We prayed this prayer today for all affected by this terrible disease, including the President and his wife, and will continue praying.
May all who have experienced loss from this terrible disease be comforted and may our nation and world be delivered from this death-dealing evil.
I’ve said it before but maybe it’s worth repeating again.
White supremacy in all forms, explicit or implicit, is a sin against God and humanity. White supremacy in all forms, explicit or implicit, is anti-life. White supremacy in all forms, explicit or implicit, is evil. White supremacy in all forms, explicit or implicit, is anti-Christ.
In my view, Christians should see this. Christians should know this. And Christians should, in Paul’s words, “flee from these things, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.” (1 Timothy 6:11).
I do not believe a Christian can support any person or agenda that supports White supremacy implicitly or explicitly, and maintain a faithful Christian witness.
To my Black brothers and sisters,
I am sorry. I mourn today.
You know too well what many deny, that Lady Justice has always peeped through her blindfold when justice needed to be to served on behalf of the Black community. I cannot help but remember how on this day in 1955, an all-white all-male jury deliberated for an hour and found the two White men that kidnapped and murdered Emmett Till not guilty.
I wish I could say we will do better, but I can’t. The threads of White supremacist history are woven tightly into the fabric of the present. What I can say is that I, and others, will claw, pick, and pull at that thread with as much might as we can muster. We will do so no matter the cost, because we know the cost has already been far too high for you.
#breonnataylor
“He sent the message to the Israelites, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ—He is Lord of all.” (Acts 10:36)
Jesus is Lord of all and has no need for Caesar’s throne over Rome. If so, Jesus’s followers would seek a violent overthrow of the government. The problem isn’t that Jesus is a rival for Caesar’s throne, but that Caesar idolatrously seeks to be Lord in the place of King Jesus. The problem, as Luke narrates Luke/Acts, isn’t that the followers of King Jesus seek to place Jesus on Caesar’s throne (that would be sedition) but that Caesar views himself in such a way that he is usurping Jesus’s throne.
The truth Caesar believes is that Rome is the hope for the world. The truth the Church believes is that only Jesus is the hope of the world. (Col. 1:27)
The truth Caesar believes is that the Roman empire is the most exceptional kingdom in the world and that all other people from all other nations should submit to its authority. The truth the Church believes is that the most exceptional kingdom in the world is the kingdom of God and through King Jesus they have become a different kind of nation charged to take its truth into all other nations. (1 Peter 2:9)
The truth Caesar believes is that Rome is worthy of all allegiance and requires all people, including Christians, pledge allegiance to the flag of Rome. The truth the Church believes is that the pledge of allegiance requires unconditional devotion. For them the only thing to which they can unconditionally offer their devotion is King Jesus and His Kingdom. (1 Peter 3:21)
Truth not only describes, it prescribes, proclaims and provokes. When Truth is embodied and proclaimed it becomes a peaceful protest against the oppressive false narratives of consumerism, anxiety, fear, violence, and self preservation that dominate society. This is where Truth is met with antagonism. When the protest of truth is confronted with antagonism it cannot be allowed to devolve to a greater antagonism making truth a weapon. Instead, Truth should meet all those in disagreement with a posture of reconciliation and continue onward because that is how God has revealed Truth. This is because the Christian Tradition teaches us that Truth isn’t just a fact, statement of reality, or a position, it is a Person, the God Incarnate, King Jesus.
Truth, whatever one means by the notion, creates movements, life-giving movements or death-dealing movements, because truth forms a narrative—an understanding of how the world works and what kind of life can live up to it. Therefore, truth writes for every person within its reach a script for living. This script introduces to us the people, places and things we need in our lives to make life work according to the truth we have come to believe.
Jesus as our Truth has written for us a script. Will we spend our days studying and rehearsing His script or will we spend them studying and rehearsing the script handed to us by America? We must choose.
Wise words from an early Church leader, Clement of Alexandria (CE 150–215).
“Let, then, the Athenian follow the laws of Solon, and the Argive those of Phoroneus, and the Spartan those of Lycurgus: but if you enroll yourself as one of God’s people, heaven is your country, God your lawgiver. And what are the laws? “You shall not kill…you shall not bear false witness; you shall love the Lord your God.” (Exodus 20:13-16; Deuteronomy 6:5) And the complements of these are those laws of reason and words of sanctity which are inscribed on men’s hearts: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
~ Chapter 10, Answer to the Objection of the Heathen, that It Was Not Right to Abandon the Customs of Their Fathers.
These are words all Jesus-followers should hear. Either way, the actions of our lives will validate or invalidate the words of our lips (and social media posts).
By God’s Spirit we can be faithful. Let’s choose faithfulness, especially now.
Long Way Here 