Racism in God's Pulpit!

Racism perpetuated from the pulpit is the worst, the most dangerous of all. The recent story about Phoenix pastor, Steve Anderson, praying for the president’s, yes President Obama’s death is disturbing. Not only should he be run out of the pulpit, he should be considered and treated like a terrorist. Hearing that story reminded me of churches that harbored Klansmen who hung blacks and burned crosses and of the ministers who stood by racist Jim Crow era laws and practices. In his, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, Dr. Martin Luther King spoke to the clergy, many of whom protected racism overtly or by their silent acquiescence to it. He used these words to close it. “Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty”. Even now with a black man in the white house, racism is alive and well and we still must pray that the tomorrow that brings love and brotherhood is not too distant.