A question in the democratic debate was put to each candidate: Which is correct? Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter. What a shame that those three word sentences are in contrast. I realize that BLM is a movement, one I support wholeheartedly. I know too many young black men who have been treated unfairly in a systematic way. I know that in the South (which is where I have lived all my life) "colored people" made less money and lived in poverty and if they moved next door to you, the value of your home went down. I know that even the poorest white person felt superior to a black person. I know that my daddy once told me that I could date anyone I wanted as long as he was white. (He didn't even know back then to say a boy.) And my daddy was a really good man. It was the system that made him say that. A culture that was not questioned.
For a while, we made progress. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a hero. He fought injustice as a Christian, without violence. He brought black and white together in a way no one had before. But like the ending of slavery, those in power found another way of enslavement. After Reconstruction, it was intimidation and prison where a black man could be arrested for not having a job and then sent out to work for free in a new kind of slavery, one in which his life was not even valued because he could be so easily replaced. Today it is still intimidation and prison. When people saw the way black people were treated in Alabama, they were appalled and cried for justice. Today when young black men and women are killed, too many blame the victim. We have developed a lack of compassion for blacks, for Syrians, for Mexicans, for anyone that is not "like us."
I have long said that Fox News has changed this country. They have taken our worst fears and prejudice and made them acceptable. They have appealed to the selfish side of our humanity and fed it voraciously. What we need is a propaganda organ that can counter that with feeding our compassionate self. So far, the mainstream church has failed and no secular instrument has filled the gap. Instead, too many churches have embraced Fox News and its agenda. The snake is beautiful and tells us what we want to hear. It makes up persecution where it doesn't exist so we can pretend to be suffering as Jesus did. Only the Bible says Jesus suffered for others... for prostitutes and tax collectors, for meth users and immigrants. The Bible, Old Testament and New, has always been very clear about the "stranger in your land" and how they should be treated.
There is no such program as "welfare". There are welfare programs such as WIC which is for women, infants and children. There is SNAP which provides food only to the poor and disabled. There is a small income for orphans and the disabled. There is Medicaid and Medicare that provides for medical treatment for poor children, the disabled, and the old. Poor adults are not covered in the state of South Carolina no matter what their means or condition. How can a Christian that reads the Bible be against any of these. It would be different if the church was meeting all these needs, but they are not. Look at the church budget of most churches and see how much goes to salaries and buildings and programs that benefit only church members and how much goes to alleviate the suffering of others. Where the money goes is where the heart is.
I do believe that all lives matter, but our country has not. Black lives have not mattered. Poor lives have not mattered. Native American lives have not mattered. Mentally ill lives have not mattered. And recently, Muslim and Middle East (except for Israel) lives have not mattered. If we say that All Lives Matter, then we need to act as if all lives matter.
