Pastor James MacDonald
Pastors nationwide continued to dialogue and voice strong opinions about the issues surrounding the St. Louis grand jury decision, announced Monday evening, not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, as well as the subsequent demonstrations.
“None of us really knows exactly what happened in the Ferguson shooting. Sadder is that even many Christ followers don’t seem to want to know,” posted Pastor James MacDonald, founding and senior pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel based in the Chicago area, on Instagram. “What we appear to prefer is lining up without nuanced analysis entirely on one side or the other.”
MacDonald gave examples of the views people line up with. “‘All police are driven by racial prejudice and out to get racial minorities’ – oh please! Or ‘all police actions are justifiable and there is no abuse of authority or pent up feelings of righteous anger in our urban centers’ – oh please!”
“If Michael Brown was justifiably shot – do we deny that many die unjustly in these environments just because this is not a good example of police brutality? If Michael Brown was not justifiably shot, do we deny that many officers rightly fear for their lives at thankless jobs in no win environments and have to make life or death decisions in a fraction of a second?
MacDonald continued, “Can you let your heart be moved with compassion and seek to be moved for the impossible predicaments of real people on both sides of this? Come on Christians – the essence of Christ’s compassion is hearing what the person in pain is saying and feeling and walking a few feet in their shoes. We are called to compassion for everyone [on] all sides of this escalation not taking a single simplistic viewpoint and thereby ‘crossing by on the other side of the road.'”
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SOURCE: The Christian Post
Alex Murashko
