BLOG 5.3.19. “IF THE SALT HAS LOST ITS TASTE … NO GOOD FOR ANYTHING”

I have just been reading the Southern Poverty Law Center’s sobering account of the incidents of racism and prejudice against immigrants in its report Combating Nativism: Protecting the Rights of Immigrants. The SPLC was founded some years ago by Morris Dees to deal with all of the horrendous incidents of racial injustice in Alabama and Mississippi (and still does), but has expanded more recently to cope with all of the ‘nativism’ and unbelievable injustices perpetrated against immigrants, even by the government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, in addition to all of the hate groups.

What was even more sobering being the fact that my own home state of Georgia, along with

Alabama are two of the primary offenders. I live comfortably in my modest home, and with a modest retirement income, and in a wonderful neighborhood (that includes many nationalities). I read the local paper and the news it chooses to print, … and was totally unaware of the suffering of immigrants in this state due to economic exploitation, legal harassment, sexual assaults on the women by bosses, separation of families, … and so much more. I am ashamed.

And yet … we are a state where such a large part of the population would claim to me professing Christians (or at least church-going folks). And yet, right at the heart of Jesus’ teachings are the inescapable references to the fact that his calling is to a new creation, to a new humanity, that marches to a different drummer. His teaching makes no secret of his passion for righteousness, his blessing upon the poor, … even that his people are to be willing to suffer for what is right. His ultimate criteria for our acceptance is our response to his reconciling love is our ministry to the homeless, to the stranger, to the imprisoned, and the poverty-stricken.

It is by incarnating these new creation teachings that we are constituted to be the “salt of the earth” and yet with the caveat that if we fail in this calling, … we are good for nothing but to be cast out and trampled under the foot of man.

The roots of this passion run deep in our Biblical tradition. “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24). Or, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

The blight of hate groups and racial prejudice runs deep and wide, even up to high places in government, and it will not go away by our ignoring it. If nothing else you might want to join me in supporting the Southern Poverty Law Center and staying informed (400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, Ala.

At the very least, don’t become indifferent and so “salt-less salt, good for nothing