AS A CHRISTIAN, I HAVE ALWAYS WRESTLED WITH WHO, OR FOR WHOM DO I PRAY.
There is always Christian talk about the need for me as a Black person to pray for my enemies, including my Racist enemies. Why? Because the sun is shining? I have no idea, but let me answer their insidious (to me) "advice" again- I believe in prayer, but I will not pray for my enemies, not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Explain to me why I should pray for my enemies? Even as a Lay Christian, praying for my enemies takes my humanity beyond its Christian bounds. Do I pray for my Enemies to enable them to do to me, what they have already done to me, over and over and over, again? Do I Pray for the Confederacy, hoping the South Will Rise Again to put Blacks back in Slavery, again-You know, that "make America great again" thing? Do I pray for the lynchers, of more than 4000 Blacks? Do I pray for those unnamed persons who bombed the home of Harriette and Harry T. Moore on their 25th Wedding Anniversary night, killing them both? (Harry was instantly killed; Harriette died several days later.) Do I pray for those law enforcement officers who killed Black College Students (South Carolina State College and Clafin College) in Orangeburg, South Carolina, known as the Orangeburg Massacre, where ALL the students were shot in the back of their bodies, 3 dead, 30 injured, and the students killed from Jackson State in Jackson, Mississippi? Do I pray for the racist who set the bomb to explode during Sunday morning services in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls: Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Carol Denise McNair (11)? Do I pray for murderer Dylan Roof after killing the 9 Black Worshipers in Emanuel AME Church in Columbia, South Carolina? Do I pray for Byron DeLa Beckwith after killing Medgar Evers? Do I pray for George Zimmerman after killing Trayvon Martin? Do I pray for James Earl Ray after killing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? Do I pray for Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam after killing Emmett Till? Do I pray for Michael Dunn after killing Jordan Davis? Do I pray for Brett Hankison after killing Breonna Taylor? Do I pray for the police murderers of Botham James, George Floyd, Atatiana Jefferson, Philando Castille, Stephon Clark, Alton Sterling, Eric Garner, and 12-year-old Tamir Rice? Do I pray for the murderers of Ahmaud Arbery? Yet the White press is always there with a microphone to ask a Black person if they will pray for the person(s) who killed their loved ones and "better" yet, forgive them? And NO ONE ASKS Jews to pray for the Nazis and Adolph Hitler or forgive them...even now. And while I am at it... Do I pray for a Racist former president for calling Black and Brown countries "shithole countries?" Do I pray for Racist insurrectionists for trying to overturn Black votes and American Democracy by invading, desecration, and vandalizing the Capitol while looking for Congressional leaders to kill, egged on by the same Racist former president? So, because I am Black, why I am always asked to be Christianly obligated to pray for and forgive my enemies, those who would do me harm and those who have done me harm. For You, Maybe, Not Me.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorRodney. L. Hurst, Sr. Archives
June 2024
Categories |