I
wish to thank Pastor Sara Burress and the Session of Trinity Presbyterian
Church for making these wonderful facilities available to us this evening. To my brothers and sisters who are ministers
of the Gospel, Greetings: Grace to you.
I am honored to be on the same platform with you. To Ms. Dancer: I only hope to live up to a fraction of the hopes you have
established in that graceful introduction.
To the brothers and sisters in Christ and the congregation: Grace to
you. Thank you all for your kind
attendance. To be given the trust by
the NAACP to present this message is a great honor. Thank you.
To
my church family at Fellowship Baptist Church and our Interim Pastor, Cornell Daughtry,
I did tell them I am not a Reverend, and not an officer of the church, but it
still came out that way in the paper. I
do not officially represent Fellowship Baptist Church in any capacity. I am just a member and one of several Sunday
school teachers there. When Dr. Tryman was putting the program together, he
started the “reverend” business, and I corrected him, and he said I needed some
title, and I reluctantly agreed to “minister,” but only in the Latin
sense. The word in Latin means
“servant.” I am here as a servant of
the Lord.
The
theme of this program is “The Dream: 50 Years After Brown II,” and I hope to
demonstrate that the dream is still, only a dream, and to point to some causes
and cures.
Fifty
years ago, the legal case, Brown vs. Board of Education declared that
“Separate, but Equal” was a Lie. Second
Baptist Church has given Dr. Mfanya Tryman and me a mission: Our goal is Racial Reconciliation-Harmony-Unity
in the churches of Oktibbeha County.
Tonight, I will try to relate that mission to the dream of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., and the state of education in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi.
In
his famous “Dream” speech, Dr. King said:
“I have a dream that one day
this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold
these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’ I have a
dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and
the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of
brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a
desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be
transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four
children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the
color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream
today.
“I have a dream that one day
the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the
words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation
where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little
white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a
dream today. I have a dream that one day ‘every valley shall be exalted, every
hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and
the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.’ [Isaiah 40] This is our hope.
This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be
able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we
will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful
symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to
pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for
freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
“This will be the day when all
of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, ‘My country, 'tis of
thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land
of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.’ And if
America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring
from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty
mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let
freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let
freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout
Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of
Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
“When we let freedom ring,
when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and
every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children,
black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be
able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at
last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”
(Delivered on the
steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. Source:
Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Peaceful Warrior, Pocket Books, NY 1968, via
http://www.mecca.org/~crights/dream.html.)
The
child in the back seat always asks, “Are we there, yet?” The answer is still, “Not yet. Not yet.
Not yet.” But we are closer than
we were 50 years ago. There is some
hope. But let us look at the realities,
right here in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi.
My
search for information on schools in Oktibbeha County and Starkville revealed
two dichotomies: County vs. City
and Public vs. Private.
County
vs. City
The
Oktibbeha County School District has a web page (http://www.oktibbeha.k12.ms.us/),
and the so-called “Starkville Separate School District” is also advertised in some
places (http://cityofstarkville.org/lifestyle/public_ed.html)
but it is called the “Starkville School District” on its own official web page
(http://www.starkville.k12.ms.us/). We still have separate and unequal school
systems in public education in Oktibbeha County!
My
wife and I live inside the Starkville School District. Our school taxes are at least $600 more per
year than the neighbor in the same subdivision who lives a hundred yards away,
but is outside the district. That
monetary distinction is made even more concentrated when you consider that
there are many more taxed properties with greater property valuations inside
the district, than in the county. How
can the county schools be equal with such disproportionate funding?
The
county schools are predominately black.
The city schools are integrated.
Many white families who live in the county and can afford it, send their
children to live with relatives or rent a second home in the city so their
children won’t have to go to county schools that they consider to be of lesser
quality. (Personal communications.)
The
people who talked to me about this claimed it was not because the schools were
predominately black, but because the quality of education was poor, that they
made the sacrifice for their children.
They pointed out, in their defense, that they could have put a child in
the academy for the same price of renting the second home, but they wanted them
in Starkville High School because the quality of education was so much better
than at the county schools.
