August 6: Hiroshima Day. Today: Catastrophic White Supremacy

August 6, Hiroshima Day, is a day of remembrance of the world’s first atomic bombing in 1945. August 6 is a day of remembrance of baptism in our family, mine, in 1939, and our son Kirk’s in 1969. Death: more than a quarter of a million people perished because of the catastrophic nuclear explosion by the USA near the end of World War II. New Life: being baptized into Christ’s baptism for the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from death.

Kirk was baptized outdoors, in the backyard of the church parsonage where we held weekly Wednesday night summer services. Neighborhood children, and some of their pets, came, too. Kirk’s baptismal banner hung on the clothesline. The singing was a sign of joyful life, a public witness to Jesus Christ, alive in the inner city.

I was baptized in the early stages of WW II. Kirk was baptized in the midst of the U.S. war in Vietnam. Kirk’s baptism was fifty years ago today. How do we remember now? We have stockpiles of nuclear weapons. We barely talk about whether a nation has 400 or 4000. Does it matter? But pulling out of the Iranian Nuclear deal matters. And so do North Korean missile tests and meaningful treaties of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. We remember Hiroshima by working every day on diplomacy to avoid war.

What do we do today? We remember by acknowledging the catastrophic gun violence inside our own nation. No one brought a gun to Kirk’s Detroit neighborhood backyard baptism. There are more guns in every U.S. neighborhood today, more guns per person by far than any other nation on earth, more guns than there are people. Are we afraid to go outside? We have had 250 mass shootings this year, more than days on the calendar. The belief system of white supremacy and white nationalism is deadly.

Today we must not forget. This August 6 we choose to remember our baptisms into Jesus Christ so that together we might face the challenges that are before us.