The Children’s Museum
Ruby Bridges. Ryan White. Anne Frank. These three children were an exhibit at the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis. Do you recognize those names?
Ruby Bridges was the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South during the Civil Rights era. She has been immortalized in an iconic painting by Norman Rockwell. Her role in the museum? To teach others the evils and senselessness of racism.
Ryan White contracted HIV/AIDS through a blood transfusion in 1984. At that time, he was given six months to live. What brought Ryan to the national spotlight was the fact that his middle school tried to kick him out. Everyone was afraid that they could contract AIDS from him. The legal battle made him a poster child for HIV/AIDS treatment and awareness. Ryan lived five years longer than expected, dying one month shy of his graduation. His role in the museum? To teach others the evils and senselessness of prejudice.
Anne Frank may be the best known of the three since many of us had to read The Diary of Anne Frank in middle school. Anne was a Jewish German living in the Netherlands in the early 1940s. Her family had fled Germany when the Nazis gained control. But then Germany invaded and occupied the Netherlands. The Jews went into hiding but, after two years, they were discovered and taken to concentration camps. Anne died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. Her diary made her famous as she documented her years in hiding. Her role in the museum? To teach others the evils and senselessness of racism.
Ruby Ridges. Ryan White. Anne Frank. To teach about the evils of prejudice and racism. Not a bad idea. Not the best idea. In a country that has expelled God and the Bible out of public schools, expelled the Bible and God from public discourse and trying to expel God and the Bible out of the home, where else can you teach morality and values?
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Our society, in turning our backs on the God of heaven, has had to turn to using human beings as a motivation for living a noble, moral, virtuous life. That’s all fine and good as far as it goes, but Ruby Ridges, Ryan White and Anne Frank do not tell us why we should not be prejudiced and racist. That’s why the exhibit is of only limited value.
If there is no God, there is no reason, no justification, no motivation to turn away from racism and prejudice. Who cares? If there is no God, I should do anything I want if I can get by with it.
You and I know there is a God. This God, in His Word, the Bible, tells us why we should turn our backs on racism and prejudice. First, all human beings – red, yellow, black or white – are made after the likeness of God (James 3:9). As human beings, we are all from the same Creator-Father (see Acts 17:26). Secondly, we will give an account for how we treat others (Matthew 25:35-36; Romans 14:12). That is an intrinsic motivation and an extrinsic motivation. No other foundation is as secure and steadfast as that.
Maybe the Children’s Museum could have put this verse up over the entrance to the Ruby Ridges-Ryan White-Anne Frank exhibit: “whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). If they had done that, they would have provided the “why” behind the anti-racism/prejudice message. That would have made a stronger message.
–Paul Holland
