It’s Time to Take Your Stand in the Radical Gap

Powerful influences tell us to choose a side. Will you be on the left or the right? Blue or red? While that’s not a new idea, recently, it has taken on a whole new intensity. The sides have become dominated by “the radical left” and “the radical right.” The national dialog has become so polarized that the two positions seem to pull everything toward themselves like opposing black holes.

A recent graph featured in the documentary The Social Dilemma visualizes this reality. What is unique about this period of time is that the people occupying the space between political positions have rapidly disappeared, while the spectrum’s extremes have grown dramatically.

Pew Research Center (source)

This diagram is evidence of the strong forces at work vying for control over our opinions and actions. I’m reminded of Joshua as he approached Jericho. An angel with a drawn sword blocked his path, and Joshua asked him, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” The angel’s answer startled him, and it should get our attention too. “Neither,” the angel said. In other words, “I’m not on anybody’s side. Get behind me.”

Consider that a position might be called radical, but the extremes are rapidly becoming the norms. The opposition might lob their insults, but for the most part, an ever-increasing group isolated in an echo chamber of rhetoric provides insulation for each side. While everyone is talking about the radical left or the radical right, another place needs to be identified. It’s called the radical gap.

God is looking for people to stand with Him. In Ezekiel 22:30, God said, “So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.” Standing in the gap is the most radical position you can take because it reaches for others while hanging onto God. We call it the radical gap because those who stand there will take shots from both sides.

In The Dream King, we reveal a powerful picture that illustrates this radical gap position. The Battle of Lockett’s Farm occurred April 6, 1865, on the homestead of my ancestors, and it was General Lee’s last battle of the American Civil War before he surrendered on April 9. The following is a historical excerpt describing the battle scene:

While crossing Sailor’s Creek below the Lockett Farm the traffic became so heavy that the bridge across the creek broke. This required Gordon’s men take a stand on the rise before the Lockett House as the wagon train piled up in the valley below. The event was witnessed by E. Lelia Lockett, then 18. She recalled, “The Confederate army formed a line of battle across the front yard… The cannon was planted on the hill, just in front of the house, facing the approaching Union army, which took a stand just in firing distance of the Confederate army, back of our house… You can see the house was between the two armies.”

The Battle of Lockett’s Farm—April 6, 1865

The Lockett house stood between the two armies that day, and poetically it became a hospital for both sides that night. That impromptu emergency room is an inspiring picture for the church, which is meant to be a place of healing for everyone. The Lockett house, preserved to this day, still has all the bullet holes from the day of fighting. Likewise, standing in the gap will bring some scars from the conflict, but it’s worth the risk.

In a time of broken bridges, let’s take a firm stand, not on one side or the other, but in the gap on behalf of the brothers trying to rip each other to shreds. Join us in the radical gap, and let’s pray for the healing of the nation.

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100 Years Later, Bronx Zoo and Planned Parenthood Reckon with the Same Racist Past

As I have prayed recently, I have heard the Holy Spirit say, “It’s reconcile or reckoning,” and it has been a sobering word for my spirit. It has undoubtedly been a time of reckoning for many. The racist roots of organizations and systems are being exposed. But I have great hope.

When writing The Dream King, Will and I felt explicitly led to include the tragic story of Ota Benga—an African who was put on display in the Bronx Zoo in 1906. Mind you, that wasn’t during the time of slavery. That was at the beginning of the twentieth century when eugenics was thriving as the prevalent racist ideology. Benga was put in a cage along with apes in an effort to demonstrate that people of African descent were closer to monkeys than men.

This past week, the Bronx Zoo apologized for that tragic history. They also denounced the garbage-science that led to it, which was authored by their founder Madison Grant. It’s a time of reckoning.

Do you know who also applied and promoted the racist ideas of Madison Grant? Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, combined the eugenics ideology with sexual liberation. It’s not surprising that a century later, Planned Parenthood has located the majority of its locations in minority neighborhoods. Two weeks ago, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York removed Sanger’s name from their building—a small token of the reckoning that must now be amplified in the culture.

In 2019, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote 20 in-depth pages in his opinion on Box v. Planned Parenthood of KY and IN. In it, he detailed how abortion is the ultimate tool of the eugenics priority of eliminating the unfit. Who are the unfit, you may ask? Well, Sanger created the “Negro Project” as a means to eliminate the African American population—whom she described as “weeds.” As the only African American on the Supreme Court, Thomas’ insight is priceless:

“This law and other laws like it promote a State’s compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics.”

“But Sanger’s arguments about the eugenic value of birth control in securing ‘the elimination of the unfit,’ apply with even greater force to abortion, making it significantly more effective as a tool of eugenics.”

“This case highlights the fact that abortion is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation. From the beginning, birth control and abortion were promoted as means of effectuating eugenics. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was particularly open about the fact that birth control could be used for eugenic purposes. These arguments about the eugenic potential for birth control apply with even greater force to abortion, which can be used to target specific children with unwanted characteristics.”

When writing The Dream King, I felt the anguish of the Lord’s heart concerning what happened to Ota Benga in 1906. That’s why we included his photo in the book. I also feel the Lord’s current anguish over how that same ideology is still used against African Americans today and those deemed undesirable and unfit. We may have scraped the name “eugenics” off the ideology, but the priorities and goals are still at work today. We can scrape a founder’s name off a building, but is that really enough if the work continues?

Learn more on this topic. Chapter 4 of The Dream King is dedicated to exploring these hidden connections.