Oktibbeha
County and Starkville have used political boundaries and taxation policies that
promote racism and separate, unequal schools.
This is not to say that they intended to do this. Their intent was likely to have the best
schools for as many children as possible.
Sometimes, what we intend has side effects that were not intended. That did not stop the side effects from
happening and causing the inequalities for the innocent bystanders, i.e.,
the children in the county schools.
Awareness of the problem should be step one in solving the problem.
Many
families, both black and white, have objections to a so-called “godless,
statist,” public education system and elect to send their children to private
schools. In Oktibbeha County, there are
not many private school alternatives.
Starkville Academy (K – 12)
“The mission of Starkville Academy is to provide
quality educational programs in a Christian enviroment (sic) that will
challenge students to excel academically, physically, socially and
spiritually.”
(http://www.starkville.pvt.k12.ms.us/)
“The basis of many students (sic) reasoning for going
to Starkville Academy is our ability to pray at school. We have many active
prayer groups here at SA . . . .” (http://www.starkville.pvt.k12.ms.us/Prayer%20Groups.htm)
Percent Minority (Asian) 1% - Percent White 99% (http://www.privateschoolreview.com/school_ov/school_id/15537)
Starkville
Christian School (PK – 8)
Percent Minority (Black) 19% - Percent White 81% (http://www.privateschoolreview.com/school_ov/school_id/15538)
My
personal feeling is that the burden of proof that they are not racist is upon any
private school established between 1950 and 1970, especially if they are in a
racially mixed area, are more than 90% white, and if they provide essentially
the same education, i.e., use the same textbooks and have the same
course offerings, as the public schools.
Good evidence of non-racism would be affirmative action recruiting
programs, minority scholarships, and other good-faith efforts to increase
minority enrollment.
Christian
schools that have the word “Christian” in their name, that have a
Christ-centered curriculum, use explicitly Christian textbooks such as Abeka
Books and the McGuffey Readers, and offer scholarships to encourage low-income
and minority students to enroll, can be exempted from the charge of “assumed
racist unless proven otherwise. Maybe .
. . . but look at the Christian churches.
The
most segregated time of the week in Oktibbeha County is Sunday morning at the
morning worship service hour in Christian churches.
I
have a dream, but my dream is still, just a dream.
Why
is it only a dream? And what can we do
to make it happen?
The
scripture lesson is titled, “Brothers and Mothers—All in the Family.”
Brothers
Since the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin, the entire creation has
been under a curse.
Genesis 3:17-19. 17
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,
and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not
eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all
the days of thy life; 18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring
forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19 In the
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for
out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
The earthquakes, tsunamis, mud slides and all the
catastrophes happening in our world, today are, according to these verses, part
of the curse (“cursed is the ground”), part of the justice of God administered
to Adam, upon the entire creation, and to Adam’s progeny, as a result of his
sin.
Genesis 4:1-10. And Adam
knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a
man from the LORD. 2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel
was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 And in
process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground
an offering unto the LORD. 4 And Abel, he also brought of the
firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto
Abel and to his offering: 5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had
not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. 6
And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance
fallen? 7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if
thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire,
and thou shalt rule over him. 8 And Cain talked with Abel his
brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up
against Abel his brother, and slew him. 9 And the LORD said unto
Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's
keeper? 10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy
brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
The verses about Cain and Able demonstrate that the
curse extended to Adam’s offspring. His
sons inherited his sin nature and, therefore, the necessity that offerings be
made to the LORD. I would posit to you
this evening that every problem people have between them is, at its root, a brother
problem. It is the problem of envy and
anger demonstrated by Cain.
