c. 1996 Religion News Service
(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)
(RNS)-With all due respect to my fellow African-Americans, we just don’t get it. Thirty years after the March on Washington, the Civil Rights Act and the creation of affirmative action, we still have not overcome.
This failure to vanquish our foe has little to do with racism, Reaganomics or the Contract with America. These traditional scapegoats don’t even address the fundamental question. The issue is not why we have not overcome, but what we must overcome.
What we must overcome is sin.
Consider this: In the years since the civil rights era, illegitimacy, drug abuse and crime have increased exponentially in the black community. During this same period, the ranks of the black entrepreneurial and professional classes swelled; today approximately 8,000 African-Americans hold elective office.
While we have gained economically and politically, we have lost spiritually, morally and ethically. And our gains have not kept pace with our losses. For example, economists have noted that even with record increases in per-capita income, blacks still earn about 60 cents for every dollar earned by whites. This suggests that our behavior-measured in terms of lost wages and undeveloped potential-is having a drastic effect on our earning potential.
That African-Americans have sinned as a race of people is neither new nor unknown. The overwhelming response to Minister Louis Farrakhan’s clarion call for a”holy day of atonement and reconciliation”that sparked the 1995 Million Man March bears witness to our collective sense of guilt and our need for spiritual renewal and leadership.
I hasten to add that the sin of African-Americans is no more pervasive nor odious than the sin of other Americans.”All have sinned,”Scripture tells us,”and fall short of the glory of God.” Yet, in light of Black History Month, the spiritual failings of African-Americans warrant special attention. For even a cursory review of black history in this country reveals the divine hand of Providence guiding the affairs of our people.
Who but God could have reversed the fortunes of an oppressed people in so short a time? African-Americans now run cities like Birmingham, Ala., where police dogs once attacked black children as they marched for freedom. Black senior citizens, who once toiled as semi-skilled domestic workers, sharecroppers and servants, have now lived to see their descendants become leaders in industry, finance and the professions.
During this”stride toward freedom,”as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called it, the black church was at the forefront, providing moral guidance as a counterweight to the strident rhetoric. Of all the leaders of that era, only King-with his use of biblical imagery and invocation of divine justice-possessed the moral authority required to shake the conscience of the nation.
But 30 years later, where are the Martin Luther Kings? Where are the preachers who can speak prophetically, as King did, to the sins of our community as well as those of the government?
Where are those who will declare that it is wrong to sleep with a lover without benefit of marriage? That it is wrong to steal, even if you are hungry? That it is wrong to sell drugs, regardless of whether or not you are broke? That the proverbial white man, for all the evil he has done, cannot bear responsibility for the choices that you and I, as individuals, make?
The reality is that no one can take from us our faith and morals. We simply relinquish them. Without a preacher to remind us of God’s vision and call us to repentance, faith becomes weak and morals become slack.
Perhaps the Apostle Paul put it best in his letter to the Romans:”How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?”
MJP END ATCHISON
