As I watched the Inauguration Day proceedings on television yesterday, my mind was flooded with thoughts about history, race and our future as a nation. I did some quick searches on the Internet to see what others were saying about Inauguration and came across one particular blog that succinctly said what I was feeling. Dr. Mike Kear (pronounced Kerr), writes eloquently at The Moderate Calvinist. Mike is a new member of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Oklahoma, a biblical scholar and a soon to be Sunday School teacher at our church. Regardless of one's politics, one cannot help but understand that something significant has happened in our nation yesterday, but it would not have happened were it not for people like Dr. Mike Kear's father, to whom Mike gives tribute in yesterday's post when he writes:In 1968 my father took his white family to an African-American church to worship together with our brothers and sisters in Christ. It was only a few days after Martin Luther King's assassination. As an 8 year-old kid, I didn't think anything about it. We repeated these visits throughout 1968 and beyond. In 1973, Ms. Minnie King brought her African-American family to our white church. And she stayed. Little did I know back then what a revolutionary man my father was, or what an amazing woman Minnie King was. In the midst of turbulent times, they chose to do something awesome: worship Jesus Christ with their blood-bought brothers and sisters without regard to the color of a person's skin.
I am thankful for a nation where people are now being judged on things other than the color of their skin. I am also grateful for men like Mike's father. A man who, in a time when it was unpopular to do so, took a stand for the oppressed. I also wonder who in the body of Christ today will take a stand to correct injustices in our churches and our world. It may be unpopular today, but the next generation will benefit.
In His Grace,
Wade
