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Rosa Parks, dead at 92

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by gb93433, Oct 25, 2005.

  1. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=21937

    Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, dead at 92, put faith into action as Baptist la
    By Art Toalstonywoman
    Oct 25, 2005

    DETROIT (BP)--Rosa Parks, a Baptist laywoman who, at the forefront of the civil rights movement, found strength in the 23rd Psalm and other passages of Scripture, died of natural causes Oct. 24 at her home in Detroit.

    Parks, 92, died just a few weeks shy of the 50th anniversary of her Dec. 1, 1955, arrest for refusing to surrender her seat to a white man on a segregated bus –- an event that sparked the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott and the rise to national prominence of her pastor: Martin Luther King Jr., then of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Alabama’s capital city.

    Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, a member of First Baptist Church in Ashland, said the state “joins the nation in mourning as we mark the passing of a remarkable life.” Riley ordered the flags at the state capitol flown at half-staff in Parks’ honor until sunset on the day of her funeral.

    “Rosa Parks will always be remembered as a courageous woman who quietly confronted injustice, and in so doing, she changed a nation,” Riley said.

    One of her favorite Bible passages was the 23rd Psalm.

    “During my school days, the 23rd Psalm was part of our devotions, when we had devotions in school,” Parks, a former seamstress, commented in the mid-1990s. “And at church it was one of the favorite psalms that we enjoyed reading and thinking about.

    “During the time of our boycott, we did much praying and we had mass meetings at the various churches, where people would come in and testify and relate their experiences,” she continued. “It was very helpful that we had the churches and could gather strength from one another and encourage each other to continue the struggle throughout that long year of boycotting the buses.

    “I look back on those days and remember the Spirit within us and our faith and hope that things would be better, and I still have that faith,” Parks said. “When we face any obstacle, any discouragement, that faith is a strong attribute to have.”

    Gary Frost, executive director of the Metropolitan New York Baptist Association and a former second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said, “Through the years, I’ve admired the gentle strength and the humble resolve of Sister Parks.

    “She is much more than a symbol of nonviolent protest. She is the epitome of a peacemaker,” said Frost, who played a pivotal role in the Southern Baptist Convention’s adoption of a racial reconciliation resolution in 1995.

    Robert Anderson, immediate past president of the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention, said of Parks’ 1955 arrest, “It was the bus ride that ended up changing history.... From that small act of defiance came a big act of deliverance, which would lead to the Supreme Court case in which they ruled segregation in public transportation to be illegal and unconstitutional.

    “That began to affect other things,” said Anderson, pastor of the Baltimore-area Colonial Baptist Church in Randallstown and a member of the SBC Executive Committee. “If it’s wrong there, on the bus, then it’s wrong in schools, it’s wrong in restaurants, it’s wrong in other places.”

    Parks’ stance “not only helped blacks throughout the country but also helped everybody,” Anderson said. “If one person is not receiving justice and is not treated fairly, and it’s supported by the law, then that destroys all levels of justice.”

    Anderson said he hopes “that the attention given to Sister Rosa Parks in honor of what she has done and how God has used her in the civil rights efforts in the United States of America might be one of those signposts to remind us that racial reconciliation is still an important function. We’re not quite there yet in all of our racial acceptance of one another and working together and ministering together -- and being on mission together. Maybe this occasion might prompt us again to say, What more can we do to further racial reconciliation in the body of Christ? Particularly even among Southern Baptists.”

    Sid Smith, retired director of the Florida Baptist Convention's African American ministries division who held numerous posts in Southern Baptist life during a 40-year career, said Parks was “a giant for civil rights who appeared on the scene at exactly the right time. Her courageous defiance of Jim Crow tradition on a segregated Montgomery, Ala., bus in 1955 sparked the most successful movement for human rights in American history and launched the unparalleled career of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

    “Although she and her family were subsequently driven out of Montgomery by harassment, difficulty in finding work and death threats, she maintained her commitment to equality for the rest of her life in her new home in Detroit,” Smith recounted. “History rewarded her with the title: Mother of The Civil Rights Movement.

    “Once vilified for civil disobedience, she was later recognized as the recipient of the nation's highest awards: the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999. This gentle seamstress stood on principle for right and proved that sometimes one person can make a difference even if they have to stand up by sitting down.”

    Jay Wolf, pastor of First Baptist Church in Montgomery who has been involved in an interracial pastors’ group for seven years, said Parks was “motivated by her faith in Jesus Christ. She destroyed barriers and built bridges of reconciliation. Her Christian model is worthy of our emulation.”

