Faulkner University

Faulkner students were inspired and admonished by a visit from Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb. The state's first female chief justice spoke to Faulkner students at the Feb. 10 chapel. Alluding to Jesus' admonishment to "care for the least of these" in Matthew 25, Bell made a stirring plea to students to do the same for the state's thousands of neglected and abused women and children.
Cobb, who was elected as the state's youngest judge at the age of 25 in 1982, is nationally known for her ardent advocacy of children. As a young district court judge in a rural Alabama county, Cobb said her eyes were opened to the depth of poverty, neglect, abuse and drug abuse that existed in the state. As she served on the bench for nearly twenty years in the same county, Cobb said she witnessed the progression of children who came to her court as abuse victims and who returned in later years as troubled teens or abusers themselves.
"I am convinced that caring for 'the least of these' is what is required of Christians," she told her audience. "Instead, we people of faith would rather dwell on divisive issues rather than work together on what we agree on - ministering to the poor."
Bell concluded her remarks by challenging students to consider what can be done for the abused and neglected. "We have the decision to minister to these or to go on our merry way."