So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.1
God created man in his own image. What image is this? He then saw that man was alone, so he had man name the creatures, millions of them he had created, but none were found as a suitable helper and mate to him. So God created female in his image. God is all knowing and this idea of female existed, so female was created in the image of God. God gave man a female as a helper, Jesus would send the Holy Spirit as a helper and comforter. Male and female were created in the image of God. Any belief that exalts itself over another, whether it promotes a race or gender over another is exalting itself over an image of God.
God seals us with his spirit when we believe, we become a child of God, we are adopted into his family. This family has no distinction between race nor gender. In the eyes of God we are his children. The civil rights movement had great power as it understood this basic principle; we are all created equal. This is a founding principle of the United States, and its idea of democracy, freedom, and civil rights. This country built a foundation on these inalienable rights. Its authority was created so that no one office has absolute power and its people have a right according to natural law, a right that cannot be taken away, denied,or transferred.3
Unfortunately when we blur the boundaries of rights we risk the issue of implementing rights that are not logical nor moral. I believe this is by far the greatest threat to civil rights. Through the name of civil rights one promotes a race or gender over another. Say for example, a feminist movement exalts female over male degrading the other gender or vice versus. If one gender says we do not need you, other gender, in our pursuit of happiness, then such should not be morally acceptable, in any sense. Nor is it logical or natural as society can not continue without both. If such is accepted by society where does one draw the boundaries?
To allow a minority people to push upon the majority, rights that break the explicit moral constitution of its people is a threat to society itself. We tend to want to join forces with those who have a common goal and cause, however we must be very careful who we allow in our camp, A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.4 If we throw away one principle we might as well throw them all away, when we operate in such grey area we have no clear foundation of principles and thus we allow anything, as we have no measuring stick to say otherwise.
When we look at major issues that the civil rights movement brought to the forefront, slavery and women rights, the practice of such was always against the implicit principles of the Bible. They were always immoral in nature, thus they never had any power to prevail. If we are created equal in the eyes of God, then these rights must be given to the people. But we can not justify wrong through the use of the same principles and it is clear that the Bible is specific in calling out what is unacceptable to God and should be unacceptable to his people. We as his people though have a habit of adding to, promoting our own convictions, and this creates more grey area thus making it difficult to hold anyone accountable to any principles.
Anything that denies God's explicit principles can never be acceptable in a society that calls themselves believers of God. Unlike the issues of slavery and women's rights, these principles were implicit, the ones that are explicit will never be acceptable by those who believe in such principles. Thus the greatest threat to civil rights and democracy is the acceptance of such explicit principles as norm. And the global implications are even more profound, as with people, nations need a beacon of moral democracy, anything that comes against the moral beliefs of a people will weaken any resolve of the people to follow. And as such any attempt to hold people accountable by those deemed immoral will be seen as hypocritical and self-righteous.
We the people need to promote equal rights. These rights were such defining principles to our forefathers. They knew them experiential, coming from Europe where the minority lorded over the majority which had little rights. You were either a lord or a peasant, and if the latter you had no hope of being anything else. Even the leaders of Christianity abused their power over the people, they lorded over the people demanding obedience, pushing doctrines that established teachings that upheld their authority. Men promoted themselves with lofty titles and made sure they kept control and authority over the peasants.
When news of a new land was received it gave hope as it offered a new way of life, and out of such immoral experience, a moral democracy was created to prevent such from happening again. This nation laid a foundation on such principles to protect the people. Our forefathers did not forget where they came from and why. They created the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and a government structure that was formed to prevent such control and abuse of God given rights. They knew the importance of a moral democracy.
When news of a new land was received it gave hope as it offered a new way of life, and out of such immoral experience, a moral democracy was created to prevent such from happening again. This nation laid a foundation on such principles to protect the people. Our forefathers did not forget where they came from and why. They created the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and a government structure that was formed to prevent such control and abuse of God given rights. They knew the importance of a moral democracy.