    Toward that end, Wolf and other pastors in the “John 17” interracial group, reflecting Jesus’ prayer for unity in the Gospel of John’s 17th chapter, have organized “The ONE Movement,” to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the bus boycott.

    The campaign already has distributed more than 10,000 black and white bracelets signifying a commitment to racial reconciliation and it will distribute throughout the city 10,000 4-foot by 2-foot crosses with a black hand and a white hand joined together in the center of the cross.

    Also among the campaign’s initiatives during the coming year marking the bus boycott’s 50th anniversary: black and white churches sharing meals together to build relationships. First Baptist, a church that closed its doors to blacks in the 1960s, already has shared Wednesday evening meals with three local black congregations. Now, instead of the doors being locked, Wolf said, “the hinges have been blown off.”

    “Our prayer has been that in the same way Rosa Parks translated her moment into the civil rights movement, we are praying that our moment will become God’s movement,” Wolf said. “Our goal is racial reconciliation, because reconciliation ushers in revival,” the pastor said, citing Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17 “so the world may believe.”

    Also responding to Baptist Press’ requests for comment on Rosa Parks’ life were:

    -- Rick Lance, state missionary/executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, who described Parks as “a towering figure during the Civil Rights period of American history. She represents the sacrifice of seemingly ordinary people who did extraordinary deeds in the name of justice and liberty. Her simple act of courage became the spark which lit the fire of the Civil Rights movement. Behind the iconic leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. stands the enormous contribution and influence of Rosa Parks. She never sought fame or recognition; nonetheless, her name is synonymous with all which is good in the quest for freedom and individual rights. People in Alabama and in the U.S., as well as individuals all around the world, join her family in mourning her passing.”

    -- Bob Terry, editor of The Alabama Baptist newsjournal, who noted, “In the providence of God, He used an unassuming woman named Rosa Parks as the catalyst to force Alabamians and all the people of the South to face the negative side of our culture. It was her courage that caused the whole nation to reexamine and renew its commitment to the belief that all people are created equal. She became the symbol of strength and dignity standing against the evils of discrimination, privilege and entitlement. Her faith in God and the message of churches in the black community reminded us that God created all people in His image. Her life caused Christians to face the gap between confession and practice. Her experience changed culture and society in Alabama. We are better because of her.”

    -- Mark Croston, current president of the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of East End Baptist Church in Suffolk, Va., who said, “God used Rosa Parks as a catalyst for justice. By sitting in silence, she fulfilled the Christian role of being the salt of the earth, and we are all indebted to her for her life and work.”

    -- Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission who was instrumental in the SBC’s 1995 racial reconciliation resolution, who said, “Rosa Parks was a great woman who was committed to uncovering wrong and doing right. She said her act of civil disobedience was simply a result of being tired of the unfair treatment of black Americans. Rosa Parks stated it was her faith in God that gave her the strength and courage to persevere in a culture that denied basic human rights to African Americans. Throughout her life, she demonstrated a quiet and dignified strength in standing for justice and equal rights for all Americans.

    “She will be forever remembered as a pioneer in the struggle for civil rights. Her efforts, combined with those of many other Americans, black and white, led to full citizenship for millions of African Americans and began a needed transformation of our nation.... Mrs. Parks’ resistance to the unfair treatment of black Americans did not begin in 1955; she was put off a city bus in 1943 because she boarded that bus through the front door, not the back door where blacks were supposed to enter the vehicle. I am grateful for her indomitable spirit in the struggle for freedom and justice and for her unflagging dedication in calling our nation to close out the ugly era of racial segregation and to heed the biblical truth expressly stated in our nation’s Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. All Americans owe Mrs. Parks and other civil rights pioneers a great debt for their courage, standing against the evils of segregation and making it possible for us to live in a society committed to racial reconciliation and justice.”

    The bus in which Parks took her stance has been restored and is on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.
     
  2. av1611jim

    av1611jim New Member

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    Yep.

    I can just see my Jesus making a ruckus like that.


    :rolleyes:

    Christians have NO rights. We are SERVANTS of Another.

    Nice thing that this lady liked Ps 23. Too bad she missed Romans 13 and Titus 3 and 1 Timothy 6 And 2 Timothy 2.

    Tell the truth.

