WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE

Abraham Lincoln had it right.  We don't want to carry malice for others.  That load is heavy.

Unfortunately some people of good will have been swallowed up in the net of stereotypes as the Confederate flag controversy roars.

How do you prove you don't hate anyone?

All I can say is what I've experienced.  I love the South and her sweet tea and redneck jokes and church potlucks.  I don't look at the Virginia battle flag and pine for slavery, nor does the flag make me prefer one race over another.

At the risk of joining the "easily offended" bandwagon, I can find it a bit offensive to be grouped into that false assumption of racism.

At the same time, I know there are times when the Lord calls His people to cut slack for a brother.  For example, if drinking causes a brother to stumble, we are to pass a drink by...rather than harm a brother's walk.

Because the rebel flag causes black Americans pain, it is a kindness to move it from the state capitol grounds to a museum or consign it for private use.

That was Governor Nicki Haley's appeal as she set the right tone in her classy appeal to the people of South Carolina to retire the flag.

Now the people of South Carolina will make their decision at the ballot box.

But the flag controversy is waving wildly as products with that symbol are being pulled from the market.

In addition, statues of Confederate generals are being defaced and the call is for them to be removed.  The movie "Gone with the Wind" is on the hit list...as well as the "Hukes of Dazzard" (as my Daddy used to call them).

Hooray for the military, who have taken a cooler approach, saying their ten bases named after Confederates won't be renamed.

Doesn't all this cultural cleansing smell like the Afghanistan Taliban blowing up that ancient Buddha on the hillside?  These Confederate statues remind us of how far our country went to remedy slavery.   We need to remember the cost Americans paid to "right the wrong".

Voices clamoring for the removal of the flag believe the Charleston shooter was influenced by it.  Was Mr. Roof the product of a racist South?

His friends were black guys!  In this INTERVIEW, Roof's friend claims that Roof's original target was the College of Charleston.  The power of hate doesn't prefer one color.  

Pictures of the shooter's volatile father show him bare-chested with full tattoos and nipple rings.  The elder Roof beat his second wife, a woman who was a mother to Dylann Roof for ten years.  When his stepmother was gone and his father was on the road four days a week, this feral young man was not given a reason to even finish the ninth grade...much less taught the value of life.

Drugs and booze and video games made things worse and Mr. Roof's crazy life perceptions were born of that misery.  He was apparently seething with powerlessness and resentment (resenting both college kids and a black guy who stole his girl).  But then, who knows how a madman chooses a target?

Mr. Roof was unstable in all his ways.  He USED racism, but racism was not the root cause of his dysfunction.  The flag didn't "make him do it"; the fault lies squarely on Dylann Roof's hateful heart.

Yet the media covers Mr. Roof in a rebel flag, citing Roof's statement that he was beginning a race war.    The reality is...when that young man walked into the AME Church, he walked alone because he was a lone wolf.  Instead of a race war, the LORD chose to use the incident for His glory in the supernatural response of those dear family members.  Their choice to forgive preached more than a hundred sermons.

THE SOUTH DID NOT PRODUCE THE HATRED WHICH CULMINATED IN THE DEATH OF NINE CHARLESTONIANS.  

In fact, Charleston showed the best of the South.  We are known to be the "Bible Belt" and the presence of the Spirit of God produces a marked difference of friendliness and graciousness...and FORGIVENESS.

In the absence of love and parenting, this young man hated.  What gun or flag law can stand against pure hate?  That young man was under the control of the Prince of Darkness who comes to kill.  Roof was able to sit in a circle of loving people and then open fire on them.  As the Restrainer of Evil is pushed aside by society, our future will include more of these fringe people going haywire.

No one talks much about this picture of Dylann Roof showing contempt for another flag.  Pictures like this are painful for those who love their country.

The Confederate flag may have rallied the South in days gone by, but the greater banner which Americans gather underneath is the "Grand Old Flag", representing our national common cause.

Of course, there is a flag representing a higher allegiance than the American flag.   Our ultimate Sovereign is the LORD and Christians delight to read that the LORD's banner over us is love.

Charlestonian Christians demonstrated that love.