Johnnie Ellington II May 18, 2012 at 8:14am · If we do a cursory study of the great nations and empires that have existed over the last 6,000 years we will discover, from a religious perspective, a methodology that God uses that is quite consistent. He sends warners, or prophets, to correct the aberrant, sinful behavior of that nation. He offers that nation an opportunity to change, to modify the destructive course it has chosen. God’s warners offer that nation an opportunity to choose an alternate path. Such was the case with ancient Egypt, Sodom and Gomorrah, Israel, Judah, Greece, the Roman Empire, and the Muslim empires of the Abbasids, the Umayyads and the Fatimids. The arrogance of the leadership and the control they exercised over the masses led to their downfall and destruction. One of the greatest empires in the last 6,000-year history is the American Empire; indeed, America encompasses all of the good and bad characteristics of the nations mentioned. Though all of the aforementioned nations were great, all were not good. The spiritual laxity inherent in each led to their demise. If God’s methodology is consistent, then why would it not apply to America? If God would send Moses and Aaron to warn the Egyptians, and if He would send Micah, and Jeremiah, and Daniel to warn Israel and Judah, and if He would send Jesus to warn the Jews and the Romans, and if He would send Hud and Salih, great Quranic prophets, then could we not charge Him with being woefully inconsistent if He did not send a warner to the most violent and racist nation in all of history. I know among some conservatives such a characterization of America is considered unpatriotic and foreboding, but to ignore her historical record would be foolhardy. On the other hand, some would argue that America has been a source of good and benevolence for the world—though, others would argue, only to the extent to which such seemingly altruistic action has served her own purposes and interests. No nation on Earth is as violent, commits more murders, consumes more drugs, has a higher abortion rate, has a higher institutional racism rate, commits more national voter suppression, and has a greater concentration of wealth in the pocketbook of the wealthy at the expense of the poor than America does. Moreover, we incarcerate a higher percentage of our poor and underclass than any other nation on Earth. Our two-tier criminal justice system—one for Whites and another for Blacks—has devolved into a new form of apartheid, a new Jim Crow system, a system that incarcerates over one million Black men.