    She was a rebel, as was her pastor. You won't find any Biblical justification for her actions nor his. And you won't find anything in the Book of Acts which shows the early church did anything like what she did. Yet, in the first few centuries of church history what you find instead is submission to evil even unto death for the testimony of Christ.

    THIS lady (Parks) was a rebel.
     
  3. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    Read the book of Acts and Daniel sometime. They were told to obey the world and refused. Remember who was told not to preach and not to pray? Who did the world crucify? Not Mr. Milquetoast and easy believeism. There is a huge diference between submission to the authorities and obedience to the world.

    Jesus turned over the tax gatherers tables. Christianity is radical not conservative.

    I am a servant of the most high God not the world. I may serve people but not their god.

    Would you support Casinos and all that comes with it today? Many Christians work at them to.
     
  4. tinytim

    tinytim <img src =/tim2.jpg>

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    She was a hero!!
    And yes, Jesus did make a "ruckus"
    He stood up against injustice in the temple!

    He also made a "ruckus" the day he died!
    Hell trembled!

    How can anyone not look at Rosa Parks and not see a hero? Unless you are against what she stood for.
     
  5. Rachel

    Rachel New Member

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    I agree with that.
    She was peaceful and took a stand for what's right. If some race is treated like sub-humans then something should be done about it. If I lived back then, I would hope I would have done the same thing.
     
  6. TexasSky

    TexasSky Guest

    Ms. Parks said that she refused to give up her seat beacause in 1943 the same bus driver forbade her from voting.

    She was not standing up for a seat on a bus, she was standing up for the right to the rights the law had given her, and the unalienable rights God gave her.
     
  7. Filmproducer

    Filmproducer Guest

    :confused: Are you serious?

    Mrs. Parks was a hero. I wonder if you would be of the same opinion if the government was treating Christians as third class citizens. How would giving up your seat to a white man, when you are black woman, improve your testimony for Christ? Seems a little illogical to me....
     
  8. TexasSky

    TexasSky Guest

    av1611Jim probably thinks Moses was wrong too.

    After all - he killed a slave master for disciplining a slave.
     
  9. TexasSky

    TexasSky Guest

    And just what was wrong with Martin Luther King Jr.'s movement? He wasn't fighting slavery or being a disobedient slave. He was PEACEFULLY protesting the inhumane treatment of citizens in parts of this country where the law said that people of all color were free.

    Surely you aren't suggesting that Christ would have objected to a man laying his life down so that others might be treated fairly?

    Was Corrie Ten Boom "unbiblical" for hiding Jews during the march of Hitler? Are missionaries all over the world being "unbiblical" for secretly holding prayer meetings and secretly smuggling bibles into countries where they are out lawed?
     
  10. DeeJay

    DeeJay New Member

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    Yes she was, and she was a hero also. She rebeled against the teachings of this world that said she was below another person just because of the color of her skin. She rebeled against injustice and stood for what what right and true, no matter what the consiquences be.

    Maybe she learned this from our Lord Jesus who was also a rebel. He rebeled against the religious teaching of his day because he knew it was not right or just. It seems to me that Jesus and his diciples rebeled and picked grain on the Sabbath. Did Jesus rebel and heal the sick on the Sabbath.

    AV1611 are you saying that she should have conformed to the world and accepted its worldly teaching even thought it is wrong and injust. Should we all just conform ourselvs to the world and avoid being the rebbel? Maybe we should just go along with the common teachings. For example should we support abortion? After all the world teaches it is alright to kill unwanted babies and we dont want to be rebbels, right.

    Or (and I am afraid to even ask this) are you saying that the practice she was rebeling against was NOT wrong or injust. I hope you do not think this.

    We need more people in this world just like her to boldly stand up for what is right and just. We need a Rosa to stand up for the unborn. [​IMG]
     
  11. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    She didn't make a ruckus - she simply refused to move. She chose to obey God rather than man. God is no respecter of persons and that law was unbiblical. She willingly, peacefully, accepted the consequences of her actions.

    I am a FIRM believer in civil obedience and Romans 13. The state had every right to punish her, just as the Babylonians had a right to punish Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah for refusing to obey. They also peacefully suffered the consequences.

    Whether did so out of religious conviction or not, she chose to disobey an unbiblical law, knowing she would suffer the consequences. How can that be wrong?

    You mention that the early church obeyed civil magistrates. Does that mean that when ordered to renounced their faith you think they obeyed?

