RACIAL RECONCILIATION IN AMERICA -- 2015

 

By James Wilson

 

            A few weeks ago I watched a video of last year’s unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.  I watched rioters break through a store wall before looting it.  Most of the looters grabbing whatever they wanted were white.  

 

            This is not about race.  People on one side of the Ferguson divide say black people just want entitlements and will stop at nothing to get them – imagining that is not racist.  People on the other side say black people suffered for centuries under white domination and what goes around comes around – and imagining it not racist to label blacks incapable of rising above their circumstances when so many do.  This is not about race – and never was. It is about law abiding decent people versus law defying indecent people of all tribes.  It is about being part of the solution or part of the problem – seeking authentic reconciliation, or being so smug in our prejudices we despise conversation.

 

              As a cadet teacher forty years ago I taught in an inner-city school.  A black student came on with attitude from our first encounter and it seemed to me every exchange was a bomb waiting to explode.  After about two weeks of (in my mind) great effort to approach him with courtesy and respect while maintaining my authority I asked him to remain after class.  “You tellin’ me I can’t go home?” he growled.  “No.  I am telling you I want to talk to you.”  We sat down and I asked him to tell me what it was about me that so ticked him off.  He admitted that his fifth grade teacher was openly racist and constantly demeaning him.  He said he decided then to shoot first and ask questions later with any white teachers he had.  He added that he was not sorry for this.

 

            I asked him to look at me carefully, which he did.  I asked him if I in any way resembled the teacher who had earned his hatred.  He said I did not.  “Then suppose you and I start all over again – today – and look at each other as who we are.  If you see me putting you down when you’ve done no wrong, push back; if not, give me a break and I’ll do the same for you.  You remember I am the teacher and I’ll remember you deserve my respect.”  We got along famously after that.  But we had to have a frank conversation.

 

            Let’s be clear about two things.  One is we have come a long way this past half century.  A black man in the White House most potently symbolizes that progress.  That civil rights legislation so passionately fought for in the 20^th Century is rarely invoked today is another; we Americans have learned to honor one another – like the black man who taught twenty-year-old me to survive in the streets.  The richest expression of general harmony is the plethora of ministries of reconciliation such as PrayNorthState; I travel the world honoring and being honored by people of all ethnicities.  They have my back and I have theirs.  This camaraderie is common over millions of back fences.

 

            This reconciling camaraderie surfaced in Ferguson as black activists embraced white cops in the wake of the shootings of two officers.

 

            Another is that racism remains in America.  It is as ugly as it ever was, and most of it comes from the rich and powerful inside and outside government.  The Crow People and their Montana reservation sit atop untold reserves of oil, gas, and mineral wealth; the federal government blocks their efforts to tap it – they are, after all, Indians while the environmentalists who have the ear of government are white.  Alaska natives passionately desire the prosperity that would follow opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for drilling.  The same white progressive environmentalists in bed with government are putting a quarter billion acres of Native land off limits to protect the ring seal.  Hollywood – white progressive Hollywood – snubs an achievement like the film, Selma, for academy award consideration.  There is racism in America but it is not coming from middle class traditional values types.

 

            The bottom line is whenever we take the time and display the courage to have a frank discussion with each other it usually works just fine.  Authentic reconciliation is about speaking the truth – with passion – as we understand it.  It is about listening to the truth as others understand it with respect.  It is finally about God re-framing the conversation.  Our function is humbly granting Him permission; that permission carries life-giving promise.  And it is not about race; it is about right and wrong.

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

JUSTICE IN FERGUSON...SORT OF

 

By James Wilson

 

            The Justice Department issues its long awaited report – and the New York Times reports it – in the death of Michael Brown at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson.  Even Eric Holder’s biased Justice Department reaches the resounding conclusion that Wilson acted with admirable restraint, in self-defense, to defend his life against a murderous onslaught.  Let us now count the cost.

 

            Tens of thousands of Americans – of all colors and tribes – rushed to judgment in the wake of last summer’s shootin; the fruit is not pretty.  Riots rocked multiple cities.  Many businesses were looted and burned.  The victims were people of all colors and tribes; rioters demanded payback from anyone caught in their path.  Many were injured and at least one killed after four Denver police officers were mowed down while protecting a thousand teens who cut school to march in protest.  It became a cultural norm for people to raise their hands and chant, “Hands up; don’t shoot.”  The Brown family is still pursuing a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of their “innocent” son.  Darren Wilson will never again work as a police officer; he is challenged to find a safe place for himself and his family.

