are going to get married. I believe that God has a criteria that must be followed for that to happen. #1. The two people should be Christians, for the Bible clearly teaches that to do otherwise is to be "un-equally" yoked, and that is wrong. #2. The two people should confer with God personally concerning whom they will marry, and seek His approval(not man's, not a church); this will come from much prayer and supplication, and maybe fasting, to seek the peace from God that passes all understanding. #3. Their purpose for marrying anyone should be to have a marriage that glorifies God; for the initial purpose of raising a family in the fear and admonition of the Lord. #4. Their approach to marriage should only be with a life-long committment in mind...yes"til death do you part". You will notice that I did not mention race in connection with the "un-equally" yoked part...because...hello! two Christian people who follow steps 2,3,&4, might be of different races, so who, besides God has the right to tell them that they are wrong for considering marriage? I know...I have some of you really wound up now, but go back to the beginning of this blog...did you pray, and ask God, as you studied the picture? Who are we to judge anyone? Oh yeah...I have heard the "we can't judge people, but we can be fruit inspectors!" Bull...ony! Jesus said that "you shall know them by their fruits", meaning that we can tell if a person is of God or not, by the righteousness in their lives(or lack of it), like soul winning, righteous living, or walking in Holiness...not some legalistic judgement that we make, based on preferences! You know something? We are all, but for the Grace of God, a bunch of dirty rotten sinners, saved by Grace(if you are saved), and highly capable of the worst, lowest sins that anyone has ever committed, and skin color is not even in the equation.
Here's another strange, but true, story for you...I was a member of another church where there was a white man that had a beautiful Vietnamese wife. I think that he was in the armed forces in the war, and met her over there, and brought her back to the USA, and married her they had two beautiful "mixed breed" children. They were very happy, and all the people in the congregation really seemed to love them. She was very sweet, and also seemed to love God. To my knowledge, no one ever criticized them for being in an inter-racial marriage. In the same church, a story was related to me that a black man came to visit one Sunday with his white, blonde, girlfriend or wife. No one knew if they were married or not, just that they were together. During the song service, one of the deacons went over to the man, and said, "You will have to leave...we don't want your kind in here!" They got up, and walked out.
Do your own research...in the old south, there were plantation owners who forced their slave women to have sex with them, and fathered many, many children, and it was legal. Why do I bring that up...I think that there are many white men today that are angered when they see a white woman with a black man, for the sole reason that this black has one of our women, and they look down on that woman as a piece of trash. I don't mention all of this to anger anyone, but to just tell it like it is, and to help people to see that we are all just people, and we all will be
judged by God one day, irrespective of color. I understand that there are cultural differences to overcome, and maybe in America it has been mostly a black/white issue, and many times, in order for an Oriental person to marry a White, Caucasian person,for example, the differences
in religions already make the "unequally yoked" principle a problem for that type of inter-racial union. That is all I have to say about inter-racial marriages; the bottom line is that each individual must make their own decisons about it, and I don't have the right to make disparaging remarks about them, even if they are out of God's will. If I am asked, I will give my opinion, but I am obligated by God to try to love everyone.
Am I condoning evil deeds done by members of a different race than mine?
I have had white people tell me, over the years, that those blacks are different from us; they are animals; they are a bunch of drug addicts; they have babies right and left; the prisons are full of them; after all, they hate us, too;or the classic one for me is "Just wait, you love them blacks now, but wait until one of them rapes your daughter!" Again here is the deal...we are all sinners; I don't have all of the answers, but doing wrong has nothing to do with skin color; it is a natural inherant behavior for all of us; maybe there are more blacks in the world than whites; I do know that there are certainly many more blacks on the poverty level than whites, and poverty breeds crime many times, but so does the greed that breeds amongst the rich white people of the world who steal millions of dollars, time and time again; Do you think that the Enron scandal is an isolated one? NO, it just happens to be the one where people got caught; the ones that get away with it have not been exposed yet. No, I am not condoning evil or tolerance of wrongful deeds from any race of people, at all. What I am saying here, plain and simple, is that people from every race have the obligation to do what is right, and many do. Part of that "doing right" is to love thy neighbor as thyself.
What is the solution for racial disharmony?
I thought you'd never ask...you thought I'd never get to my point of all of this. What we need is the kind of love that Jesus preached and exemplified to us; loving everyone. What we don;t need more of is the kind of racial disharmony and division that people like Mr. Al Sharpton and Mr. Jesse Jackson promote;every one spewing hatred, just for the love of money, prestige, and power. By the way, of all of the black men on the planet that I know of, the Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson is an awesome man who is giving his life to fulfill the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King; he's not a hater, but he is very outspoken, and stands up to those who promote hatred amongst the races. Go to http://bondinfo.org
I also know of another fine man in the Atlanta area that tells it like it is, and remains a gentleman, and has a sincere desire to see reconciliation between the races; and he is Mr. Herman Cain. Go to http://hermancain.com
I can do nothing about what any other man does or says concerning racial harmony or disharmony, except maybe try to vote him or her out of office at the polls, but I personally can do my part every day to "hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters, all over this land", as the old song "If I Had A Hammer" says. I am doing it, and I will continue to. I am a bridge builder...You can be one, too. Ask God to open doors of opportunity for you to be a bridge builder. Bridges have many parts, and they are almost all structural or important, except maybe for the paint. The abutments, girders, cables, trusses,towers, and the railings, all have a function. Remember that all bridges have some sort of passageway, like a road or rail, to communicate travel. Plan now to be a part of the bridge. God will show you...help someone of another race in some way, every time the occasion arises; I live in an almost all black neighborhood; the occasions arise for me daily. Give a helping hand, an encouraging word, a smile, and...WOW! maybe a hug. And the most important thing that anyone can do is to help someone, anyone, bridge the gap between them and God, by telling them about Jesus. Do yourself a huge favor, don't allow anyone to dictate to you as to how you should feel about other races, and if you need to change, ask God to help you. Since we are made in the image of God, then we are not made to hate anyone.
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