Browsing Tag

Black Lives Matter

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

A Grandmother’s Recurring Nightmare… (This time it’s Blue’s Clues)

Posted on June 7, 2021


I really do wonder where this will end. Then I sit back and consider that I actually know where it will end. Words are the vehicle of expressed thought and I know I will have arrived at the end destination when I can hear these: “Come ye blessed of my father. Enter into the joys of your Lord.”  In the meantime, though, there are some recurring and growing concerns I have about the navigation of my grandchildren to the end destination. There are some extremely wicked forces that are trying to divide and distract God’s people. They are constantly trying to make my grandchildren swallow the lie that they are oppressors simply because of their skin color and, on the other hand, they are trying to convince some of your dark-skinned grandchildren that they are necessarily oppressed just because of their darker skin. And we forget we are sisters.

The devil uses our awful time of distraction by unnecessary  division to cause us to ignore the REAL enemy. We listen to the culture and  forget who is ecstatic when God’s people become divided. He’s Satan and he is willing to use the most vile techniques and weapons to attack the most vulnerable BEFORE they can even understand the battle arena. 

Take, for instance, the weapon that’s in our faces this month. It is unconscionable that YouTube for kids is using the formerly innocent BLUE’S CLUES cartoon to put what God called abomination into the minds of our two-year-olds: Take a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4vHegf3WPU

The shock factor, for me, of such blatant lies from hell, itself, being shared with innocent children by the hundreds of thousands around our land, never abates. I just have a very difficult time fathoming that we are really to this point. I showed the video to my husband and said “What can we do?” He said, “The devil wants people to believe the ship has sailed. He wants Christians to think there is nothing we can do. But we have to keep warning godly parents. We have to keep saying truth.” 

I believe we also must understand that distractions and divisions break down our armor against the devil. We must love each other, in the body of Christ. We must prefer each other. We must give one another the benefit of the doubt when motives are called into question. We must throw off the narratives in our society that convince us that we are persecutors of one another or that we are persecuted by one another. As God’s people, we should look outside the body to the REAL persecution that’s assaulting the faith of our kids. We should unite in our opposition to what the devil is trying to do to our children. And we should fight against all forces that are aligned with promotion of the acceptance of what God calls sin, even if they are masked by titles which state facts that we believe like “Black Lives Matter.” Of course black lives matter. Of course of all of God’s children believe that obvious statement. But we must be very careful to not let the world steal the truths, principles and symbols from God’s Word—black lives matter, the rainbow, love wins, etc… to deceive us,  to distract us, as HIs people, from our mission of soul-winning. And some of the souls we have to protect from division and distraction are those of our children and grandchildren. 

When the devil is planting vile affection though Blue’s Clues cartoons, we know he is stooping to new lows in America. We’d better unite as sisters (moms) in Christ and identify the real persecutors—the real enemy. Let’s be careful not to allow the world’s agenda to divide us, as His people. There’s a real enemy out there and it’s not your brothers and sisters of different skin colors. He’s busy. He’s creative. He wants the most vulnerable of our tribe. Oppression is a real thing and the devil is all about it. 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

The Cries Reach His Ears.

Posted on June 12, 2020

The Lord knows about every abuse and He will get it right in the final day. He’s also always listened to the prayers of His people on the suffering end. He will get it right. There will be misery for the oppressor and there will be compassion for the suffering Christian.  Be patient therefore brethren until  the coming of the Lord!

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

(…from the Spirit through the pen of James-chapter 5)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Christ over Color (Part 5)

Posted on April 4, 2017

I am concerned about several things as I speak to my sisters about the issues surrounding race relations and the impact of those issues on the church today. The first is the apparent expectation of loyalty that seems to be so prevalent in the black community.  By this, I mean that, if you are a black person, there seems to be a great deal of pressure from community to adopt a particular narrative.  One evidence of this is in important elections, and the predictable delivery of a block vote from African Americans. Perhaps this is driven partially by the media which consistently seems to be talking about the “black caucus” or simply even the “black vote” as if to suggest black Americans are always united in a singular cause, following one united way of thinking.  I hope that my black sisters are not influenced by the assumption that they must vote with the majority of black people. But there have been times when it has seemed that some were under tremendous pressure to bend the knee to such a political power block over blood-bought Christianity. 

 Closely associated is the embracing of the Black Lives Matter movement among some of my brothers and sisters. I have sisters whom I love dearly who have defended the movement, believing  that one can support the movement without supporting violence. I do not believe that can be done. I believe the movement is known for violence and that to try to detach it from its reputation is an exercise in futility.  

