I was 9 years old when I read The Greatest: My Own Story. Everyone in my 5th grade class had to present on a famous African American, and I was assigned Muhammad Ali. At 9 I was extremely uncomfortable with this. Growing up in the 1980's; I knew Muhammad Ali more for his religious conversion than I did for his unparalleled hand speed, his granite chin, or his dogged determination. I began reading and found myself engrossed in his story. I read about his training, his work ethic, his love for his family, his disappointments in his failed marriages, and all things that made him tick. I began to respect Ali, not as a loud-mouth athlete with immeasurable gifts inside the ring, but a man who influenced people to his benefit. It wasn't an accident that he was polarizing. If you didn't like Ali, he made sure that you disliked him enough to pay to watch him get whooped. My admiration for Ali the man grew to the point where I hung this painting in my office 3 years ago.
Most people know that before changing his name to Muhammad Ali he was Cassius Clay. What not many people know is that Cassius and his brother Rudolph Clay were raised Baptist. Their mother, Odessa Clay, was a woman of faith who ushered her two boys to church every Sunday. Christianity was a major part of Cassius' upbringing, but a faith he chose to depart from. In speaking on his conversion, Muhammad said that he looked around and saw portraits of a white Jesus, white angels, white biblical heroes and wondered what happened to black Christians when they died. Ultimately he felt his race was unaccepted in the Christian Church and converted to Islam. Cassius' upbringing and conversion are similar to Malcolm Little; better known as Malcolm X.
Before he became a world known orator known as Malcolm X, Malcolm Little was the fourth of seven children born to Louise and Baptist Minister Earl Little. Like Cassius, Malcolm was being raised Baptist, and the Baptist faith was a big part of his early life. At the age of six Malcolm's father was killed by a streetcar. The accident was deemed a streetcar accident by police and a suicide by the insurance company that covered him, but it is widely believed that there was foul play. Malcolm's childhood didn't get any easier as he mother was committed after a nervous breakdown and Malcolm became a foster child. Eventually Malcolm embarked upon a life of crime which led him to jail and ultimately a conversion to a faith he found more accepting of his race than Christianity.
Both Malcolm and Cassius began as Christians, but converted to the Nation of Islam because Christians (not Christianity) permeated the belief that they were inferior Christians and inferior people because of the color of their skin. These were individuals with God given gifts that were, for lack of a better word, in house that saw fit to convert to another religion because of the attitudes of the time.
Ultimately Malcolm and Cassius will have to stand before God and answer for their conversion. I bring this up however because in this election season I've continuously heard the prayer, "Help America get back to the Christian principles it was founded on." The sentiments expressed in these attempts to "harken back" are not innately pure and not shared by everyone. The things that made America great to some made it a prison to others. The freedoms and opportunities enjoyed by some were the result of freedom and opportunities denied to others. America as we know it began with the near extermination of natives who showed kindness and grew from prosperity attributed to individuals who embraced greed and called it God. Ecclesiastes warns us about looking back so fondly on the past because it is not a wise inquiry. The trip down memory lane with America is not pleasurable for all. There are many evils done by people claiming to be "God fearing Christian men."
It's not our God given duty to resurrect the past or prevent the future. We were born when we were born because God has a purpose for us in the time he placed us in. There are lessons to be learned from the past. There are new challenges to be met in the present; one of which is not alienating and disenfranchising those in the body.
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