Where I Stand on Whose Lives Matter

 For the past months we have been hearing about how “Black Lives Matter,” “Police Lives Matter,” Gay and Lesbian Lives Matter,” “Fetus’ Lives Matter,” “Women’s Lives Matter,” and so forth and so on. The truth of the matter is, ALL LIVES MATTER; however, I am not naive enough to believe that all lives have mattered in the past or for that matter ALL lives matter now. In fact, the reason each group began segmenting themselves and crying out that their particular group’s lives mattered is because each group is feeling ignored or as if their lives do not matter because they are a part of a certain group.

When you really critically think about it, why should any group have to cry out that their lives matter? Isn’t the fact that we are all human beings enough to make our lives matter? Apparently not. Let’s take a look at this from a Biblical perspective. Let’s connect a few Biblical dots to see how they tie in with us today. In Matthew Chapters 18 and 19 we get a very clear view of how all lives matter when Jesus explains to his disciples that we are to become like children and that whoever takes the lowly position of a child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven (that’s all lives). In another scenario people brought little children (remember, children represent us)  to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them but his disciples tried to turn the people with the children away (their lives didn’t matter in the disciples eyes). When Jesus saw and heard this he said to the disciples, “Let the little children (that’s all lives) come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”  Jesus further shares with the disciples “See that you do not despise one of these little ones (again that’s us… all lives). For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”  He then goes on to tell a story of a wandering sheep.

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? (In other words, all lives matter).  And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep (all lives matter) than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones (Black lives, White Lives, Hispanic Lives, Asian Lives, Police Lives, LGBT Lives, Women’s Lives, etc. etc. etc.) should perish (all lives matter).

By now I hope you see where I am going with this and you are not thrown by the use of biblical scenarios to illustrate my point. The message that Jesus was seeking to convey to his disciples then is why I side with the "All Lives Matter" crew now. Just think about how ridiculous it is that we have to carve out a slogan per group about whose lives matter. It’s ashamed that groups of human beings have been made to feel and are being made to feel that their lives do not matter. As a human race we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for consciously or subconsciously sending  messages that any life does not matter. We are all human beings who actually have more similarities than we do differences, and instead of celebrating our differences, we are always vilifying them. When does enough become enough? The differences that we have do not make any life more or less valuable. So at the end of the day, I stand with the "All Lives Matter" crowd and we as a people need to recognize that so that all of the individual groups will not feel the need to have a hash tag yelling at the world that their lives matter. Something to critically think about. I invite you to join me each Saturday at 6:00 a.m. as I web stream around the world on gobrave.org and locally in northern NJ/NY on WP88.7 FM as host of The Reading Circle with Marc Medley. I also invite you to follow me on Twitter @thinkcritical01 and @readingcircle01.