But even if we could separate Black Lives Matter from destruction of property, harm and loss of life (i.e. even if it was a non-violent movement), I would still have a big problem with supporting the movement.  The group’s website states clearly its agenda. Here is a portion of that statement:

Black Lives Matter is “a unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes” and, embracing intersectionality, that “Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. (http://blacklivesmatter.com/about)

All three founders of the Black Lives Matter movement are women, and Garza and Cullors identify as queer.[21] The founders believe that their backgrounds have paved the way for Black Lives Matter to be an intersectional movement. Several hashtags such as #BlackWomenMatter, #BlackGirlsMatter, #BlackQueerLivesMatter, and #BlackTransLivesMatter have surfaced on the BLM website and throughout social media networks. Marcia Chatelain, associate professor of history at Georgetown University, has praised BLM for allowing “young, queer women [to] play a central role” in the movement (https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/women-black-lives-matter-interview-marcia-chatelain).

I understand that there may be some variations in the purposes and activities of organizations that align themselves closely with the movement, but I am also certain that the voices across the board for “queer” and “trans” to be a part of the “intersectional” aspect of the movement are far too loud and too frequently communicated  for anyone who is examining it to believe BLM is not allied with sin.  The movement itself is an attempt to embrace and give dignity to evil in the culture with regard to gender identity. 

There is a part of me that wishes I did not have to say that I believe it is a breach of our covenant with God, as New Testament Christians, to support Black Lives Matter . But I cannot investigate a cause, find that it is involved in the promotion of sin, and still lend my moral support to that cause. 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Black Lives Matter…There’s No Band-Aid

Posted on July 11, 2016

498484120_1280x720The irony of the Black Lives Matter movement lies in its consistent insistence to assign motives to policemen prior to any process of investigation. While it’s clearly wrong for a policeman to assume, without evidence, that a person of color is a criminal and to act on that assumption, it’s surely the same leap for people of color to assume that a policeman who is making a traffic stop is pulling a person over because he is black and not because he is violating a traffic ordinance.

A young black girl got into the car of a friend of mine recently. This friend has gone out of her way on multiple occasions to transport this young girl, whose family is unwilling or unable to provide transportation for her. The conversation, on this particular day, turned to law enforcement  officers. The young girl commented “I don’t like cops. They don’t like us. They just want to hurt my people, just because we’re black.”

Now the girl is just a young teen. She was, very likely, just spewing forth what she’d heard others say. Surely she didn’t realize, though, that she was saying it to the mother of a young man who puts on that uniform every morning and works diligently all day to protect the people of her city—to protect her. She didn’t know she was profiling. And there’s lot of profiling going on in the BLM movement.

The reason all human lives matter is because all souls matter for all of eternity. God is the soul-giver and He doesn’t make souls in colors or with bank accounts. When we come to understand that in each hoodie and in each uniform is a soul that will live in eternity in heaven or hell, we’re gaining ground toward peace; not because some aura of compassion comes over us when we attach a spiritual connotation to the people around us, but, rather, because when God is recognized as the Creator and Soul-giver, recognition of and respect for His inherent authority necessarily follows. His Word is the prescription for peace in our land. It both ordains and controls law enforcement agencies (Romans 13) and it instructs the citizenry in living with respect and deference to fellowmen. When we remove that Word from our society and make a mockery, on so many levels, of its precepts and authority, surely we should not be surprised when chaos ensues.

Are there thinking people who truly believe life’s better in America now that we’ve divorced ourselves from a national respect for the Word of God? Give me respect for the Word in our land any day and take me back to an era where children could safely ride their bikes all over their communities, where babies were safe in the wombs of their mothers, where fathers worked hard to provide for their families and mothers nurtured children in loving homes. Bring repentance to the hearts of those who have prejudice and malice, and a strong desire in the hearts of God’s people to bring souls to the Cross. The ground is level at the foot of the Cross. But the cross is not an invitation to a free-for-all. It’s for all, but it’s not free. The Cross is not a compromise with sin. It’s an ultimatum.

The men in blue are clearly a part of the Biblical  system of authority found in God’s Word. Christians in the first century church were called on to respect and obey civil authority even though their Roman government was oppressive and persecuted Christians. But when we estrange our government and our citizenry from the One who is at the top of the chain of command, all the links are weakened and governmental systems fail. The reason we can’t find the band-aid to put on the violence that’s erupting around our nation is because it’s really hard to find a band-aid when internal bleeding is quickly draining life away. Our nation, without any respect for truth and righteousness, is under cardiac arrest.