By: Vincent L. Hall
“Vengeance belongs to Me; I will repay.In time, their foot will slip, for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly.”
Growing up in the 1960s in the parsonage of a preacher who didn’t play with sin or sinners, there were a lot of rules to abide by.
I’m talking about back in the day when Holiness among the “set apart” was more than a notion.
In Pastor Z. R. Figures’s home and within his purview, a multitude of sins could get you challenged, chewed out, or chastened!
Jesus was “real,” but so was the devil, and my grandfather gave them equal time.
There were a lot of things you could not do. No cards, no dominoes, no betting. No one could call anyone a liar, a fool, or the N-word. And if you wanted to get your plump derriere tanned, say that you hated anyone.
My grandfather, Reverend Figures, would never even allow you to say you hated the devil. That’s why you will never hear me say I hate Donald Trump.
He may be the latest iteration of Satan, but Christians must avoid the temptation of hating him.
Martin King Jr.’s father, Martin Sr., talked with a reporter just 14 months after the 1968 assassination at the Lorraine Motel. When asked about his commitment to traveling the nation preaching on brotherhood, he rejected the notion of hating anyone.
As “Daddy King” sat in a New York studio with Bill Turpie on a show called Turning Point, the elder King said that after being unjustly arrested as a boy by a White cop, he had sound reason and could have hated all Whites for the balance of his life.
However, his mother dismissed his anger and convinced him that hate is wrong. He accepted her words and lived in their truth for all of his life. The murder of his son was the ultimate test.
“When I was a boy, I saw so many mistreatments to Blacks. But you don’t get rid of what someone does to you by hating them; you don’t get no benefit out of it; you get the worst of it.”
The reporter made it personal and put Reverend King’s remarks to the test, but his retort was as swift as it were sure. He never batted an eye and did not mince words.
“I don’t bear ill will in my heart against any man. I don’t hate anybody. It’s easy for me because I know this is not the end!”
What Pastor King did was to exegete a passage of scripture that far too many Black folks, liberals, and fatalists look over when it comes to Donald Trump and the evil he is perpetrating in America and around the globe.
Deuteronomy 32:35 makes God’s word as plain as day and vets Reverend King’s humility. “Vengeance belongs to Me; I will repay.
If the Reverend Martin King senior or junior were alive today, they would argue against the outright hatred being poured on Donald Trump. Each of them made the “ultimate sacrifice” for this nation. God watched and endured the lynching of his son, and so did Daddy King.
I know that hating Donald Trump is the trendiest thing to do, but some of us are getting sick because of it.
If Love is the Christian mandate, we have no reason to Hate. Daddy King said it best; “It’s not the end!
A long-time Texas Metro News columnist, Dallas native Vincent L. Hall is an author, writer, award winning writer, and a lifelong Drapetomaniac.
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