Christians, Love your Neighbor as yourselves

Black Babies Abortion Is the Real Genocide

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Gospel reading today, first Sunday after Pentecost, is from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 28:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them (in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

This is What is called the Great Commission, not a the “Great Recommendation!”

Jesus commanded us to go make disciples of all nations, the Hispanic, the Somalis, the Arabs, the Greek. Yes, Jesus meant all nations, not only the Europeans!!

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  Rom. 5

Jesus died for all, not only for Christians…for all. Sometimes we are isolated in our own cocoons to the extent that we may imagine or think that Jesus was Norwegian, not a Jew in Palestine…many of us choose to be selective about interpreting the Great Commission, and we tend to reach out to people who only look like us.

If we go to the Book of Acts chapter 2, we will find out that there were almost 15 races of people mentioned on the day of Pentecost, when the first church was founded… some of them were from Cyrene (Libya and Tunisia today)…actually Simon of Cyrene carried Jesus cross on His way to Calvary.

On the day of Pentecost, some were Arabs…others were Medes…Medes were the Persians… Persia then included Iran and Iraq.

Many of the Church fathers were from North Africa and the Middle East. For example, St. Augustine was from Carthage, today’s Tunisia. Athanasius was an Egyptian from Alexandria.

We have to confess that racism is very complicated. Usually, if any community, irrespective of color or creed, if it is affluent, it will not be the target of discrimination. Imagine that, in the 14^th century, there was an Arab historian called Ibn Khaldun who called North European barbaric, because they were then backward, compared to other communities in the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin.

The death of George Floyd was tragic, but away from hypocrisy, we have worse things going on in America that take place daily, but go unnoticed by most. More than eight hundred black babies are aborted daily, nation-wide. Since the 1970s, more than 20 million black babies have been aborted. This is a genocide. Last weekend, seventeen black people were killed in Chicago in gang violence.

While rioters break into stores and loot them, the world is watching and many people overseas are schadenfreuding, and hoping that America would collapse.

But those communities that gloat over the U.S. civil tension are like the pot calling the kettle black.

According to a United Nations report, Saudi Arabia has the worst discrimination record against blacks. Saudis who descended from slaves are still treated like slaves. In a patriarchal community that does not encourage marriage to black women, because their progeny will be treated like slaves, black women live off scavenging on garbage or become prostitutes in order to survive. Mauritania, another Islamic country, is still a place where some people are born slaves, because their grandparents were slaves. Civil-war Libya has revived slave markets, where African immigrants who are trying to reach Europe are captured and sold as slaves.

America is the only country where an immigrant could be naturalized in five years and become a citizen with equal rights.

Former President Barrack Obama once said that if you do not like the system vote. Ferguson, MO, now has a black mayor.

As Americans, we need to strive daily for social justice and freedom. Democracy is an experiment that need continuous reform.

We need to pray for our law enforcement, not defund them. We should pray for our leaders and know that they need our support as well as constructive criticism. Anarchy is like quicksand that could engulf a whole country and turn it into a banana republic that would reach the point of no return. That’s what I experienced in civil-war Lebanon myself.

On the other hand, the Church has not done very well in the past two millennia, and not long ago, churches were segregated. But. we have come a long way, and we should keep teaching the Gospel that sees every human being as created after God’s image. We should do more in order to love our neighbor as ourselves.

When Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” He was saying that the most precious gift of God’s Grace is for all. Jesus died for all, and we see people through the lens of Jesus Christ. Amen

Rev. Hesham Shehab

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Hesham Shehab

Educator, Journalist, Columnist, Islamic Expert, Muslim Expert, Human Rights Activist, Pastor at Salam Christian Fellowship | Website

Adjunct Faculty at College of DuPage, Formerly Adjunct Faculty at American University of Beirut and Pastor at Peace Lutheran Church Lombard, IL Name pronounciation: HI-shahm SHI-hab  Hebrews 12: 4 & Philippians 1: 29