By the time this edition of the Gary Crusader comes out and anyone reads this article the results of the election will be in, we hope. Yet regardless of who wins, our ancestors would inform us that The Struggle Continues!!!
We hope and pray that evil and hatred are defeated once again in this moment. We hope and pray that the purveyors of profit over people will be pushed back once again. We hope that those who would want to Make America Great Again, at oppressing people, marginalizing people, stigmatizing people, violating a women’s right to choose what to do with her body and destroying civility, honesty, facts and decency for their own twisted mean benefit are voted down. This is our hope and prayer, but whoever wins, The Struggle Continues!
We also hope that if a majority of Americans vote to truly value freedom, love, compassion, and equity for all people regardless of nationality, ethnicity, color, sexual orientation, gender, or economic status, they will carry on the struggle to achieve Jesus’ Justice. We hope and pray that this will be a moment that turns into a movement to truly address the virus that affects America. The virus or original sin that continues to dog America, in the words of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., is “racism, materialism, and militarism.”
These hounds of Hell have spawned imps known as inequality, hatred, nastiness, meanness, diabolical misinformation, and outright lies among far too many people.
We hope and pray that America’s original sin and virus will be given the vaccine to eradicate it for good. The Struggle Continues no matter who won!
We hope and pray that people who say they are followers of that dark-browned skin, barefoot Palestinian preacher from Capernaum known as Jesus, The Christ, will not continue the misguided behavior of not having intelligent and informed discussions about politics and race. We have been bamboozled into believing that you are not supposed to talk about these things in the church. Beloved, that is a trick and lie. The Struggle Continues!
We hope and pray that people of faith will stop being conned into being 1 or 2 issue voters. One party plays on far too many people’s emotions concerning a woman’s right to an abortion and people in the LGBTQIA community. If you knew the truth, then you would know that abortion did not become an issue among white nationalist evangelicals until the demographics began to show that Black and brown people would outnumber white people by the year 2040. The facts show that homosexuality did not become an issue for that same group until the so-called moral majority in the 1980s figured out a scheme to help boost Republican candidates by first lying and claiming to be the party of family values and then misinterpreting scripture to appeal to the emotions of people rather than accurately interpreting the three texts they use out of the hundreds of biblical texts and the fact that Jesus The Lord of the church NEVER addressed homosexuality.
Beloved, The Struggle Continues!
We hope and pray that believers in Jesus Christ, who 90% of the time, see his words in the gospel address, have compassion for the least of these: the marginalized, the stigmatized, and those who were left out of society. We hope and pray that we will truly strive to live, talk, and interact with people no matter who they are, as humans who deserve every benefit that life allows because that is what Jesus did with people, no matter who they were.
We hope and pray that no matter who wins the election, churches, especially Black churches, will pick up the mantle that was handed down to us from ancestors who faced an even darker night of hate, violence and evil from this nation yet whose generation after generation saw the church as a fueling station to go out and continue the fight against injustice no matter who was being oppressed.
Beloved, The Struggle Continues no matter who won the election because our generations yet to be born require it. Our Generations who are to come to expect to enter into a world where the community of faith has created and maintained institutions to hold the gate against the hordes of Hell because individuals cannot defeat institutions; only institutions can defeat institutions, and the Black church is still the most powerful institution we have. It is “The Old Ship of Zion.”
The Struggle Continues no matter who won.
Finally, let me leave you with the powerful words of the hymn writer Rev. Charles Albert Tindley, who in another period of pervasive evil, left us this inspiration in this line of his hymn, “Harder yet, maybe the fight. Right, may often yield to might. Wickedness awhile may reign, and Satan’s cause may seem to gain, BUT there is a God who rules above, with the hand of power and heart of love, and if I’m right, He’ll fight my battle. We shall have Peace someday!”
Keep The Faith, Be Authentic and Be Encouraged. Uhuru Sassa!
Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.
