Tag Archives: Christ

Strange, sometimes is the way history turns. And it turns like we humans make it turn most of the time. Too many times, we learn bitter lessons from history. There is one case on record that it might do well for us to recall.

In 1952, a probation officer in the Bronx of New York tried to find an adoption agency for a 12-year-old boy. The man who was hunting the home for the youngster was named John Carro. He searched for an agency to take the boy, but he faced a problem. The boy was Lutheran. New York law said that Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish agencies could not take the boy. Mr. Carro faced a losing fight in trying to find a place for the young lad. He told the story later.

“When I was a probation officer in the Bronx in 1952, I tried unsuccessfully for a year to find an adoption agency for a 12-year-old Lutheran boy whose mother was ineffectual and whose father was dead,” Carro said. “His case was reported to me because he had been truant,” he continued. “All he wanted to do was to stay home and watch television instead of going to school. Because of the religious matching problem, I couldn’t get him into a Jewish Institution, I couldn’t get him into a Catholic Institution, and I couldn’t get him into a Protestant Institution. Before I could do anything for him, the mother had taken him out of state.”

You know, we humans have a way of making some pretty silly laws when you boil it all down. And most of the laws like this one can be pinned down to someone’s narrow prejudice. Our Hatred often goes far beyond ourselves in effecting the lives of others around us. Sometimes our hatred drastically affects people we never see or never know.

Our world would be a much better place to live if we could rid it of our prejudice and hatred. Wars would cease, riots would end, and peace could abound. We would like all of those things to happen but we sometimes want to hang on to our narrow little hatred also. We want to have our cake and eat it, too, and any first grader knows this can never be.

There was a Man once who lived in an obscure little village that we know as Nazareth Who tried to get us to rid ourselves of prejudice and hatred. He tried to get us to do that. It has been over 2000 years since he ended up on a cross in His efforts to end hate and prejudice and replace them with love and brotherhood.

If we put his way into practice, we could have found a home for that 12-year-old. And finding that boy a home might have changed history. You see, that boy’s name was Lee Harvey Oswald.

All of the text above was taken from a book entitled Thoughts Worth Thinking ©1968 by Donald E. Wildmon

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As a follower of Christ, I can’t help but be convicted by these words. How many times are we all guilty of letting a little prejudice or hatred get in the way of doing what Christ commands us to do, especially loving one another. What a different world it could be and would be if everyone would just “get” that – myself included.

John 15:17 – “These things I command you, that you love one another.”