The System

Heard this on NPR's show All Things Considered and wanted to share.

A black maid executed in Georgia in 1945 is being granted a pardon by the state for killing a white man she said enslaved her. Lena Baker said she acted in self-defense, but a jury of white men convicted her after a one-day trial. Baker is the only woman to have been executed in the state's electric chair. On Aug. 30, Georgia authorities will present a proclamation to her descendants, including her grandnephew Roosevelt Curry, who led the drive to clear her name.

I would recommend going to NPR.org and searching the story to listen to it in its entirety - worth it. It is heartbreaking. And yet I cannot help but think that America's not-to-distant past is filled with Lena Baker's and faces and stories that demand justice.

In a world filled with postmodern thought - this one thing has redeemed our age: The stories of the oppressed and of the poor and helpless are being and will be heard. They will be valued as other history has been valued and we will question until we get answers.

While the church is still wrestling with what to do with this seemingly liberal thought process, the intelligentsia of our cities are grasping the freedom and telling that which could not be told before. And I believe they are making room for the gospel in a world that thinks it has already heard the gospel. We don't need to repackage and dress-up the Truth. We need only the faith to speak it anew and claim the promises of God for ourselves.

A dead woman needs no pardon, but her story needs telling. My shirt is green and Jesus rose from the dead, rather you believe or not.

"God don't make us jump though hoops, he ain't countin' every oops. He loves us, relax"