Made In America

Istruggled with a car purchase three years ago wondering what my dad would’ve said. He was a steel worker, and his company was keen on buying American.

So, I’ve always done so, until then. I did careful research and purchased a “foreign” car.

MICHAEL BROOKS Columnist

We had a pastor when I was growing up who drove a foreign car. Someone reminded him half the men in his church worked at the

BETHLEHEM EAST BAPTIST CHURCH nearby steel plant. He never saw this as an issue; instead, he got angry.

“When they start making American as good as this, I’ll buy American,” he shouted.

Though I was a teen-ager, I knew he was wrong. The American steel industry was beginning to suffer and steel workers were worried.

I thought it was important for him, at the time, to show solidarity with the men in his church. “I become all things to all men,” the apostle Paul wrote. I saw the same anxiety in east Alabama when we lived there. The textile mills are now gone. As Ross Perot famously said, there was a “giant sucking sound.”

But things are a bit

Bethlehem East Baptist Church will have all Sunday school classes beginning at 9:45 a.m. Sunday morning followed by regular service at 11 a.m. in the sanctuary. We will continue with Facebook Live Sunday School at 9:30 a.m. and Worship Service at 11 a.m.

CARRVILLE BAPTIST CHURCH different currently. The “foreign” car I drive was made in Kentucky. It’s hard now to know where supplies originate since we’re in a global economy.

Regular hours of service are Sundays- 9 a.m. Sunday School and 10 a.m. Morning Worship.

Wednesday nights at 6:30 p.m. the church offers Children’s Gospel Project, Youth Bible Study and Adult Prayer Meeting. Regular office hours are Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

And we’re in a global population, too.

Another boyhood memory I have is of a Mexican family in our neighborhood. This was unusual, but not now. The Hispanic population is our largest American minority. We had a death in our neighborhood lately and I learned that the family down the street was from Kenya. The USA is, indeed, a mirror of the world.

I’ve heard preachers say because America failed to evangelize the world, God