Hanging on to Our Faith

To Those with a Heart to Hear:

It has come to me that I should share my thoughts with you as God continues to transform me and renew my mind through my faith in His son Jesus Christ. As an African-American, I understand the pain and suffering associated with the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow in the United States. I smell the residue every morning as I drive to work and I hear the field hollers of my ancestors in the cries of America’s black and poor. I often have grieved with and for those–including myself–whose only music is that of Du Bois’s songs of sorrow. Recently, I have asked myself: is our plight a plight of eternal grief and sadness? Surely not! Still, it does not mean that the land of Martin Luther King’s “dreams” is emerging upon the horizon. It does not mean that mere humans, such as, Barak Obama, Tavis Smiley, and Michael Eric Dyson, will deliver us into some ethereal society of justice, equality, and humanitarian love. Therefore, I write to you in hope that you would place your hope, your faith, in Jesus Christ.

The struggles that we face in this world often compel us to believe that our enemies consist of fellow human beings, fellow flesh and blood. Whether, rich versus poor, white versus black, conservative versus liberal, man versus woman, we characterize our conflicts by contrasting ourselves against other tangible, human forces. However, the Word of God tells us that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).

The apostle Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia reminds me of how Satan pits flesh against flesh in order to harden our hearts to God. In the letter, Paul writes that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who hung on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13, Deuteronomy 21:22-23). As I read this, graphic images flashed in my mind of tortured black bodies swinging high and low from the branches of American maples and oaks. Bodies “cursed” by many white Americans out of racist hatred for their fellow flesh and blood. Many ask why God would allow these atrocities to take place? Why slavery? Why genocide? They ask whether God–the same God that these racist white lynch mobs claimed to believe in–really loves black people? Worse yet, they doubt His very existence. Do not be deceived, Satan rejoices in the doubting of the Lord. For the real consequence and spiritual fallout of Jim Crow and lynching is that they hardened people’s hearts to God. Not only did Satan exploit the malicious ignorance of these white Americans, but he also drove away blacks, in droves, from the God that they believed had delivered them (rightly so) from slavery.

Despite the hurdle of hatred and the obstacle of oppression, the beauty of the Gospel in Paul’s letter lies in the salvation and redemption of life through Jesus Christ. Paul’s words ring as true now as they did then when he says “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). Therefore, one should strive for social justice and equality with the realization and belief that true emancipation and victory only come through Christ. He is “the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father [God] except through [Him]” (John 14:6). There are not many paths to God, there is only “one faith” and “one Lord” (Ephesians 4:4-6). I implore you to seek Him out. Of all the pressing social issues of the past, present, and future, the acceptance and confession of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior (Romans 10:9-10) is the most urgent. May God’s peace be with you.