Uncovering History at a Covered Up Statue in Charlottesville

On August 12, 2017, Charlottesville, VA became the unlikely epitome of racially motivated violence in America. A statue of Robert E. Lee served as the backdrop for the dramatic scene that engulfed the campus of the University of Virginia and the downtown Main Street area, where Heather Heyer was struck by a car driven by hate and killed. The nation was re-introduced to a small group of Americans willing to brandish burning torches in the Virginia night, unmistakably harkening back to a time of hooded mobs terrorizing black and minority residents.

Charlottesville, VA

Sadly, most Americans are content to idly accept less overt displays of racism in the systems of society. August 12th, however, was impossible to ignore.

What continues to be made abundantly clear is that Charlottesville is not an anomaly in the nation. It’s merely the most recent crack in the dam of pent up hostility. A few years ago, I felt the Lord had spoken to me that the enemy had planted landmines of racial strife all across the country, and they were just waiting to be set off. To be clear, that “enemy,” of course, is not any human being. It is a spiritual enemy and demonic through and through. It finds a body in our unjust systems, attitudes, and apathy, and it rages against the image of God in others who look a little different than ourselves.

Will Ford and I had the privilege of being asked to participate in a Charlottesville event on December 2, organized in response to the violence and tragedy. We joined with Christian city leaders and national leaders to address the issue with prayer and action. It was an honor to link arms with women and men unwilling to let hate have the last word in these matters. At a press conference in front of the Lee statue, which is now covered with a black tarp, Will and I were introduced as “very interesting gentlemen” and “who represent the heart of the gathering.” Our contribution was to tell our incredible story of Providence and to help lead prayer that would mark hearts and motivate action. What was particularly rewarding for us was the fact that Virginia serves as the centerpiece of our story.

Virginia is the birthplace of America. It is rich with history and overflowing with stories. Today’s culture, however, is wrestling with how to tell those stories. Some feel threatened by revisionist history, while others see an intentional perpetuation of the mindsets of a bygone era—namely that of slavery. As Will and I have prayed over these matters, an important aspect has emerged that we would like to address. It deals with the statues and memorials that are dominating discussions in cities all across America.

Memorials serve one grand purpose: to remind us of people and events in the past that helped get us to where we are now. In their ideal expression, we learn from those pivotal moments how to help improve the future by not repeating the mistakes of the past. In their less-than-ideal form, they can elevate ideas that quietly suggest, "Let’s get back to the way things were.” It’s in those moments when minority communities, in particular, are thinking, “No thanks.”

Take the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville as an example. The city remains torn over whether or not to remove it. While participating in the gathering there, I asked several leaders what they thought about it. To my surprise, they were equally divided on the topic. “Oh, it definitely needs to stay. Lee was an important figure in Virginia history,” one pastor responded. “That statue is a constant reminder of slavery and racism,” another clergyman declared. Is there a right or wrong answer to this dilemma? It’s important to know some forgotten history to understand the backdrop of this controversy in America right now.

The first film to ever premiere in the United States White House was called Birth of a Nation. In 1915, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson allowed the screening of the movie as a favor to his friend, the author of the book on which the film was based. That book was titled The Clansman. The film, which was revolutionary for its time and a commercial success, dramatized the founding of the Ku Klux Klan, depicting them as heroic figures set against uncivilized and sexually aggressive black men in the South.

Although the KKK had been dismantled during the later years of reconstruction after the Civil War, the film effectively galvanized a resurgence of the Klan and was used as a recruitment tool. That year the KKK was reborn on top of Stone Mountain connected to the film’s release in Atlanta. It is not a mere coincidence then that many statues memorializing Confederate leaders began to emerge throughout the south. The Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville was commissioned shortly afterward in 1917.

It could be said that the racist film Birth of a Nation helped fuel the spirit of the age. What must be acknowledged is that many of the statues and memorials that emerged at that time were the product of a racist agenda. Mind you, this was all happening during the Jim Crow era, when racial segregation ruled the South. The United Daughters of the Confederacy, who helped organize the unveiling of the statue, released a statement in the wake of August 12th saying their organization, “totally denounces any individual or group that promotes racial divisiveness or white supremacy.” Then, a few days after Will and I helped lead prayer in Charlottesville, an Imperial Wizard with the KKK admitted in a CNN interview that many white supremacists had come on August 12th to incite a race war.

So what can be said? After a closer look at the commission of the Charlottesville Lee statue, did it have a racist origin or not? The reality is whether or not the statue stays or goes, people on either side will have hearts that need healing, which is why we must continue to cover this matter in prayer.

Will Ford and I met January 17, 2005, which was Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration day. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where Dr. King gave his famous I Have a Dream speech, I joined with others from around the country for a prayer meeting. Little did I know, but Will had also been led to attend that same prayer meeting. What has been significant to both of us through the years is that we met in a prayer meeting, and I think that fact speaks of what God wants to do in America right now.

I genuinely believe we are going to find each other in the prayer meetings. If we will lay down our agendas and seek each other out to advance God’s kingdom, there is no limit to what God can accomplish in us and through us. It’s a wise statement, “You can do more than pray, but you can’t do anything until you have prayed.” It’s in these kinds of prayer meetings that God-ideas and action come together with brothers and sisters moving in unity. God promises to pour out the anointing oil in those settings, so I believe the prayer meeting is the great incubator for godly activism and societal change.

Only a united church can heal a divided nation.