“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
After last week’s mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, none of us should be silent, especially our elected officials and Blacks. The actions of the young man were despicable, but to serve in a high elected position and act as if nothing has happened is mind boggling, inhumane and inexcusable. If you are an African American, this is a prime example of how much Blacks are hated and despised by some, not all Whites. All because of our skin color.
We have experienced over and over again in America the reality of evil in our own generation, and we have seen it in generations past. Today, hatred and evil have raised their ugly heads with no shame and no regard for human life. These blatant and criminal actions must stop so that America may regain her respect and dignity.
I am sure all of us have heard or seen the atrocities caused by this eighteen-year-old who savagely murdered ten people, all Black. The Buffalo news reported that 13 people were shot and all 10 victims who died were Black. This has been labeled as the city’s worst shooting in history.
Think about how evil must have raised its ugly head in this 18-year-old to the point that he posted a 180-page document filled with “great replacement theory” talking points before traveling over 200 miles to commit this hideous act. Let us not take the “great replacement theory” lightly, for it is my belief that there is a hidden agenda amongst some Whites to get rid of “blacks and other people of color.” Do you really believe this young man thought of this all alone? I am not saying there were some perpetrators who helped him carry out his actions, but certainly there are those who planted the seed in this young man years ago. The “replacement theory” is real, and we better wake up and see this as a back door and underground movement. President Biden referred to the shooting as domestic violence, but I refer to it as demonic violence.
This is nothing new, just another chapter written for those of us who wake up every day in our same beautiful brown skin color. May I remind us of the Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 and three Asian -American spas in Atlanta last year and the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that caused Donald Trump to run for president, so he said. If those examples are not enough to cause you to open your eyes, let’s go back to the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. Just imagine 1,250 homes burned down and hundreds of residents killed in a black community. It has been 400 years since slavery, yet there is still a push to keep us in servitude.
Now this is not an attempt to instill hatred or fear in anyone, but it is an alert for us not to be naïve and closed minded. For the good book tells us, “Turn from evil, and do good, and you will live in the land forever. For the Lord loves justice, and he will never abandon the godly.” Psalm 37:27-28
Norman L. Geisler put it this way, “Those who believe evil and the world are illusions do not actually function as if this were so. They may maintain that all is an illusion, but if one were to push them in front of an oncoming bus, they would quickly “warm up” to the reality idea.”
We know that these are isolated white supremacist cases, and we cannot place blame on the majority of whites for such evil acts, but it is heart wrenching for people in high positions to condone such behavior. It has been said often that “Silence implies consent.” It is, in my little opinion that it is a dereliction of duty to deliberately ignore the latest evil acts in Buffalo, NY.
I close with the words of Matthew 12:35-36, “Good people bring good things out of their hearts, but evil people bring evil things out of their hearts. I promise you that on the day of judgment, everyone will have to account for every careless word they have spoken.”
May we pray for all of the families of Buffalo, New York and other places where evil has become daily occurrences.
Not a sermon, just my thoughts!
Robert Earl Slade, Pastor