 

Reality is Brown was anything but innocent.  Witnesses who testified to Brown’s innocence were not credible, the report states, “Some of those accounts are inaccurate because they are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence; some of those accounts are materially inconsistent with that (sic) witnesses’ own prior statements with no explanation.”  In other words some witnesses were either dishonest or confused.

 

Brown’s family is anything but innocent –they incited the rioting then and today with statements like, “Burn this bitch down.”  Such rhetoric is not protected speech; it is criminal conduct.  The speakers – including Al Sharpton – should be prosecuted.  Our collective horror should be overwhelming when we realize how mob rule extended from the streets to the White House; Eric Holder and President Obama gave sympathy to the rioters and other criminal elements just as they did in the Trayvon Martin case.  People believed what they wanted to believe; they said and did what they wanted to say and do, based on the lie they believed.  Many of us paid dearly. 

 

Perhaps our nation of laws-not-men paid the highest price.  In all the rhetoric flowing like molten lava between left and right I have heard precious few words of sympathy for the innocent police, business persons, and citizens-on-the-sidewalk who lost so much because so many cared so little for truth.  Now two Ferguson police officers have been gunned down in new protests…of what?  Nothing but the truth they do not want to hear.

 

            Now wait a minute – say some.  The Justice Department found a pattern of racism in the Ferguson Police Department even while admitting Darren Wilson acted no part in it.  What was that pattern? 

 

            Investigators found city officials had sent what they called racist e-mails on their government accounts; the New York Times describes two.  One depicted the president as a chimpanzee; another included a photo of topless black women captioned, “Michelle Obama’s high school reunion.”  These may indeed be racially motivated; they may express only the authors’ contempt for those who treat them contemptuously.  What is not demonstrated in the Times’ piece is any link between attitude and behavior by city officials.  Should they be disciplined – perhaps fired – for misusing their government e-mail accounts?  Absolutely.  But if this is the best evidence of pervasive racism in a traumatized police department it is pathetic.  This published paraphrase is better evidence of government determination to justify mobs and condemn cops.

 

            Ferguson Mayor James Knowles easily reaches that conclusion.  In weeks of note-taking Justice made no effort to verify reports, gave accused officers no chance to speak, and reported incidents in neighboring cities according to Knowles.  They included as racially motivated the black student arrest at school for assaulting his black (and pregnant) principal on campus.

 

            The Old Testament prophets knew what they were saying when they said, “Touch not my anointed,” except on the (truthful) testimony of eyewitnesses.  They knew even better when they condemned false testimony across the board.  And Jesus knew it best when He said, “Let he who is without sin amongst you cast the first stone,” followed by “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”

 

              God’s call for repentance is equal opportunity; no one is sin-free.  Repentance in context includes telling the truth, facing the truth without changing the subject, and acting on truth instead of pandering to mob rage based on untruth.  A good way to evaluate leadership is to administer this three-point test.    

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

2015's NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST AND THE PRESIDENTIAL HIGH HORSE

2015’s NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST AND

THE PRESIDENTIAL HIGH HORSE

By James Wilson

 

            President Obama actually said some good things at the National Prayer Breakfast.

 

            He spoke of the many times he – as President – paused to reflect on Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous and oft repeated prayer, “Keep us at tasks too hard for us that we may be driven to Thee for strength.”  He said as well – and wonderfully – that, “Our job is not to ask God to respond to our notion of truth – our job is to be true to Him, His word, and His commandments.  And we should assume humbly that we’re confused and don’t always know what we’re doing and we’re staggering and stumbling towards Him and have some humility in that process.”  The President adds that we should – on that account – speak up against those who misuse God’s Name to justify oppression.  In this he is right on the money; one can only wish he had left it there.

 

            Reality is what Barack Obama said applies uniquely to followers of Yahweh and His Son Yeshua – Jesus.  His word is revealed in the Bible, not in our agenda – however praiseworthy that agenda may be – and not all agendas pursued by Christians are of equal value.  (The Rev. Fred Phelps and any number of televangelists come to mind.)  Repentant believers know we are staggering and stumbling towards Him; our very staggering excites His sympathy like no other gift.  His strength is indeed perfected (2 Corinthians 12:9) in our weakness.  There is only one God; He is worshipped under multiple names, but He is knowable and separable from the list of pretenders in terms of His attributes, His behavior, and His directives.

