Rosa Parks, a symbol of the modern day civil rights movement, has died.  May GOD have mercy on her soul.  She refused to give up her bus seat to a Caucasian man.  Her arrest led to a boycott of the bus company in Montgomery, Alabama and the beginnings of the modern civil rights movement.


What is often ignored in the history of the civil rights movement is the significant role that Christians have in it.  The meeting to organize the boycott was held in a Baptist church.  The elected leader of the boycott was a Baptist minister.  Later, that Baptist minister helped organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which had a leading role in the movement.  Christians from throughout the nation including Southern Christians traveled to cities in the South to support, work for, and lead the growing civil rights movement.
  
However, that was not the first time Christians were actively involved in this movement.  The abolition of slavery before the Civil War had a strong component of Christian involvement although often ignored by historians.  The “underground railroad” moving run away slaves from the South to the North had direct Christian participation.  Many of the “way stations” along the different routes were at Christian churches.


President Abraham Lincoln, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in areas of rebellion, learned to read in part by reading the Bible.  Throughout his political career he made reference to the Bible and its passages on numerous occasions.  In perhaps his most famous speech, The Gettysburg Address (When I was forced in school to learn this and publicly recite it, I never thought I’d actually use it.), he included this line, “It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under GOD, shall have a new birth of freedom—and  that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”  


(There’s that phrase under GOD.  I thought that was just a coercive phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance.  I guess students can no longer be forced to memorize or learn about the Gettysburg Address because of that coercive phrase.  Where was that California judge when I was required to learn the Gettysburg Address?  [By the way, I thought this was interesting.  Here is a quote from Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2004, 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation, “In the contemporary newspaper reports of the dedication ceremonies, Everett’s remarks were lauded highly and given prominence on the front page, while the words of Lincoln were relegated to an inside page.”])    


(If I didn’t know better, I can imagine President Lincoln uttering these same words in relation to our involvement in Iraq.  Some people are still willing and able to sacrifice for freedom almost a hundred and fifty years later!)        


Christians, who are following the Bible, know that GOD loves all people regardless of the momentary coloring of their skin.  Christians know that all people including themselves have sinned and fall far short of the glory of GOD.  Christians know that all people including themselves must repent of their sins and correctly accept GOD, the Father; JESUS, the SON; and the HOLY SPIRIT as the one true GOD and SAVIOR of the world.  Christians desire that everyone becomes as they are—Christians!