A few years ago I wrote a column about the song taught in the 1940’s to all the children (including me) who belonged to the Sunbeams at the conservative First Baptist Church of Gulfport, Mississippi, the Gulf Coast’s largest Baptist church and the church shown so often on television following Hurricane Katrina. The lyrics to the song were these: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” Like all the other Sunbeams, I sang the song as lustily as any pre-teen possibly could.

Doubtless, the song’s composer meant to encourage all singers of the song to adopt the same approach to the races as the song declares Jesus did or would have. But, in fact, not all of us who sang that song followed its intended aim. For too many of us, we did the singing part but left Jesus to do the loving part.

What such groups as Black Lives Matter are, in effect, asking us (or at least asking Christians) to do is to take the song seriously and do what Jesus did or would do. After all, Christians are urged to “Be ye doers of the word, not hearers only” and that means, as

I see it, more than simply singing the song.

Milton Scarborough
Danville