Tony Campolo said it best "I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."
While these words are harsh, and while they are as a sledgehammer to a brick wall I would like to take it further, over the course of the last two weeks more than ten teenagers (kids, babies really) took their own lives and the church as usual is silent. Scary thing silence it can signal ones complicity in an act, heinous or otherwise. It can speak to duplicity, silence is one of the tools in our arsenal that really should not be looked to. Its usage lends courage to cowards and abusers who would take advantage of the people of God. Saying nothing about the deaths of these children should bring about conviction and repentance to a church that too long has allowed itself to be prostituted. We say we speak and stand for Christ. Would He be silent about this issue? Are we so tragically blind to the way that God sees those kids, and others like them that we will continue to stand idly by and say and do nothing, well I cannot say we have done nothing. Fox news claims that they speak for “christians” in this country as does the republican party. Here is what one of them said recently that the teens committing suicide were “grossly overreacting”. Be that as it may, why is it that no one, not Creflo, not, Thomas Dexter, not even Eddie, or any other stalwart leaders in the black church have offered anything of note to try and stem the tide of this latest incursion of the enemy to our nation? What is even more indicative of the cowardice in the pulpit, Ken Hagin, Rod Parsley, and not even Joel Osteen have said anything. Silence on issues such as these, really do lend themselves to acceptance of the hopelessness that these kids apparently face daily. When Martin King Jr. was jailed in Birmingham, he could have listened to his peers in the ministry and said and done nothing in light of their discouragement of his actions. Instead he spoke truth to power and penned the “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” In it he makes the following statement “I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes”. Once again we have an multiple issues that have been dropped on our doorsteps, teen suicide, homosexuality, and bullying. We appear to not want to deal with the deaths of these kids, nor do we want to contend with the fact that there are real disparities between how gays are treated and how those of us who are raging heterosexuals are dealt with in society.
If Christ died for us all, then for the church that should be enough to advocate, and yes agitate for them. I am not saying I agree with same sex marriage, but look at the underlaying reasons for the push. For many its access to many of the things that hetero couples take for granted. I leave that for you to explore. I do not agree with same sex marriage, but I understand why it is desired. We have lost ten children to the lie that suicide is the way out. Isn’t it time we spoke up, even when our so called leaders will not. Is it not enough that these children lost their lives due to the way society has looked at them, and says that it does it in the name of the Lord? Isn’t it time that the church, the real church stood up, and took its role back? I close by paraphrasing Dr. Campolo, I hope that those of you who read this prove me wrong…..
In the past month ten children committed suicide because they were bullied for being gay. Most of you who read this may or may not care all that much. I dare you if you are reading this, to prove me wrong…
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