"He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
“When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, ‘Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.’ So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry." — Exodus 32:4-6
Since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down their decision in Louisiana v. Callais, Alabama Democrats have been acting as if Pharaoh returned to once again rule over God’s chosen people.
Yet, the liberation themes of Exodus seem to be failing them. Perhaps, Alabama Democrats should consider the court’s ruling less a Moses “let my people go” moment and more akin to the circumcised Jewish believers in Jesus in Jerusalem saying in Acts, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance….”
Yet, Alabama Democrats just can’t quit their tired refrain that they, the chosen people, are entitled by past injustices to a certain number of political wins – and that to solve their ills today, they just need a bit more liberation from the other side’s bygone sins.
Perhaps Alabama Democrats should read Exodus again. Though a story of liberation from slavery and oppression, it is also a story of a people set free only to find themselves lost and grumbling in the wilderness – beset on all sides by their own grievance, impatience and idolatry.
No wonder Alabama Democrats’ shouts of “Reconstruction!” “Jim Crow!” “George Wallace!” and “White Supremacy!” now lack potency. They pretend they're still in Egypt – when they’ve been wandering with the Promised Land right under their feet – a brotherhood bound to reenacting their bondage for the sake of solidarity.
That’s the real tragedy – the racial solidarity black Americans, particularly Alabamians, discovered out of political necessity when their ancestors were truly under siege – has today become a golden calf for state and national Democrats.
Too many Democrats truly believe the politics of racial identity are the gods that brought them up out of Egypt instead of the Word of God. They build statues to it. They hold festivals. They eat and drink, dance and sing in revelry to commemorate past sacrifices and political victories. And they are uncharitably swift to say all who disagree with their politics are on the wrong side of history.
Yet politics can never truly set men free, and history is a poor judge of men, as both politics and history are always downstream from each man’s responsibility to obey God’s will and avoid the temptation of sin.
And on this front, political idolatry isn’t unique to Alabama’s Democratic Party – though not all idols are the same.
The Alabama GOP (or any ruling majority, locally or nationally) should also be wary of believing their political victories are the bread that feeds the hungry, waters the thirsty, or cares for the sick, imprisoned, and forgotten. It would be an even more tragic mistake for the majority to attribute their own racial solidarity as the organizing principle, source or strength of their civilization, rather than obedience to God.
That civil authorities have an ordained role to uphold justice and promote the common good is undoubtedly true, yet all of us engaged in the political game must remain vigilant not to confuse our past and present victories with fulfilled responsibilities or assume the worst of our foes when we lose.
If Alabama Democrats (and the rest of us) are to reclaim the liberation themes of Exodus again, it’s best to remember the repentance on offer to all individuals, regardless of race or ancestral sins – that freedom is first won by much more than political representation or electoral wins.
Wherever political authorities succeed in bringing about justice and tranquility, wherever men are set free from oppression and tyranny, wherever prosperity grows and men find themselves in true orderly fraternity, the victory does not belong to any party or race – to anything crafted from the spoils of men. All such glories belong to God who liberates us from our slavery to sin, if only we each repent of our idols, pick up our cross, and follow Him.
Speaking at the 1962 National Baptist Convention during the growing civil rights movement, Rev. Joseph H. Jackson, a rival at the time to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., captured this vision well:
Remember, my friends, that no people have ever been given their independence simply on petition, and no race has come to its deserved heights of equality by resolutions adopted by powerful assemblies, and no people have ever been fully emancipated by the mere writing of new laws or the amendments of old ones. Neither have any struggling people been moved to the unquestioned heights of freedom by the verdicts of courts or the rulings of judges however lofty and far-reaching the verdicts might be. Freed men are not really free until they learn to exercise their new acquired opportunities to gain for themselves economic, intellectual, political, moral, and spiritual independence and self-reliance. For hands freed of manacles, and feet liberated from chains will atrophy and will grow weaker still unless employed immediately and constantly in the pursuit of freedom and in the task of human betterment, moral and spiritual uplift….
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL, M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances, as well as any feedback, please email [email protected]. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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