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12th Day of Lent: Seeing God’s Heart for Justice

Yesterday, we looked at the term "social justice" and how a correct understanding it of it from God's perspective means "rightly ordered relationships (with God, with one another and with the earth) in order for His creation to flourish.  

Here is a timely reminder of how knowing God's word and God's heart for justice transforms cultures, nations and the world!!!


Billy Graham & Social Justice


"Last week Billy Graham passed away at age 99. He is most celebrated for his evangelistic ministry having preached the gospel to an estimated 200 million people.


 What often gets overlooked, however, is Graham's commitment to social justice. For a Southern Baptist preacher raised at the height of Jim Crow, Graham's opposition to racial segregation was both courageous and extremely controversial. 


The opposition to Graham began in 1952 when he said, "There is no scriptural basis for segregation"—a direct refutation of popular theology in the white south. A few months later, he called on all Baptist colleges to admit black students, well before the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. In 1953, Graham arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a revival meeting to discover the venue had ropes to separate blacks and whites. He took them down. "Either these ropes stay down," he told local Christian leaders, "or you can go on and have the revival without me."


It was during this time that Graham became friends with Martin Luther King, Jr.—again, a controversial relationship for a Southern white preacher. They became so close that King asked Graham to call him by his childhood nickname, Mike. This friendship may have emboldened Graham's rhetoric against segregation. He went beyond denying its biblical basis to calling segregation outright "sinful." This statement was conveniently ignored by white newspapers, but it was noticed by black papers as well as the K.K.K. who targeted Graham.


By the 1970s, Graham's opposition to segregation added economic and international facets. In Virginia, he preached that for school desegregation to be successful, the nationwide acceptance of residential segregation— often excused for economic reasons—would have to end. He also identified growing disparities in wealth distribution as the root of poverty. In 1973, he threatened to cancel his trip to South Africa if the apartheid government would not allow him to preach to an integrated audience. They buckled under the pressure. 


In 1974, together with John Stott, Graham gathered global evangelical leaders in Lausanne, Switzerland. They composed a statement that codified the importance of social responsibility as part of God's mission in the world. It's a statement Christians could benefit from reading today. It says, in part:


"Because men and women are made in the image of God, every person, regardless of race, religion, color, culture, class, sex or age, has an intrinsic dignity because of which he or she should be respected and served, not exploited. Here too we express penitence both for our neglect and for having sometimes regarded evangelism and social reform as mutually exclusive."


Particularly early in his ministry, there was no practical incentive for Graham to oppose racial injustice and advocate for justice. In fact, his outspoken opposition to segregation threatened to limit his evangelistic reach and alienate wealthy donors. 


So why did he elevate justice to an essential part of his message? 


Why did he preach about social reform and not limit his sermons to saving souls? Because Billy Graham knew the heart and word of God"- and how important justice was to His plan to restore ALL back to Him through the victory over evil, suffering and death in Jesus!!!  Www.withGodDaily.com


Prayer:  Elohim Mishpat, although it may take a long time, maintain in us the desire for our nonviolent persistence and truth-telling ....that it will eventually win out and bear the good fruit of justice. Your Truth is on our side... you are the heart of justice. "The arc of the moral universe is long," Martin Luther King Jr. said famously, "but it bends toward justice."  Let our prayers and actions for justice bend toward you now and tomorrow and mark all of our days, Amen/

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