In our day we have lost track of who our brother
is. Geneticists tell us that part of
our cellular sturcture, the mitochondria, comes through the ovum from our
mothers, and the nuclear DNA, from which we get our uniqueness, is a mixture
from our four grandparents. Unless
there is genetic damage, our mitochondria is identical to that of our maternal
grandmothers. If one carries this
relationship back from a grandmother to the grandmother’s grandmother, etc.,
for generations, he must conclude that all humans living today have a common
female ancestor. This fact does not
scientifically prove the existence of Adam and Eve, but it does parallel the
Biblical evidence: We are all
brothers. “Red and yellow, black and
white, all are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the children of the world.” (– Child’s hymn) We are all brothers by birth.
Most of us have good reasons to hate the siblings in
our nuclear families. My older brother
always picked on me. On Sundays, we
would be in competition for the piece of fried chicken containing the wishbone. And how we would cut each other down with
words! When I am honest, I will admit I
hated him. I was, at best, angry in my
heart. I am just like Cain—I just
didn’t carry my thoughts to their logical conclusion, as Cain did.
I have a friend who is a very light-skinned African
American. His older brother was only
slightly a shade lighter. In the
sixties when the swimming pools were segregated, they would go to the park
together. One time, the attendant let
his brother in, but kept my friend out because he was “colored.” His brother laughed and jeered at him
through the chain-link fence. I can
imagine the anger he must have felt in his heart.
If we have anger and envy in our hearts for our
immediate family members, is it any stretch of the imagination to see that we
could easily envy and hate others? It
comes naturally, i.e., it is part of our inherited sin nature.
The movie South
Pacific includes a song called “You’ve got to be taught.”
“You've got to be
taught to hate and fear. You've got to be taught from year to year. It's got to
be drummed in your dear little ear. You've got to be carefully taught. You've
got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made And people
whose skin is a different shade. You've
got to be carefully taught. You've got
to be taught before it's too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To
hate all the people your relatives hate, You've got to be carefully
taught. You've got to be carefully
taught.” (--Oscar Hammerstein, II (1895-1960).
From the 1949 musical South Pacific by Richard Rogers & Oscar
Hammerstein II Copyright © 1949, Renewed.)
But you don’t have to be taught all of those
things. Many just come naturally.
Another show tune from Oklahoma! “Doin’ what comes naturally,” is just
as apropos for hatred. It doesn’t have
to be Either/Or; it can be Both/And. We
naturally hate, but we are taught whom to hate. The comedian, W.C. Fields, is quoted as saying, “I am free of all
prejudice. I hate everyone equally.”
In Matthew 5:21,22, Jesus likens murder to anger and
indicates that anger is a precursor to murder. You don’t murder people unless you are first angry with
them. Cain just acted out his anger for
his brother Abel.
James said, “1 From whence
come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that
war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to
have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war.” -- James 4:1-2.
I still have a dream, but it is only a dream. I find in my heart an angry desire not just
to get even, but also to get ahead of my brother. And I find that everyone is my brother. How wretched I find myself.
Dr. King said, “I have a dream that one day . . . little black boys and black girls will
be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together
as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.” Do you realize that those of you born in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s are
the people he had immediately in mind?
If, today, you are between 35 and 45, you were the children in his
vision. How many people of a skin color
different from your own do you hold hands with and walk together? If you are not part of the solution, you are
part of the problem. Since when will
brothers and sisters not associate with each other?
Hold on to the dream! But determine to love your brothers and be a part of the
implementation of the dream.
Mothers
Genesis 16:1-16 1 Now Sarai Abram's wife
bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was
Hagar. 2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath
restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I
may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. 3
And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt
ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his
wife. 4 And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she
saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. 5
And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy
bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the
LORD judge between me and thee. 6 But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold,
thy maid is in thine hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt
hardly with her, she fled from her face. 7 And the angel of the LORD
found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way
to Shur. 8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and
whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. 9
And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit
thyself under her hands. 10 And the angel of the LORD said unto her,
I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for
multitude. 11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou
art with child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because
the LORD hath heard thy affliction. 12 And he will be a wild man;
his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he
shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. 13 And she called the
name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I
also here looked after him that seeth me? 14 Wherefore the well was
called Beerlahairoi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. 15 And
Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare,
Ishmael. 16 And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar
bare Ishmael to Abram.