 

            This Yahweh – ‘Io, as He is known to ancient Hawaiians; Sila, as He is known to the Inuit of Alaska and Siberia; and Yah, as he is to many Native Americans of the Lower Forty-eight – creates for no other reason than love.  He sacrifices His Son for the redemption of all mankind – all mankind – and calls on His followers to live lives of sacrifice for each other as the best path to abundant life.  He freely forgives sin and calls on us to do likewise.  He never demands obedience – although He has surely earned it – preferring to stand at the door and knock.  He says His revelation is not about things to know but about a Person to know, and He declares we can have as many do-overs in this world as we need but in the next the jury is in by the time we arrive.   He stands in polar opposition to alternative revelations that deny freedom of choice in favor of karma, or say we are the result of a cosmic accident – as it is in most eastern religions.  He does not call His people to force conquests, conversions, or vengeance on those who do not respect Him or His dictates – as it is in Islam.  Yahweh is as recognizable as He is unique.

 

            Yet the President – in a display of monumental ignorance at best – went on to call out American Christians.  “And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.  In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was (sic) justified in the name of Christ.” Reality is that Christians have exhibited aberrant behavior in the cases cited by the President.  We do remain sinners and we continue in the need of repentance.  But aberrant is not normative.   

 

The far greater reality is that nowhere can there be found – in the sacred texts or the tradition of the Church – even the remotest justification for these practices.  The Inquisition flew in the face of Christianity – even as it was known in the Middle Ages – and the Crusades were in response to Muslim aggression that took the Holy Land by bloody conquest and later invaded Europe.  In their conquests and subjugation of infidels the Muslims were simply following the dictates of their religion to set up their worldwide Caliphate by force.    

 

Another greater reality is that when Christians across American saw the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow they rose as one to condemn these perversions.  When Abraham Lincoln called on his countrymen in 1863 to observe a day of prayer, fasting, and humiliation over our many sins – and especially for condoning slavery – the tide of war turned toward victory in less than two months.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 came on the heels of the Christians – black and white – who marched in prayer from Selma to Montgomery under the truncheons of the segregationists.  Their suffering was broadcast by television into the living rooms of ordinary Americans and the resulting groundswell of support was immediate and tremendous.

 

Praise God for the untold millions of Muslims who seek only to live in peace with their neighbors and are even beginning – in places such as Norway – to speak out against the brutality of Islamo-fascists.  Sadly enough history shows these pacific attitudes evaporate – or are purged – wherever Islam attains majority strength.

 

Truth is we Christians – and for that matter we Jews – serve a Lord whose clarion call has not changed since He wrote Micah 6:8, “He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  There is no legitimate space – the operant term being legitimate – in such doctrine for honor killings, beheadings, or forcing our faith on others, much less burning people alive.  No other religion can make such a claim – at least not without blushing, and certainly not in truth.   

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

THE RETURN OF THAT HIGH PRESSURE RIDGE

 

By James Wilson

 

            The Wall Street Journal notes California has just experienced the driest January since the Gold Rush of 1849.  A fourth straight disastrous year of drought is forecast, along with the admission California farmers have received less than a tenth of their normal water allowances for surface water.  To address the deficit trillions of gallons of water have been pumped from California’s enormous aquifer since 2012.  That source too is running out, even as many fields lie fallow in an effort to conserve.  But the worst news is the high pressure ridge that hovered over the state deflecting rain and snow for more than sixteen months is back.  At this time it is off shore but still managing to divert storms headed our way to the north and south of the state.

 

            The Huffington Post – and other sanctuaries from which secular pundits pontificate – tries to explain the situation in terms of global warming with spectacular absurdity.  California has seen monster storms since November 2014 despite the driest January on record.  We have also had spectacular lack of rain and only 25% of normal snowfall.  The Post offers statistics about the abnormally high temperatures in the Sierra Nevada but remains silent on the abnormal chill conditions in much of the rest of the nation.  Their writers make the astounding claim that the super storms are fruit of warming – because they say warming causes more water vapor that becomes more falling rain – but they also blame warming for the lack of rain because it has all dried up.  They cite the evidence for more vapor and blithely assume – without presenting any evidence – that climate change causes warmth in California and a freeze from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Great Plains – northern and southern.  Nice going, guys!

 

            There is another explanation, a biblical explanation.  This will – of course – arouse scorn from those who worship the religion of scientism, as opposed to respecting authentic science.  But if a thing looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck it might be worth considering that it could actually be a duck.

