Reflections of Faith and Justice - a Devotional by Benjamin Maysනියැදිය

Centuries ago a sensitive religious soul looked out upon the universe and the world. He looked at the sun, the moon, and the stars, and they puzzled him. He admired the sky and the land, the sea, and the mountain, and these, too, made him wonder. The beast of the field and the forest, the fowl of the air and the earth, the serpent of the land and the water, he both admired and feared. Man was a mystery to him, and woman a creature to be wondered at. In an attempt to explain these marvelous things, he was inspired to say: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

We shall not argue here over the interpretation of the creation story. We shall not split hairs over its historical accuracy. But I believe that in the sweep of the centuries, no better answer has been given to tell us how the universe and man came to be than the simple expression, “In the beginning God.” When we accept all that science has to offer, the riddle of the universe is still unsolved. The universe, the world, and man are mysteries; and the wisest of the wise, including the scientist, reaches a point in his research where, if he is honest, he must say, “I do not wholly understand.”

The author of Genesis is saying that in the beginning, God created the earth. Not man, not blind mechanistic forces, not chance, not natural law, but God created the earth with a purpose for the universe and for man. The Christian church has always declared that the universe and man came from God. It has never accepted the position that man’s existence on earth is just an accident nor that the universe is the result of blind chance. It has never taken the position that man is on the earth all dressed up with no place to go. It has always asserted that man’s origin is in God and that his eternal destiny is in God.

One may argue as to the “how” and the “why,” the “when” and the “where.” One may even debate the nature of God, but the Christian faith as found in the Bible and in church creeds reveals no doubt that beyond the universe is God. It has never accepted the view that Nature is able to explain the “nature” of all existence. . .

The Christian affirms further that man is dependent upon God for the kind of world that he can build. Christianity declares that the universe is essentially ethical and essentially moral. Just as there are scientific and physical laws by which the universe is governed and by which man must abide, there are ethical and moral laws by which man must regulate his life. For example, every high school student is familiar with the simple chemical formula H2O. He knows that this proportion of hydrogen and oxygen will yield the same result the world over. The chemist discovered the formula, but he did not create the fact that the combination of the proper parts gives us water. Likewise, true friendship between one boy and another produces a happy relationship. Hatred between the two boys leads to estrangement and unhappiness. The fact that love binds two people together and hatred tears them apart is a discovery one may make but not a fact one can create or establish.

Man cannot build the world as he pleases. Many have tried it—the Pharaohs, Cyrus the Great, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, the Caesars, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, Hitler, Mussolini, and many others—but to no avail. God and not man has created the laws that will bring peace among nations. God and not man has created the ethical laws that will guarantee the continued existence of an economic system. Such laws were not created by the exponents of communism, capitalism, nor socialism. God and not man has created the kind of justice that will enable one race to live in harmony with another race. This is not the kind of justice or law that the strong and mighty usually impose upon the weak. It is God’s justice. Man’s task is to discover God’s laws and base his choices and actions upon them.

Contrary to popular opinion, the future of the world is not necessarily in the hands of the nation possessing the largest number of billions in dollars, the nation with the most economic resources, nor even the nation with the most powerful air force and the largest stockpile of thermonuclear weapons. The Christian faith affirms that righteousness and not armaments, justice and not economic power ultimately sustain a nation and that the spiritual laws that make this so are just as real and just as unchangeable as are the laws of science. History proves definitely that a nation can become so corrupt, an economic order so unjust, a race so brutal that all the billions all the bombs, and all the navies and planes cannot save that nation, economic order, or race. There are forces at work in the universe that are beyond the control of man. . . No belief in God is adequate unless it is a belief in a universal God, who is a God of justice, mercy, and love. He cannot be a racial nor a national god. He cannot be a class god. He must be God for all peoples. The God whom Christians worship is that kind of God—a universal God, a God of every nation, race, and clan. When we lose sight of this fact, only a god of a particular nation, culture, or race is left.

- Excerpt from “Seeking to be Christian in Race Relations” by Benjamin E. Mays, Chapter 1