Debate over Star Spangled Banner is 2000 years in the making

[jv_coach]

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[jv_coach]

Contrary to what many believe today, when it comes to matters of protest the predominant question is never a matter of right and wrong but of truth.

There can be no consideration of what is right or wrong about an issue, be it social, cultural, political, or otherwise, apart from first establishing what is the truth about the matter being argued as right or wrong.

That I said “…what is the truth” versus “…what is true” is not a misstatement.

Understanding the distinction between these two paradigms is crucial to any conversation about issues of social justice, because by definition truth is objective(impartial, unbiased, unprejudiced, nonpartisan) whereas that which can be said to be true is subjective (personal, individual, emotional, instinctive, intuitive).

The intrinsic discordance between subjective and objective truth is why a person like former San Francisco 49ers quarterback 

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 can, on the one hand, be inspired to 

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 police-involved shootings of black men, women, and children by kneeling during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner before a football game, while on the other hand remaining deafeningly silent, at least publicly, about the millions of unborn 

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 each year in the very same nation whose anthem he so despises.

[jv_coach]

The objective truth of the Bible was central to the 

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 of the 1960s.

The Civil Rights Movement was not about the unjust treatment of black people simply because they were black. The issue of race was but one factor in what was a much larger discussion. Ultimately, the Civil Rights Movement was about the unjust treatment of black people who, like their oppressors, were created in the image of God and, as such, deserved to be treated as equals (

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).

It was on the universality of that one precept that the entirety of the Civil Rights Movement rested. The truth of imago Dei – that all mankind bears the image of God – is ultimately what affirmed the Civil Rights Movement as a legitimate and just cause, one that garnered the multi-ethnic support of individuals from around the world.

It is the objective truth of the Word of God, which is applicable to all human beings regardless their ethnicity or nationality, that validated both the 

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 of 1955-56 and the 

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 of 1960 as righteous, and therefore, necessary undertakings relative to the principle of imago Dei.