by David Cassidy, Pastor of Christ Community Church, Franklin
With Father’s Day as a theme I’d prepared some altogether appropriate paragraphs for this space today, warm words about family, bonds of affection, and the joy of home. Then Charleston happened. Few people are thinking of much else, and virtually no one is speaking of much else, especially in the national media, and that’s as it should be, even if a lot of what’s said isn’t very helpful. There are nine beautiful, wonderful people who are dead now, killed by a young man deluded by racial hatred and a culture of violence, a bitter youth who acted against innocent people as they prayed and studied Scripture in a church.
I confess to being angry about this. Its hard for me to frame cogent sentences that keep me calm or make for peace. I’m angry about white supremacists, the legacy of slavery, and race haters on all sides of the divide. I’m angry about media jockeys that want to turn sidebar discussions about flags and guns and drugs into the central issue, when the central issues are hatred and fear. I’m angry at political and civic leaders who try to score points in the polls on those same issues when the best thing to do right now is just shut up and cry. I’m angry that my fellow Christians and fellow Pastors were murdered and injured, targeted because the murderer thought that killing them would be the best way to spark a race war in this country.
My anger, of course, is exactly what he wanted, and that’s why I have to confess it, abandon it, and redirect it in the path of peace, following the example of my brothers and sisters in Charleston who are proving the murderer’s motives fruitless by their passionate forgiveness. If you have not yet heard their words during the bond hearing of the shooter, I hope you will take the time necessary to do so.
One of my ministerial colleagues is Howard Brown, an African-American Pastor originally from Charleston, a son of the AME CHurch, and now serving in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is what he wrote about this nightmare, this open gaping wound of racial hatred in this nation, the horrors of what we’ve witnessed this week, and especially about the astonishing gift of forgiveness the families of the victims have extended to the man who killed those they loved so dearly.
More By David CassidyThe families forgive Roof?!?!?! How is this possible? Forgiveness is freely given, but costs its givers mightily!!! Where does the credit and collateral of forgiveness to do as much as humanly possible to open and offer the grace of God and a chance of repentance to Roof come from? Jesus paid it all, and these believers whose family members were killed believe all to Jesus they owe. In and by Christ crucified is the bounty of heavenly treasure by which these sad and mourning Christians can freely give expensive forgiveness to the worst and most costly of enemies. My advice to all who struggle with the hard issues and people and powers in this world: look at the example of these world sorrowed believers in Charleston!!! Come to Christ!! Turn to him!!! He is filled with power and pity and justice and mercy for all we could ever face and experience in this world.
