Baltimore's shame...

John Blake wrote a piece titled "Lord of the Flies Comes to Baltimore" in which he laments the absence of older men in his native city, Baltimore:

...I talked to a 27-year-old black man named Juan Grant. He knew Gray, whose death in police custody lit the fuse in Baltimore. Grant stood no more than a foot from me, but as he talked, he yelled at me in frustration, spittle coming from his mouth. He said Gray's death had convinced him and his friends to stop "ripping and running" the streets. They wanted boys to respect them as men. But they didn't know how to get that respect because their fathers had never been around. He described their dilemma with a bitter laugh: "It's men learning on the job trying to teach young men how to be men."

Blake quotes Robert Boyd, pastor of Beacon of Truth Church and Ministries in West Baltimore:

Now we as men are fearful when we walk through a group of boys. When we were boys, when we walked through a group of men, we felt secure. Something is wrong.

Blake summarizes Baltimore's shame...

...the old men I did see in my neighborhood this week were broken-down, unshaven. I thought to myself: If you want to destroy a people, first break their men.

Those watching the death of Mr. Gray and the riots that have followed should have noted that one of Mr. Gray's arresting officers was a woman, the mayor is a woman, the Baltimore City State's Attorney is a woman, and it was a mother (not a father) who slapped her son around out on the street while the whole world watched.

Christians should speak prophetically to this tragedy, explaining it by the Word of God's truth:

O My people! Their oppressors are children, And women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray And confuse the direction of your paths.  - Isaiah 3:12

Baltimore's shame is that she is oppressed by children and ruled by women. Thus says the Word of God.

(Thanks, Pat.)