April 22

Vernon Johns, Kukai, and Earth Day

Author

David Barnhart
April 22, 2025

Bode Museum, Berlin, 2022. Own photo.

Today is the birthday, in 1892, of Vernon Johns, civil rights leader and pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He was combative in speech and policy, and was fired from theology schools and churches. He was consistently frustrated that more people were not as militant as he was, sitting in the front of the bus and going into “whites only” areas in Montgomery. Though people chided him for not being more diplomatic, he ploughed the ground that his successor, Martin Luther King, Jr., would be able to harvest. 

Today also marks the death, in 835, of Kūkai, a Japanese Buddhist monk who promoted a form of esoteric Buddhism that became the Shingon school of Buddhism. He taught that one could achieve Buddhahood in this life.  

Today is Earth Day, first established in 1970. The theme of this year’s Earth Day is “Our Power, Our Planet,” a focus on increasing use of renewables over fossil fuels.  

Reflection: 

In his sermon “It Is Safe to Murder Negroes,” Vernon Johns said: 

But you know there is no justifiable homicide. God never spoke about justifiable homicide. He said Thou shalt not kill. He didn't say thou shalt not kill, unless you've got an excuse. He didn't say thou shalt not kill, unless you are a police officer. And he most assuredly did not say thou shalt not kill, unless you're white.

Speaking to an inter-racial group of preachers, Johns offended nearly all of them when he said,

The thing that disappoints me about the Southern white church is that it spends all of its time dealing with Jesus after the cross, instead of dealing with Jesus before the cross. … I don’t give a damn what happened to [Jesus] after the cross.

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, help your people pay at least as much attention to what you said and did before your crucifixion as they do to after. Amen.