I am still convinced that Black people do not matter to White people. Not yet. And our testimony suffers for this heresy and hypocrisy. — Brian

Readers’ Choice (Originally published July 15, 2016)

In our world, the phrases we repeat are either untrue (“Best movie of the year!”) or run against normative behavior (“If you see something, say something.”) The more untrue or unnatural the phrase, the more often we repeat it. This is one of the reasons the daily and ubiquitous refrain “black lives matter” is so confrontational.

Research from Barna reveals that though 94% of evangelicals believe the Church plays an important role in racial reconciliation, only 13% say they support the message of the Black Lives Matter movement. There is an important faith conversation not only around the phrase itself, but the movement of Black Lives Matter that must be recovered.

Author Stephen Mattson observes that, “Many white Christians will be afraid to say [Black Lives Matter] because they think it’s too political, or too progressive, or too liberal, or too unfair, or too controversial.” But confessing that “black lives matter” doesn’t have to come at the expense of other lives. Historically, it has been when faithful Christians took up the banner of human rights that structural change started to occur.

Wilberforce, who was mentored and encouraged by the Anglican pastor John Newton, was the first to stand up against slavery in Parliament. “Wilberforce’s embracing of the anti-slavery cause was from the direct effect of embracing the Christian worldview,” says The Wilberforce School. Similarly, Martin Luther King Jr.’s message during the civil rights movement was profoundly Christian—even the crescendo of Dr. King’s famous “I have a dream” speech was the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah 40.

The greatest threat to the Black Lives Matter movement isn’t the police or a conservative pundit, it’s the lack of voices supplying it a robust theological vision. Where can you justify human rights without God? As a worldview, evolution robs minorities of rights—bestowing them only on the fittest. Progressivism—humans have rights because we’ve progressed as a society—need only protect human rights as long as it’s agreed upon by the majority (present circumstance, case-in-point).

It is God—the creator of the world and everyone in it—who imbued each human being with dignity and promised not only to serve justice, but to restore all that has been lost.

Yet the chorus of Christian voices has not risen in unity for the oppressed.

We are, of course, socially adept enough to articulate our reasons: Black Lives Matter is not a Christian organization, nor does it seek a theological vision. But we should tremble when our understanding of theology removes us from the world. In Jesus’ story of The Good Samaritan, the Priest and the Levite each had their own reasons for avoiding the victim of a broken world.

Activist Michelle Higgins distills the tension many Christians feel and confronts the insinuated lack of evangelistic passion:

In the conversations I’ve had with people, they are afraid to affirm any part because they fear that it means they are affirming the whole. The fear of association is so huge. The discomfort with standing side by side with somebody who doesn’t believe in Jesus is depressing to me.

Looking back at history, “fear of association” has always been a primary motivator when the Church missed its role in doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. Author Stephen Mattson outlines our history in stark binaries:

During the Indian Removal Act, Native Americans weren’t Christian enough to defend. During times of nativism, the Catholics and immigrants weren’t Christian enough to defend. Throughout the segregation era black Christians didn’t have the support of many white Christians, and when the U.S. put its Japanese citizens in internment camps during WWII, mainstream Christianity was largely silent.

In every modern opportunity to be a radical countercultural force for good in the U.S., many white Christians blew it by conjuring up excuses, looking the other way, and even being directly complicit in the subjugation of other human beings.

So here we are again, facing a historic crisis, where people are fighting for their rights and dignity, and once again many Christians will have to choose whether or not to act. Which begs the question: If Christians have nothing to do or say to support the lives of the marginalized and abused, what good is Christianity at all?

The abolition of slavery and Civil Rights Movement were profound transitions for American society—yet as brutal and difficult as both were, they didn’t accomplish the most difficult part: redeeming the broken hearts that lead to racism.

This is a magnificent opportunity for the Church—but we have to choose. “We don’t see a pursuit for justice because we’ve been conditioned to pursue wealth and acclaim and not necessarily the flourishing of our neighbors,” Higgins laments. Taking the first step toward reconciliation, she writes, “means that you no longer find yourself as the center and most important part of your story.”

In the Church, the phrases we repeat mean the most to us. “Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.” What we repeat serves as a catalyst for expressing faith and reminds us what we’re trying to live into. What we repeat expresses our longings for Christ’s incarnation through his Church. What we repeat has power through Christ. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Amen.

Weekend Reading List

• American Exposure. Jill Lepore for The New Yorker.
• The Matter of Black Lives. Jelani Cobb for The New Yorker.
• Dear Christians, Stop Judging the #BlackLivesMatter Movement and Start Defending the Oppressed. Stephen Mattson for Sojourners.
• What Can We Learn from ‘Black Lives Matter’? John Piper for Desiring God.
• Why the Church Should Support #BlackLivesMatter. Michelle Higgins for Relevant.

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 48 (Listen – 7:31)
Psalm 25 (Listen – 2:18)

This Weekend’s Readings
Jeremiah 49 (Listen – 7:15) Psalms 26-27 (Listen – 3:13)
Jeremiah 50 (Listen – 8:42) Psalms 28-29 (Listen – 2:41)

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Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

Thanks for being part of The Park Forum community. We are so thankful to be part of your devotional rhythm.

This is so good and speaks eerily to my heart and mind (and) will certainly help me navigate the season in a God-honoring way, one day at a time. — Anne

Readers’ Choice (Originally published December 2, 2015)

I love today’s message. — Dee

Readers’ Choice (Originally published September 16, 2015)

As with the biblical transfiguration story, we’re not allowed to live on the mountain—yet. It’s no surprise that Peter, James, and John all likely wanted to pitch a tent and stay there for a while; but that’s not how it works. We are I think called to live very real lives in society, but to live them with an awareness of new mountaintop realities. — Greg

Readers’ Choice (Originally published March 17, 2016)

By Thomas à Kempis (c. 1379-1471)

Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting.

