It is one thing to teach theology (like Niebuhr, Barth, Tillich, and most theologians) in the safe environs of a classroom and quite another to live one’s theology in a situation that entails the risk of one’s life. (Martin Luther) King agreed fully with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Christian pastor hanged in 1945 by the Nazis for resisting Hitler: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” (The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone)

It is one thing to post something “controversial” or what you believe to be “truth” on social media and think you’re an “activist.” It is another thing altogether to put yourself in a situation that lives out that “activism.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer was living in America and was urged to stay here to keep vocalizing awareness of what Hitler was doing in Germany. Yet, he left the safety he had in “exile” to return to do what he could to live out the theology he taught.

The challenge to myself as I read history is how I respond to moments when something is really on the line. Do I fall back? Do I move forward? Am I more like the Southern “moderate” preacher in King’s day? Or, will I be like Bonhoeffer, leaving the safety of one place to enter the risk of another place?

Black History IS American history.