God at the back of the Bus

In 1955 the rule on the buses in the city of Montgomery, Alabama, was that ‘coloured’ passengers must sit at the back of the bus when a white passenger wished to sit in the front seat. On the evening of December 1, 1955, woman in her forties named Rosa Parkes, declined to go to the back of the bus when a white passenger wished to sit. Her action was not premeditated as she explained it “I did not get on the bus to get arrested; I got on the bus to go home.” first, she asked if she could stay clamming that her feet where tired. When her request was denied her she refused to move. The driver again, commanded her to move, and upon her second refusal the bus stopped. She was arrested and fined $14. She was not going to be escorted to the back of the bus! In the end, her arrest sparked the civil rights movement; beginning with a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system that led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision banning segregation on public transportation.

Montgomery has many comparisons to the spiritual life of modern America. In 1955 the human rights of Parkes was ignored so to in our day the divine right of God has been trivialized. God in his mysterious wisdom has allowed himself to be pushed to the back of the bus. So it can be asked, how and in what way was God relegated to the back of the cultural bus? What has caused the spiritual segregation of our day? I believe it is rooted in a basic reversal of perspective. With the rise of secular humanism, the entrenchment of autonomous individualism, the pervasive influence of the therapeutic movement, and the modern focus on pragmatism as a test of truth, God has diminished in our sight as we have perceived ourselves more and more majestic than we really are. Out of this bubbling brew of cultural confusion two cultural dispositions have a profound influence on our vision of God. The two are anti-intellectualism and materialism.