Genesis 17:20-21 20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard
thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply
him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great
nation. 21 But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah
shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.
Genesis 21:1-13 1 And the LORD visited Sarah as he had
said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken. 2For Sarah
conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God
had spoken to him. 3 And Abraham called the name of his son that was
born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. 4 And Abraham
circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5
And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him. 6
And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with
me. 7 And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah
should have given children suck? for I have born him a son in his old age. 8
And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day
that Isaac was weaned. 9 And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the
Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking. 10 Wherefore she
said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this
bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. 11 And the
thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son. 12
And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the
lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee,
hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. 13
And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy
seed.
These passages teach us more about families. Having multiple wives was something a
wealthy man could do in Abraham’s day, and in some cultures, today, but it has
its problems. Not sibling envy, like
Cain and Abel, but mother envy. In our
day and time with serial monogamy replacing polygamy, this translates to the
step-mother problem. The children of
the second wife are treated differently than the children from the first
marriage. My children are more
important to me than your children!
Note how that, in the passage about Abraham, the
problem has become global, instead of familial. Who are Isaac’s descendants, today? The nation of Israel. Who
are Ishmael’s descendants? The Arabs,
Palestinians, and other Middle Easterners who are primarily Moslems. A problem of mother’s envy within a family
has become an international, worldwide terrorist issue scores of generations
later. Oh Mothers, love all the children!
The Apostle Paul, writing to the Galatians, says, “7 Know ye
therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 8
And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith,
preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be
blessed. 9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful
Abraham.”—Galatians 3:7-9
That means that Christians, Moslems, and Jews are
all not just brothers, but also Abraham’s offspring, in one way or
another. We are all brothers! Black, White, Protestant, Catholic,
Jew: I have a dream.
Brothers and Mothers, envy, anger, and hatred. It’s all in the family. I still have a dream, but it is only a
dream. I am messed up, and my family is
messed up. What can I do?
The solution
The solution begins by recognizing the problem. The problem is that we hate each other. Stated differently, the problem is that we
love ourselves more than we love others. What is the solution for that?
Jesus gives the answer, “Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Mark 12:31) We don’t have to love
others any more than we love ourselves, but just as much. He said, “34 A new
commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you,
that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye
are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” (John 13:34,35)
In honesty, you say, “I can’t do that.” Jesus says, “Ye must be born again.” (John 3:7) If you come to God admitting you can’t do
it, yourself, and put your faith in Jesus to do it for you, He will give you a
new heart! You can be born, again, as a
spiritual being. Then you can do it.
What agency did God institute for solving that
problem? He gave the command to his
disciples, now represented by the Christian church. And He gave his church the mission, “8 But ye shall
receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be
witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and
unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
I only pray that the war in Iraq will result in a
society where the truth of the gospel can be freely proclaimed so the physical
descendents of Abraham can also become the spiritual descendents of Abraham.
But we Christians must admit that the mission hasn’t
changed for almost 2000 years, and the dream hasn’t happened. The church has failed. But the power is there. We must press on towards the dream. We must not stop.
What about Oktibbeha County?
I think the power to change Oktibbeha County is in
the individual, and in the Christian church.
We as individuals must stop envying and hating our brothers. We must stop looking for how we are
better. We who preach are going to have
to become ministers who are the servants in their congregations, not the
peacocks who strut our talents before them.
We must see the person of a different race as a
person, not a color. In the movie, No
Time for Sergeants, Gomer Pyle saw his first black soldier and went to the
Sergeant and said he had seen a colored man.
The Sergeant informed him that he was not to make such distinctions;
everyone in the Army is green. There is
no black, white, or colored. Coach
Croom, similarly, tried to refocus those who were making a big deal of his
race, by saying, “At MSU, maroon is the only color that matters.”
We
have used phrases like “Black is beautiful!” and promoted awareness of Black
people’s contributions to society with Black History Month. We have organizations at school that focus
on our black identities such as the Black Student Alliance.
