Wednesday, January 8, 2003
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Wednesday, January 8, 2003 |
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Free at last ... By JOHN HATCHER I was born a Southerner. I will die a Christian. I was born a Georgian. I will die a Christian. I was born a Baptist. I will die a Christian. I was born in the segregated South. I will die in Christian unity. The question, however, is which identity will I carry as I live? Which identity will identify me as I walk in the environs of Fayette and Clayton and Fulton? As a Southerner I like fried chicken, collards, grits, and country ham. In no way can pickled herring, hash browns, or raw beef compare, as I try these kinds of fare up north where my sister lives, a la, Wisconsin. Yet, as a Christian, while visiting in Uganda several years ago, I gladly ate roasted grasshoppers as they were served to me as a sign of a royal welcome into a native's home (what do they taste like: combine the taste of fried bacon with Fritos and you've got the idea really a great taste. It was just a mind thing you had to get over). You see, Christians don't turn up their noses as if to say something is common and unclean. As a Georgian, I am proud of the state and love to talk about our red dirt (as opposed to red clay). I understand "redneck" to be a sign of a hard worker, not a dumb teenager (a redneck was a farmer who worked up a sweat and would wipe his neck with his hands colored by the red soil). I like to talk about the time we had two governors and proud that one of our governors became President of all the states. Yet, as a Christian, I would rather lift up the royal banner of my Savior and Lord Jesus Christ than any state flag. Raised a Baptist, I like to hear all the jokes about other denominations. One of my Methodist brothers told the one that the draught was so bad in Texas that the Baptists were sprinkling and the Methodists were using a damp rag. Baptists were so predominate in my family that when my sister was marrying a Catholic and our family heard that the groom's father was a Lutheran, the question was asked, "What's a Lutheran?" To which my older sister responded, "It's another one of those outlaw religions." Why, to a backward Baptist raised in the Deep South, Methodists were almost a cult. The Pentecostals have longed joked about us Baptists. They say that the Bible declares that Baptists will be the first in heaven. After all doesn't the Scripture say, "The dead in Christ will arise first."? But, thank God, I have learned that Lutherans, Catholics, Pentecostals, and Baptists will all sit on the same pew in Heaven's Church not because we were right, but because we are Christians and were made right by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. 'Yes, I was born in the segregated South. I got up and moved to another seat when a young black girl plopped down beside me during the days when Rosa Parks had taken her seat against bus segregation. God has forgiven me and my black brethren have forgiven me for that act of blatant racism. But my misbehavior came from my culture and my ignorance. Since, I have read the Book of Books and it says, "In Christ there is neither..." The Book declares that if the Son of God has set you free, you are freed indeed. Good friends, I am a free man thanks to that great Palestine liberator, Jesus Christ. And nobody can take that away from me. John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International
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