Time to take up our crosses #BLM

By Will Raybon

It was a very late night. It was September. Most folks were asleep in their beds. However, in North Carolina, Charlotte was burning.

Charlotte was burning with anger. Charlotte was fearful. Something had cracked. Something had broken. Perhaps the thing had broken very long ago, and nobody had felt the need to mend it. The hour is late indeed, when brother forgets brother and when sister forsakes sister.

Somewhere along the way, folks were left behind.

“So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.”

I have struggled with where I stand in regards to the Black Lives Matter movement since its inception a few years ago. I was an undergrad at Appalachian State University studying criminal justice. I had wanted to be a police officer since I was a child. It was not that I did not value the lives of my African-American brothers and sisters. I valued all lives. I am a Christian. Is that not what I am called to do?

I wanted to be a police officer so that I could help people. I wanted to save lives. I wanted to help make the lives better of those less fortunate. By the time I graduated, I had an internship with a federal police agency under my belt and I was ready to begin my career as the best police officer I could be.

I have no animosity towards police officers, in fact, I long to return to that path every single day. I remember my time on the streets with my friends during my internship. I learned their stories, I was humbled by their devotion, I saw their courage, and I began to understand their fear. I will never forget my time with them.

As the news is flooded with more and more violent stories of police shootings, I cannot help but reflect on my internship experience. I remember sitting in the backseat of a vehicle with a ballistic vest on, watching my friends forcefully, and lawfully, enter the home of a violent fugitive. I remember the bile rising up in my throat as I watched them do their jobs, fearing for their lives. They are good men and women, doing a dangerous and necessary job.

Once upon a time, there was a young boy on a playground. This playground was magnificent. The boy was new to his school, and he was eager to begin playing on this wonder. However, his classmates had different plans. The other children were from the same neighborhood and they had been friends since birth because their parents had also grown up together. They lived in a perfect neighborhood and they were the best of friends.

These children did not like the new boy. They felt threatened by outsiders encroaching on their way of life. They did their best to ensure that the young boy felt as unwelcome on the playground as possible. They made fun of him. They called him lazy. They made him feel stupid. They even went as far as to hurt him. One day the young boy finally mounted the courage to tell his teacher.

His teacher said to him, “Young man, I am sorry that you have been treated this way. However, they probably only treat you in such a manner because they are scared of you. Are you sure you did not provoke them?”

The boy left that day feeling unwanted, he felt scared, and he felt unloved.

Once upon a time, the Church was the champion of the oppressed. Baptist heroes like Martin Luther King Jr. and Will Campbell went to great lengths to ensure the rights of all people. The former gave his life for such a cause. My friends, have we forgotten who we are?

Have we forgotten that we are to love all people? Some of our people are hurting. They feel unloved. Throughout the past few years, the greater Church has remained noticeably absent from the Black Lives Matter movement. There was a time when the Church led the charge for civil rights. A law was passed because of such a charge.

Brothers and sisters, it is time to take up our crosses once again. #BLM

Will Raybon serves as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina Campus Ministry Intern at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He is currently a student Gardner-Webb University Divinity School in Boiling Springs, N.C., and is a CBF Leadership Scholar. 

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