I bet I won’t like this movie!
40 years ago, there was a movement of preachers in our sphere who thought it was unto edification to present the forefathers of our country as the spiritual icons that they were. They took precious preaching time and presented us with their writings and prayers and testimonies about them, etc., etc.
I was livid! As you could quite imagine, a young black activist, just having been delivered from socialist thinking and with an enormous chip on my shoulder about the slave trade and the degradation of black people, I was not going to have it! I tell you I wont have it! I won’t participate in the justification of these people for the sins of their fathers and our fathers. I am a proud American, but that is where I draw the Line, I tell you!
God had shortly before arrested my heart that it was my spiritual responsibility to submit to those who rule over you in the Lord and regard them highly for their works sake. They are the ones who must give an account for your souls! Needless say it was with a begrudging spirit that I attended the stated meetings of the church in that season.
This Pastor and that pastor from churches far and wide came with their diggings of prayers and writings of the founding fathers. Slowly and very begrudgingly, I repeat, I started to grow in my pride of my nation and of my faith as a Christian. I had learned to apologise because my upbringing had made me believe that Protestantism and my personal protestantism was and afterthought and perhaps, just perhaps, I might still be on a fools errand, regarding “the things most surely believed among us.” God’s word was my one and only true friend and trust and if it didn’t pass the test of God’s word it was going in the trash. Even if Pastor Martin himself was the purveyor of it! He had proven himself a safe and godly guide through the scriptures into biblical thinking and living. We knew that we didn’t know everything. We knew we needed direction and instruction and we were coming to the best church we could find to get it. Many people from many parts of the country believed that Pastor Martin was forging a path in the middle of the many weeds of Christendom that had take authority in those days. He was preaching God’s word to our nation and we were receiving it and attempting to align our lives as repentance and faith would have us walk.
Every Sunday we were taken to the woodshed and wallopped for our worldly thinking and deadly attachment to this world and our sins. The dearness of the sore bottoms we received spiritually brought us back each week looking for more. Our ambitions were driven by our love for God and His people and of a desire to seek God for His improvement of us in our relationships and life.
Well, if I was going to appreciate the new season of the church that we were in, I would have to see the research about these founding fathers with my own two eyes. I would have to do my own research, find my own stuff about them and look for myself. I did the research. I found the books, in and out of the library. I took the time and read the prayers and saw their biblical perspectives, some of which were forged, in places we had been to. I learned to love them, even if I didn’t agree with them. I learned to love the brethren who traced their lineages proudly to these men, even if I couldn’t relate to their pride of place in that way.
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