God helping me, there are six things I hate following the Lord’s example and there are even seven that are an abomination to me.
God says:
These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
And I say there are six applications of these six odious vices for today:
A proud look?
This is the man that sees his brothers and sisters mourning their dead and changes the subject to talk about the sufferings he has endured.
A lying tongue?
Those that pretend that the murder of African-Americans in churches is new or isolated. Those that “forget” that the 1990’s were a period of an “epidemic” of terrorism against the African-American Christian by white terrorists.
Hands that shed innocent blood?
Those that advocate hatred, race wars, and incite the murder of my African-American brothers and sisters. Those organizations that spread this filth on the Net preying on unstable minds so that they shed the innocent blood of those praying.
A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations?
On my social media feed there are “Dark Enlightenment” folk who spin racist, ugly, anti-Christ, theories about my African-American brothers and sisters. They pander to the base fears of the dispossessed and encourage the lonely to whip up hatred based on their conspiracy theorizing . . . as wicked a set of imaginations as a man can devise in an America long bleeding from racial injustice.
Feet that be swift to running to mischief?
In modern times, many run to the keyboard or the mobile phone to minimize the crimes and the sufferings of the African-American community. They offer gall to the suffering Body of Christ as it once again hangs the victim of Jim Crow.
A false witness that speaketh lies?
These are the men who invent a sugar coated American history and sell it as lying textbooks in our Christian schools. Slavery is made almost bucolic and they overlook the witness of Harriet Ann Jacobs and Frederick Douglass. They are false witnesses.
And finally he that soweth discord among brothers?
Isn’t this the man who refuses to admit that the original sin of racism is not yet purged from this land? Isn’t he the one who stokes racial fears for profit? Isn’t he the one that pretends that we can be colorblind now (blessed ideal!) when African-American Christians face racial discrimination daily?
I know people are tired of hearing talk about race. They think the bleeding happened long ago. This weariness in well doing is the laziness of the soon to be morally bankrupt. This ignorance of the lived experience of millions of Americans is inexcusable. We are right to protest the evils of ISIS and celebrate the bravery of martyrs in Syria, but we are enabling evil when we cannot call the KKK and racist groups like it the moral equivalent of ISIS.
If the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, may the prayers of these martyrs in South Carolina be heard and lead to a revival of justice, solidarity, and liberty in Christ’s Church.
We are far from the day of justice, but we are closer when we hate what God hates and love what God loves: all his children of every race.
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*One can hate an idea, but not a person. I love my enemies, but I hate the evil beliefs that make them lynch, murder, and become terrorist thugs.
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