How would you feel if you went to your church one Sunday night for a special gathering to talk about issues happening in your community, to sing songs of worship to God, to pray, and to hear preaching, and a mob of over 2,000 people surrounded your church throwing rocks, bottles, and Molotov cocktails through the windows and then turned a car over and set it on fire? How would you feel if you did not have any protection from the police or city or state officials? What if the mob began to beat on the doors yelling that they were going to kill you and as they threw objects through second story windows, broken glass was showering down on the women and children huddled together for protection inside the sanctuary?
Does this make you think of recent events in Orissa, India? Or maybe something that you would hear about in the Middle East or China or Russia during the days of Communism?
Unfortunately, this event happened in America. It happened in the Deep South, the Bible Belt - Alabama to be specific. It happened in the city where I now live and work and make my home, Montgomery, Alabama. It happened before we took prayer out of schools, before the Kennedy Assassination, before the Beatles came to America, before the sexual revolution and the gay rights and Hippie movements, and before Roe Vs. Wade. It happenened in 1961 when life was supposedly wonderful in America and we were full of family values. It happened in a state where 2/3's of adult whites were Southern Baptists. It was because of racism and ignorance and evil. To my knowledge, it is the only time in the history of America that a church full of worshipers was ever under siege and it happened during the time that religion in the South was at its height.
This event took place when the Freedom Riders who were trying to integrate the interstate busing system in compliance with Federal Law, rolled into Montgomery, Alabama on the weekend of May 20-21, 1961. They were met at the Greyhound Bus Station downtown by a mob of white men, women, and children and were beaten mercilessly. The mob was instigated by the Ku Klux Klan, but it was supported by the police. Blood flowed that day and several of the Freedom Riders were beaten unconscious or hospitalized. The next day, May 21st, they gathered at First Baptist Church on Ripley Street for a mass meeting of encouragement, worship, prayer, and support before the group tried to make their way to Jackson, Mississippi. The Freedom Riders had already been firebombed in Anniston, Alabama and beaten severely by a mob in Birmingham. Their reception in Montgomery was similar, but the fact that their gathering at a church, normally considered a sanctuary of protection, insighted violence from the hateful crowd - well, that was a new twist to the violence surrounding the Civil Rights Movement.
This event is important for me because it illustrates the division in the church in America on the basis of racial, cultural, and economic lines. The Bible says in Ephesians 2:11-22 that Jesus tears down dividing walls between ethnic groups - that he himself is our peace. Racial Reconciliation is not a social issue - it is a gospel imperative and those who deny it and divide on the basis of race, are actually denying the gospel itself. That seems harsh, but it is true. Jesus died for all and there is no difference - all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Racial differences are human constructions and are not important when it comes to approaching the throne of grace. Since we are one in Christ, that oneness must be manifested here on earth so that Jesus is proclaimed through our actions and our love and not just our words. That did not happen in the South and in many ways, it still is not happening in our churches.
So, on May 21st, 2010, a few of us will be gathering outside the old First Baptist Church on Ripley Street at 6pm. We will be surrounding that old building with prayers and songs of repentance instead of curses of anger. We will be praying that God continue His reconciling work in our hearts and that justice would flow down like mighty rivers and that the Holy Spirit would flow like streams of living water. We will be praying Pentecost Prayers that the body of Christ would be one and that we would have a unified witness to the reconciling nature of Christ in our lives and our city. The church was under siege 49 years ago tomorrow. It is time for the year of jubilee to break forth and for the Kingdom to come. A few of us will be praying that way. If you are in Montgomery, we'd love for you to join us.




