We Live in a World…”I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek”

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This is best sign I have seen so far. Notice race isn’t brought up. We bring up the pressure of being a police officer, but don’t address what goes through a persons mind when a gun is put in their face by a police officer. I sympathize with anyone being killed unjustly. That includes the 5 police officers in Dallas. I hope we keep having open dialogue between law enforcement & the communities which they protect. We need as a society to think outside or ourselves. Do I think all cops are bad, NO. Do I know what it’s like to be black, NO. But I’m raising black kids. So this issue is important to me. When I hear Black Lives Matter, what I think ppl are saying is Black Ppl want to be safe & treated fairly, says Gary Owen

Folks are protesting, and people are getting killed during and around the protesting.  I’m quite sure this is very different from one the more successful protest, i.e. The Boston Tea Party,  or the many “non-violent” protest led by Martin Luther King.

It seems today is re-aligning itself with days gone by or have they gone anywhere?  Has the tree hangings turned in bullets raging across the lives of both innocent and guilty?

This complex social situation is perhaps best summed up by King himself in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, written to members of the Birmingham clergy and religious community who had urged patience and restraint of the civil rights movement. Of the Black Nationalist movement, King notes:

“The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best-known being Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro’s frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible “devil.” I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the “do-nothingism” of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest.”

Have we has a people merely tolerated too much for too long?  Have we scraped the bottom of the barrel and found there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Have we been oppressed so long that even the Word of God no longer prevails?  Have ever actually given God a try?

Scripture states in II Timothy 3 –

3 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

That’s some harsh direct information from Paul. He proclaimed we would be without self-control, boastful and proud sound a lot like some of us already falling into these categories.  If Paul was right and these are the signs of the “last days” how far are we from the “Last” day and if we are not even close I shutter to think what this world will look like next year based on the behavior of folks today.

Sources:

The Independent – http://theindependent.ca/2014/01/20/dr-martin-luther-king-strategies-and-tactics-of-civil-disobedience

EdSitement – https://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/martin-luther-king-jr-and-nonviolent-resistanc

NIV Bible – 2 Timothy 2 New International Version (NIV)

 

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