America was born out of a revolution against social injustice. Its birth certificate is signed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

However, the flawed men who were inspired by Creator God to create and sign that divine document failed to live up to its precepts. The result was another nefarious form of social injustice, slavery. There were then, and still are now, those who insist that all men are not created equal. The conflict between the precepts of the covenant and its practical application led to the most bloodied and horrific chapter of the American Experiment, the Civil War.

Throughout the nation’s existence, men and women have strived and sacrificed to ensure that the nation lived up to its promise which embodied, what Abraham Lincoln referred to as, “a rebuke and a stumbling-block to tyranny and oppression.” Besides Lincoln, the God who created this nation raised up prophets and protestors against the ignominy of slavery. There was Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and  Nat Turner.  William Lloyd Garrison, a white abolitionist and founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, along with  other whites, such as writers John Greenleaf Whittier and Harriet Beecher Stowe were neck deep in the struggle. In more recent times, came Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm Little (X) and Martin Luther King, Jr. Like the ancient prophets sent to Israel, they suffered and endured hardship and persecution. Some made the ultimate sacrifice, martyrdom.

But sadly, today we are witnessing the same battle being played out before our very eyes. Some are fighting and protesting against social injustice. Others, rationalizing the thoughts of God’s messengers of some two hundred plus years ago, persist in maintaining a system  of racial inequality. Their stance remains:  all men are not created equal.

I reflected upon the senseless killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and the continued culture of social injustice in which people of color find themselves. There was slavery. Tens of thousands of innocent men and women were savagely separated from their families on the African continent and forcibly brought to Europe and America.  Under the most inhuman, cruel, and ignominious treatment they built the foundation of America’s and the world’s economic prosperity. And now, their descendants are not only denied their rightful place in that enterprise; but are the victims of social injustice for the simple reason for just being around.

Then my Creator reminded me that such is not limited to white on black. There was Idi Amin in Uganda, Africa. His despotic cruelty inflicted upon people of his own color certainly ranks in the upper echelons of social injustice.  Who can forget the heartless massacre of the Hutus against the Tutis in Rwanda? There was Stalin, Lenin, Mussolini, and Hitler. We are living with Al Kaida and Boka Haran.

The chapters of human history reveal the abominable nature of social injustice. It knows no boundaries. It transcends race, caste, and culture.

We can read the record that tells of the abject cruelty doled  out to those who did not agree with the doctrines and dogmas of the European Ecclesiastical Establishment. It was a period that has become known as the Dark Ages in which tens of millions were slaughtered for simply wanting to  exercise their God-given right think for themselves.

We are told of the cruel experience of the Jewish people in Egyptian bondage and their not too distant experience of the Holocaust.  But then today, we are confronted with the Jews’ treatment of the Palestinians. The plight of social injustice is broad as it is deep, spanning the gamut of human ‘civilization’.

But what is the cause? I inquired.

God responded through His prophet Jeremiah: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). It is the condition of the heart that leads to man inhumanity to man. It entered the world and the hearts of men through the greatest rebel and most cruel slave master ever, Satan. He continues his baleful work in the hearts of men and women on his hijacked plantation, called planet earth. We all live on it and we are all slaves. Yes, there are house slaves and there are field slaves. The supreme slave master wants to keep us separated, fighting against, and destroying each other.

Then I asked, ‘what is the remedy?’

Creator God then directed me to the most ignominious demonstration of social injustice the world has or will ever know. It is that of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. His continuous unjust treatment, from the womb to the tomb, is unmatched by any in the annals of human history.

His 9-month pregnant mother, a member of the poorest, lowest social class of their time, chose to obey the law of the ruling class. Making her painful journey of more than 80 miles from their humble home in Nazareth, on the back of a donkey, she arrived in the capital city of Jerusalem to be counted in the census. Upon arrival, she was denied the benefit of a comfortable place in which to lay her tired, travel worn, pregnant body. The only place she and her husband could find was in a cave. It was no ordinary cave. It was a cave in which the beasts and animals of the field found their rest. The aroma of its precincts permeated with the stench of their feces and filth of their unwashed bodies.

But what a joy it was when her baby was born. The skies lit up with the presence of the heavenly angels who sang in heart-warming, melodious tones, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people… For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord… And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger…And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying… Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:10-14).

Then I hear my Lord loudly declaring, “He is the cure. He is still the Answer”. He is the Only Destroyer of social injustice.

The religion of Christ is neither cantankerous, accusatory nor prejudicial. Jesus in the heart dispels the spirit of strife and contention. He replaces those impulses with love and compassion for everyone we encounter, regardless of color, culture, or caste. Christ’s religion redirects the motives. It reaches out to seek and to uplift the least among us. Truly knowing Christ purifies the soul. He enters in, refines the taste, and elevates the thoughts. Jesus in the heart transforms the character and ennobles the entire being. He disposes the darkness and cruel predisposition of berating those who look different from we do. He then fills the vacuum with affection, charity, thoughtfulness, and consolation.

God created only one race, the human race. He created it in His own image. That race, like the rainbow that surrounds His throne consists of many colors. They all matter. All are beautiful and radiant, seamlessly blending together to reflect His unspeakable glory to His immeasurable universe. He infused one blood into that race. His servant Luke reminds us, And [God] has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth (Acts 17:26).

Until the inhabitants on this sin-sick plantation: house slaves, field slaves and under-slave masters, realize who is the real slave master and begin a rebellion against him, social injustice will continue. Not unlike the flawed instruments He used to declare the nation’s independence from their Colonial masters, Almighty God promised through His messenger, John, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write, for these words are true and faithful. (Revelation 21:4-5).

Only then will social injustice not only be mitigated, but totally eradicated. The rainbow of God’s glory will be fully revealed in the majestic beauty of One Race, Many Colors, living together and loving each other as He originally intended. We must share this undeniable truth.

The choice belongs to each of us. What will yours be?