 

            In the biblical book of 2 Chronicles God tells King Solomon that whenever He holds back normal rainfall it is because of persistent and serious sin in the land.  This is not His punishment – He is not that kind of God – but it is His way of demanding attention before righting the wrongs.  The wrongs He decries are generally in four categories – covenant breaking, shedding of innocent blood, sexual sin, and idol worship.  He goes on to name the remedy – but later for that.  How does California rate in the persistent and serious sin department?

 

            Her elected government – with elected being the operant word – highjacked “loans” from her school system and persuaded Californians to tax themselves so those loans could be repaid.  Although school funding has increased no loans have been repaid.  In other forays into this arena the state is attempting to force churches and their affiliates to purchase abortion coverage in defiance of the First Amendment, state and federal law, and recent Supreme Court decisions.  These are called covenant breaking.

 

            Speaking of abortions, California leads the nation in numbers and out of all proportion to our share of the national population.  Thirty thousand of these are paid for with tax dollars and this is not kept secret from the voters.  On top of this are the hundreds of thousands of Native Americans slaughtered and enslaved in the early days of California – a slaughter that peaked during the aforementioned Gold Rush.  Some of these, such as the butchery of the Shasta Tribe near Etna in 1851, are still denied by government to this day.  God has a problem with lying too, but file this one under the shedding of innocent blood.

 

            Under sexual sin we can notice almost ninety per cent of the pornography made in the United States is created in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California.  Add to that the encouragement we give ourselves by patronizing films and television that glorify sexual relations without the commitment of marriage.  Add on top of that the glory we give to early Californians like Peter Lassen who enslaved Native women to gratify his appetites.  Finish it off with the reality that California is one of the prime locations for the modern sex trafficking industries and the point is made on this one.

 

            Last but not least is idol worship.  Reality is we worship policy and product makers from our can-do governor to the lords of Silicon Valley and social media tyros to entertainment industry stars from Lady Gaga to Kanye West.  And if esoteric idolatry is not enough for us, we worship actual idols of wood and stone and sand.  We worship Buddhist and Hindu idols in churches from Grace Cathedral and Trinity Cathedral – in San Francisco and Sacramento – to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the old City Hall in Redding, where I live.  We even sport a rendering of the Roman goddess Minerva in our State Capitol’s rotunda. 

 

Lest anyone beg off with a weak statement that “I don’t worship those things,” let’s remember they are paid for with our (sales and other) taxes, our donations, and our visits to marvel at their artistic qualities.  This is California’s problem, not the problem of some group of people the rest of us designate as bad.  That goes for all four categories.  If we reap benefits from – say – confiscated Indian lands we also bear the responsibilities.

 

Likewise, if there is no credible meteorological explanation for this persistent and recurrent high pressure ridge then only a foolish mind would refuse to look at a more esoteric line of reasoning.  High pressure ridges come and go, restraining rainfall where they are present, for days and even weeks at a time.  But months and then more than a year over one state?  And after some blessedly torrential rainfall for two months the ridge hovers over us once again?  That does not occur in nature or from natural causation.  What the Word of God says – on the other hand – looks, quacks, and waddles pretty much as though it were a duck.  So what does that same Word offer as a remedy?

 

2 Chronicles 7:14 is the verse that follows God’s warning to King Solomon that a lack of normal rainfall is attributable to human sin coupled with His determination to get His people’s attention before He forgives and rescues them.  “If my people, who are called by my Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land,” is what it says.  So we are left with a choice to make.

 

The disciples of climate change imagine human behavior causes catastrophic warming.  Christians acknowledge that climate changes; we know from science that the planet has endured many cycles of heating and cooling since time began.  We are astounded that anyone thinks mankind has the chops to cause it in the complete absence of causal evidence.  We do imagine we can – through prayer and repentance – move the heart of God; He can and does impact climate.  We imagine such things because we have observed this phenomenon time and again.  It is called miracle; it is also called dynamic mercy and grace.

 

The choice is simple.  Believe the absurd notion that human caused global warming accounts for both catastrophic rains and catastrophic dry spells as the clergy of climate scientism would have us convinced.  Or believe and act in the realization that Californians have offended God and injured one another over a long and catastrophic period of time and offer prayer and repentance to the God who says that is all He wants from us.  Which of these alternatives looks, quacks, and walks like the truth it claims to reveal?

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net