Rev. Charles Moore, Pastor Who Self-Immolated, Spent A Lifetime Protesting Injustice
The Huffington Post | By Antonia Blumberg
On June 23 of this year, Rev. Charles Moore stepped out of his car in a shopping mall parking lot in Grand Saline, Texas and set himself on fire. The retired United Methodist pastor was 79 years old and was a life long advocate for social justice. He died later that night at Parkland Hospital in Dallas -- leaving behind a trail of notes and a lifetime of activism to offer an explanation for his dramatic act.
As social justice advocate Reverend Jeff Hood told The Huffington Post, Rev. Moore was trying to send a message with his dramatic act -- both to the United Methodist Church and to the country at large. "Reverend Moore thought this was going to be a whole lot bigger of a deal than it turned out to be," Hood told HuffPost. "He expected it to make national news."
Texas-based Tyler Morning Telegraph obtained a copy of one of the notes Moore left behind from the Grand Saline police, and it offers a glimpse into a man deeply troubled by injustice and racism and who carried this pain for decades. He describes the racial discrimination that existed in his hometown of Grand Saline when he was growing up and which often lead to horrific violence. Moore wrote:
"I will soon be 80 years old, and my heart is broken over this. America, and Grand Saline... have never really repented for the atrocities of slavery and its aftermath. What my hometown needs to do is open its heart and its doors to black people as a sign of the rejection of past sins."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/15/rev-charles-moore-self-immolation_n_5584506.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
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office for the Burial of the Dead seems appropriate in this case:
Into Paradise may the angels lead thee. At thy coming may the martyrs receive thee and lead thee into the holy city, Jerusalem.
I read this story first in LBN, and it hit me like a baseball bat in the gut. It reminded me so strongly of the Buddhist monks and nuns, and others, who burned themselves to death in protest of the Vietnam war.
Now another martyr joins them.