    We must obey the law as long as we can do so and not violate the Word of God. For her to move would have been to acknowledge that she was a lesser person, a clearly unbibiblical idea.

    Kudos to Rosa Parks, an American hero.
     
  12. Scarlett O.

    Scarlett O. Moderator
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    I say, "More power to her! (Unfortunately she's dead now.) And may her number increase!!"

    The "laws" that forced black people to sit in the back of the bus and forced them to give up their seats to white people and other ridiculous laws, such as "Jim Crow" laws were stupid laws.

    Do we blindly obey every single law that our government hands down simple because it's a "law" and the Bible says to respect authority?

    I think not.

    One hundred years ago in some cities, female teachers could not be married. If they did marry, they had to stop teaching boys and girls. How stupid is that?

    During my grandmother's childhood, women could not vote! How stupid is that?

    During the colonial days, only men with property could vote. How stupid is that?

    Today, husbands/wives or boyfriends/girlfriends can make their lives a whole lot easier and just kill their unborn babies in the same flippant manner that you would step on a cockroach!!!

    How STUPID is that?

    I applaud people like Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, Patrick Henry, and many other Americans who defy ignorant and immoral laws.

    When Patrick Henry defied the British Crown by defying the Stamp Act and the Sugar Act, he was threatened with treason. TREASON!!!

    You know what he said? He said, "If this be treason, then make the most of it!"

    Our founding fathers, such as Patrick Henry, and our founding mothers, such as Mercy Otis Warren, were rebellious law-breakers extraordinaire.

    There comes a time when ineffective laws and immoral laws should be defied.

    Rosa Parks did it.

    May her number increase.

    Peace-
    Scarlett O.
    &lt;&gt;&lt;
     
  13. DeeJay

    DeeJay New Member

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    That is another good question for AV1611 do you suport the decision of the founding fathers of this country to rebel against England. What a ruckus they made. I guess they should have submited to England and the laws of the time.
     
  14. Craigbythesea

    Craigbythesea Active Member

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    C4K wrote,

    And all this time I thought that you preached from the KJV! I have read through the KJV many times and nowhere in that translation does it say,

    “Rosa Parks, refuse to obey the law. Stay in your seat and refuse to surrender it to a white man in spite of the law.”

    Indeed, my copy of the KJV it says,

    Rom 13:1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
    Rom 13:2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
    Rom 13:3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
    Rom 13:4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
    Rom 13:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
    Rom 13:6 For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.
    Rom 13:7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.

    Rosa Parks defied not only the authority of the state; she defied the authority of God. She should have politely gotten up and surrendered her seat, but she did not. The consequence was violence and death.

    People who defy the authority of the “higher powers” are not heroes; they are sinners!

    [​IMG]
     
  15. DeeJay

    DeeJay New Member

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    I cant beleve this.

    Does this just apply to Rosa, Craig? Will you say the same about the founding fathers of this country? Should they have just politely obeyed the English king and avoided all the bloodshead of the revelutionary war.

    At what point do we disobey authority if any. If the goverment passes tolerance laws like the UK and they forbid untollerant speach. Speach like preaching only your God saves and homosexuality is wrong and abortion is murder and Jesus is the only way. Will you stop preaching so as to not defy authority.
     
  16. Craigbythesea

    Craigbythesea Active Member

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    DeeJay wrote,

    This thread is not about the American Revolution—it is about the behavior of one woman 50 years ago in a specific instance.

    [​IMG]
     
  17. DeeJay

    DeeJay New Member

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    Nice duck and weave.

    The leason that I am getting from your and AVs post is that we should submit to the laws of this world no matter how unjust. We should not cause a rukess.

    I am trying to see what situations this applies to. And if you are consistant in applying this advise. I am also looking for other motives. For example if you think it is ok for the founders of this country to cause a ruckess and rebell against the laws of the English King but you think Rosa should have moved to the back of the bus, then I have to consider other motives that make Rosa different then the founders of this country.
     
  18. Ben W

    Ben W Active Member
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    Christians prior to Constantine were made to buy a certificate to say that they had worshipped idols, that was the law.

    Naturally they refused, and eventually Christianity overcame.
     
  19. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    And I also suppose that Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, and Daniel should have obeyed the Babylonian laws which they chose to break.
     
  20. DeeJay

    DeeJay New Member

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    I guess by your posts, the midwives should have done as told by the king of Egypt (athority) and killed all the male children.

    What I can not figure our is why God was happy with the midwives. After all they are to submit to athority, right.
     
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