Racism

In the 1960's a Southern church deacon-board mobilized lookout squads, and on Sundays, these took turns patrolling the entrances to the church lest any black "trouble-makers" try to integrate them. The church printed some cards that they would hand out to any "blacks" who might appear at their door.
It read:
"Believing your motives to be ulterior and foreign to the teaching of God's word, we cannot extend a welcome to you and respectfully request you to leave the premises quietly. Scripture does NOT teach "the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God." He is the Creator of all, but only the father of those who have been regenerated.
If any of you is here with a sincere desire to know Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, we will be glad to deal individually with you from the Word of God.".....the Pastor and Deacons...

Philip Yancey, in his wonderful book, "What's So Amazing About Grace" writes....
"I grew up a racist. Although I am not yet fifty-years old, I remember when the South practiced a perfectly legal form of apartheid. Stores in downtown Atlanta had three rest rooms: White Men, White Women, and Colored. Gas stations had two drinking fountains, one for Whites and one for Colored. Motels and restaurants served white patrons only, and when the the Civil Rights Act made such discrimination illegal, many owners shuttered their establishments.
We used to call Martin Luther King Jr. "Martin Lucifer Coon." We said that King was a card-carrying Communist, a Marxist agent who merely posed as a minister. Not until much later was I able to appreciate the moral strength of the man who, perhaps more than any other person, kept the South from outright racial war."........ Yancey, from the chapter, The Arsenal Of Grace.

Racism.
Unfortunately, it's still with us today. We've learned to practice it in perhaps less obvious, gentler ways, but it still exists in a lot of our churches, businesses, politics....
I, too, like Philip Yancey, grew up in a racially-charged atmosphere. My father was a racist and he passed down to me a lot of negative feelings towards those of a different color. It wasn't until the 9th grade that I found myself in an integrated school. The racial tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I made no black friends and didn't really "want" to make any black friends. I look back on a lot of my youth as one who was clueless about the continuing struggle of the Black Community, not just for "equality", but for simple human respect and decency.
As I have studied the Bible, I have, to my relief and joy, found that the "Deacons" from the South really didn't know much about God and His Grace, and had somehow, in all their study, completely skipped over the 17th chapter of the Book of Acts.... the "acts" of the first apostles, those who followed Jesus Christ through his life, death and resurrection.

So, the struggle continues, whether we care to recognize it or not. Fortunately, as the generations pass, the racism of the 60's lessens. My own children have found and embraced Black friends, Asian friends, Latino friends, friends with mixed marriages and their beautiful children....
I pray they don't take this for granted, for it is a sign of true "grace",... to look beyond skin color or national boundaries to embrace all of God's children. We can look to men like Martin Luther King Jr. as the pioneers that they truly were.... men and women who struggled for justice and equality, but did so by walking the God-ordained road of peace and non-violence.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. He is not served by human hands as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives "ALL" men life and breath and everything else. For from one man he made very nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for then and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one for us. For in Him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, "We are His Offspring."......Acts 17:24-28

We honor God when we honor one another......