A Prayer for My Brother Boomers

1976 - A rainy day but a bright future

Born in a world of promise. A bright future was ours.

Our father's fought and died to crush the head of the serpents of tyranny and ethnic cleansing.

God was held in high esteem by our “fellow Americans” because He had delivered our band of brothers from the valley of the shadow of death.  One nation “under God” with liberty and justice for all was added to the pledge of loyalty to our flag which proudly flew over the conquered cities of Berlin and Tokyo.  The “rule of law” had triumphed over the rule of “fascists in Europe” and “emperor gods in Asia.” We stood together as we sang, “We are the home of brave and the land of the free.”

In society the power of the Spirit of God unleashed a great civil rights movement lead by a King who had the voice of a Prophet and the non-violence of a Priest. He inspired our nation with a dream of a new day when the rights of former slaves denied by injustice of their birth-right declared on July 4, 1776 on the day of our nation’s independence, “All men and women are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

We the people, a nation of immigrants hoped that we would live in peace as brothers and sisters regardless of our station in life, our age, our religion, the color of our skin, our ethnic background, or our language. As citizens we hoped equality would become a reality. But with gunshots in Dallas on November 22, 1963 and Memphis on April 4, 1968 the dreams of our nation were dashed.

As Christians, we witnessed a new season of revival and individual salvation. Giant gatherings born of the Spirit of God with a vision from Mount Herman. A humble man named Billy from North Carolina was the leader. We also witnessed a season of renewal on the great universities of America where Christ-centered radicals recaptured the intellectual high-ground with the banner of the cross and a message of “revolution.” I witnessed a gathering in Dallas, Texas in 1972 on the cover of Life Magazine. The Word of God was a “Blueprint for Revolution,” and the gospel of salvation was proclaimed without apology. I responded to the challenge by Bill Bright to “Come Help Change the World” at the Atlanta Solution Bowl in December of 1976 as a junior in college. I returned to launch a movement of spiritual multiplication among students at Augusta College with my new found friend Angela Givens.

I soon realized that my home church under the teaching of John Oliver and my conversations with missionaries and the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ, I was a part of the larger global movement of "Evangelicals." The “Evangelical” movement was born in 1942 at a conference in St Louis seeking a thoughtful middle way. The movement grew in the rise tide of revival in America to unite Christians of different institutions in order to fulfill the Great Commission.  A great gathering of 150 nations was convened in Lausanne Switzerland in 1974. A covenant was written to inspire cooperation among evangelicals around the world and a committee was formed in 1976 to give guidance to this movement.

As followers of Jesus we hoped to stand together against the powers and authorities that were held captive to the ancient Angels of Death and we hoped the love of our neighbors would change the world. From the Lausanne Covenant, "We affirm that God is both the Creator and the Judge of all men. We therefore should share his concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of men and women from every kind of oppression. Because men and women are made in the image of God, every person, regardless of race, religion, color, culture, class, sex or age, has an intrinsic dignity because of which he or she should be respected and served, not exploited."