My
identity should not be derived from the color of my skin.
For
the future, I am suggesting that we should focus on a time when our identity
and our dignity are not derived from the color of our skin, but from the
character within. Remember, that was
Dr. King’s dream for his children.
When
we raise a child, we do something paradoxical.
When they are just babies, we will praise them for every new thing they
learn. “You did it all by yourself!” An important milestone is, “You can potty all
by yourself!” Every diaper-changing,
mess-cleaning parent longs to say that!
It is important for children to learn this positive self-esteem. “I can do it all by myself.”
There
comes a time, however, when self-esteem turns to sinful pride. When we cross that line, we think, “I can do
it myself without anyone and without God.”
There
were necessary things to help black people win back their self-esteem stolen
from them when they were robbed from their families in Africa, herded like
animals and transported in ships to America to be sold as slaves, nobodies in
the new world. Once they perceive their
dignity, especially the dignity that comes from Christ, they need to change
their focus to avoid sinful pride. Paul
teaches in I Corinthians 13:11, “11 When I was a
child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but
when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
All
the “N-words” used to describe people of color have been some form of the Latin
root word for the color black. Some
“black-words” are unacceptable and some accepted, but they all mean black. Lets just call each other what we are:
brothers and sisters, not white brothers and black sisters, but brothers and
sisters.
The
goal to set for ourselves, the revised dream, is to focus on those things we
have in common, and not those things that divide us.
For example, why is this audience mostly black? If we change focus of our annual celebration
from Dr. King the black man to Dr. King the southerner, who came back to the
south to help our nation solve a social problem, we will have more in common
that white southerners can identify with.
Dr. King was a Christian, a preacher, a godly man, i.e.,
characteristics all people (black and white) can identify with. That is what he wanted, not a focus on a
man’s skin color, but on his character.
Don’t rub white peoples’ noses in their mess. We used to house-train our puppies by that
technique. Rub their noses in it and
say, “Bad dog!” That might work with
dogs, but we don’t do it with our brothers.
My wife is always telling me to “leave a ladder for
them to climb down.” I am competitive,
especially in debating and arguing. She
has taught me that even when I am right, I need to stop pushing the point and
give them a way to climb down. When I
did it my way, I only made them cling to their point and argue harder. Leaving
them a ladder allows them to climb down with dignity. They are your brothers, whoever they are, and they need to be
treated with respect and love.
We
can also show white people that it is in their practical self-interest to
accept and identify with the accomplishments of Dr. King. When the baby boomers die in the next ten to
twenty years, who will be in the majority, and who will be in the minority, in
our country?
When
the shoe is on the other foot, white people will be in the minority, and they
will be glad Dr. King won these civil rights for us all. In my hometown of
Atlanta, Georgia, for example, white people no longer form a majority.
Those
who have taken seriously God’s creation mandate to “fill the earth and
multiply” will be in the majority.
Those who have aborted their own flesh and blood will be in the
minority, and will have no one to help them when they are old. Those who have been in homosexual unions
which can produce no offspring will, likewise, be in the minority. It is the faithful Christian church that
will be in the majority.
Didn’t
the Lord describe the Kingdom of God like a mustard seed that grows until it
fills the garden, or leaven that grows until it fills the entire ball of dough?
(Luke 13) So God’s people, if they have
faith and persevere, will fill the entire earth, and the Dr. King’s dream will
come true.
I
am asking that the Christian churches in Oktibbeha county work on this problem
of educational equal opportunity. But
that may mean that we have to form our own school system. If little girls and little boys, black and
white, can go hand in hand into a classroom, ought they not also be allowed to
pray there?
Only
by the teaching and authority of God’s word can an argument for brotherhood
stand. If we don’t have Cain and Abel,
and we don’t have Isaac and Ishmael, we can’t prove brotherhood. Will we take that same word that undergirds
our argument and ban it from classrooms and the public arena? Only schools that acknowledge God and his
Son can be equal. Are we, as
Christians, willing to take the dream to the next level?
Solo
Dei Gloriam.