All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him. But if Jesus hides Himself and leaves them for a while, they fall either into complaints or into deep dejection.

Those, on the contrary, who love Him for His own sake and not for any comfort of their own, bless Him in all trial and anguish of heart as well as in the bliss of consolation. Even if He should never give them consolation, yet they would continue to praise Him and wish always to give Him thanks. What power there is in pure love for Jesus—love that is free from all self-interest and self-love!

Do not those who always think of their own profit and gain prove that they love themselves rather than Christ? Where can a man be found who desires to serve God for nothing? Rarely indeed is a man so spiritual as to strip himself of all things.

If a man has great virtue and much ardent devotion, he still lacks the one thing that is most necessary to him. What is this one thing? That leaving all, he forsake himself, completely renounce himself, and give up all private affections. For truth itself has said: “When you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Then he will be truly poor and stripped in spirit, and with the prophet may say: “I am alone and poor.” No one, however, is more wealthy than such a man; no one is more powerful, no one freer than he who knows how to leave all things and think of himself as the least of all.

*Abridged from The Imitation Of Christ.

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 44 (Listen – 6:10)
Psalms 20-21 (Listen – 2:37)

Submit a devotional for Readers’ Choice

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Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

Thanks for being part of The Park Forum community. We are so thankful to be part of your devotional rhythm.

Pray for “all people” – first – then when our hearts are enlarged enough – pray for leaders. — Stephen B

Readers’ Choice (Originally published April 15, 2016)

One of the benefits of a Scripture reading plan is that it engages our minds with places of God’s word where we might not regularly venture. This week we arrived at a passage in 1 Timothy instructing believers to pray for political leaders as well as those under their care:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions. — 1 Timothy 2.1–2

As our editorial team and a small group of readers gave insight into the passage I became convicted about my own prayer life, writing:

Where we know victims by name we can bring them before God. Where we know of great needs, pain, or injustice without knowing any of the victims or leaders serving them, by name, we can repent.

Modern reporting offers Christians today an unprecedented opportunity. When we pray for global situations we can begin with specific names—even if we know just one person from an article—and radiate our prayers out to every individual, family, and nation involved.

As we pray for families whose lives have been shattered by the Zika virus we can begin with Zulmarys Molina, a mother from Puerto Rica, who was infected by Zika early in her pregnancy. Though her baby’s head is growing far below average she has decided not to abort her daughter, no matter what. Her most recent ultrasound was earlier this week.

We can also pray for Rossandra Oliveira, the Brazilian government official who manages mosquito control for a city of over 400,000. “In 19 years of working in environmental control I’ve never seen so much disorganization as I’m seeing now,” said Oliveira. The official and her team of 149 health inspectors are tragically under-resourced.

It’s not until we enter into understanding someone’s story that we fully understand how to pray for them. Ghaith, a 22-year-old former law student from Damascus, explains the refugee crisis like this:

I made it, while thousands of others didn’t. Some died on the way, some died in Syria. Every day, you hear about people drowning. Just think about how much every Syrian is suffering inside Syria to endure the suffering of this trip.

In Greece, someone asked me, “Why take the chance?” I said, “In Syria, there’s a hundred-per-cent chance that you’re going to die. If the chance of making it to Europe is even one per cent, then that means there is a one-per-cent chance of your leading an actual life.”

Variations of this story are repeated by over a dozen others in The Washington Post’s photo essay Refuge: 18 Stories from the Syrian Exodus.

Human beings, crafted in God’s image, are at the heart of every crisis in our world today. Christians have the privilege of naming people in our prayers for healing and justice. Their faces and stories reorient how we view even the most remote of events. Take 11-year-old Dasani whose family is crushed under the burden of poverty and homelessness in New York City; “I wanna go somewhere where it’s quiet.” Or Malik Jalal whose first-person account is shockingly titled I’m On The Kill List. This Is What It Feels Like To Be Hunted By Drones.

Our prayers are not limited by the spotlight of media—there are millions in Africa, China, and the Middle East who are persecuted, oppressed, and slaughtered every year—but through the media we have the opportunity to access stories beyond our comfort zone. We have the privilege of carrying the voices of the hurting to the good and faithful father who will one day make all things new, the suffering servant who knows the depth of their pain, the powerful spirit who walks with them each and every step of the way.

Weekend Reading List

• Zulmarys Molina: Zika virus: Will this baby be OK? By Elizabeth Cohen for CNN.
• Rossandra Oliveira: In Fight Against Zika Virus, Brazil Battles Neglect, Cash Crunch. By Joshua Goodman and Mauricio Savarese for the Associated Press.
• Ghaith: Ten Borders. By Nicholas Schmidle for The New Yorker.
• Refuge: 18 Stories from the Syrian Exodus. By Kevin Sullivan for The Washington Post.
• Malik Jalal: I’m On The Kill List. This Is What It Feels Like To Be Hunted By Drones. Malik Jalal for the Independent.
• Dasani: Invisible Child.

Today’s Reading
Jeremiah 43 (Listen – 2:34)
Psalm 19 (Listen – 1:52)

Submit a devotional for Readers’ Choice

Contribute your favorite Park Forum devotionals to Readers’ Choice.

Email me the title or link. If you don’t mind adding a sentence or two as to why each post was significant to you, I would love to include your voice as well.

Thanks for being part of The Park Forum community. We are so thankful to be part of your devotional rhythm.