On August 17, 1905, an excursion train traveling from Greenville, NC to Norfolk, VA crashed into the West Branch of the Elizabeth River, resulting in the deaths of many people. The train had failed to heed warnings that a draw bridge was open to let a tugboat pass. Like many accidents, there were many contributing factors which led to the tragedy, but one major problem was a faded “warning flag.” In that era, flags of different colors were placed along the tracks as signals to train engineers about conditions up ahead. A white flag meant all was safe ahead. A red flag was a warning of danger ahead. Railroad employees had placed a red flag along the track near the Elizabeth River to warn that the draw bridge was open and trains needed to stop. But tragically, the red flag had faded over time – the color had bleached out of it. Traveling at high rate of speed, the locomotive engineer mistook the faded red flag for a white flag: the red was gone out of it. The locomotive plunged headlong into the open bridge and tumbled into the river, resulting in the deaths of many people.
So it is with much of modern theology and preaching: the color red has gone out of it: the blood of Jesus is left out. The blood has been expunged from the pulpit and from hymnals. In 1937, Yale professor Richard Niebuhr (1894 – 1962) summarized the preaching of liberal Christianity in his book The Kingdom of God in America: A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.
1 John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Stay faithful to the Bible and keep the color red – the blood of Jesus Christ – at the center of our churches and pulpits.