The issue at the heart of the Trayvon Martin case has been widely debated, with people questioning if it is really about race, constitutionality, or even religion. The latter option seems the least likely, and yet, two fervent voices can be heard from the religious camp, both asking what part, if any, God has played.

Last Saturday, George Zimmerman was acquitted of charges of second degree murder, after following and eventually shooting Trayvon Martin, an unarmed, black, 17 year old boy, in 2012.

The verdict has ignited protest all over the USA and has gained international recognition as yet another case highlighting the flaws of the American judicial system. It has not only etched into an already deep racial divide, but it has revealed a tension within African American Protestantism.

After hearing the verdict, Professor Anthea Butler called God a “white racist,” who “is carrying a gun and stalking young black men.” In a despairing lament on the historical injustices against America’s black community, the historian of American and African American Religion at the University of Pennsylvania, herself a black woman, described how this episode is yet another case in point. Her tone was not one of optimism or hope, but of dismay, as she described God himself to be on the side of the racists. Her anger is not solely on behalf of Martin’s family but on behalf of the whole African American population, who are forced into coming to terms with the reality of racism which after centuries of conflict, just will not go away.

In a country which suffered the era of Jim Crow, this verdict has once again pointed to institutional flaws which historically have made access to justice for black people no easy feat. The Scottsboro case in the 1930s, in which 9 black boys were wrongfully accused of raping a white woman in Alabama, and the Rodney King episode in L.A. in 1991, when several white policemen were caught on camera brutally beating an African American man, and who were at first acquitted, immediately spring to mind. Anyone familiar with the context in which the country's judicial system evolved will be aware of the inherited prejudices against people who were once each considered to be worth only three fifths of a white person. Indeed, criminal defense lawyer Mark Gegaros, who was not part of Zimmerman's legal team stated: "race determines everything in the criminal justice system. Race is the prism through which people see things." Such is the country's legacy.

It is easy to see where Anthea Butler’s anger is coming from.

Yet another voice is responding in a different way. A storm of tweets in the aftermath of the verdict are testament to the conviction of many that God had and still has a positive part to play in the case. Sybrina Fulton, Martin's mother, tweeted, "Lord during my darkest hour I lean on you, you are all that I have.". A Josiah Bell tweeted, "the Judicial system or jury may may not provide justice but GOD will." Commentary is scattered across blogs, with religious voices expressing their optimism about God’s presence. Blogger Benjamin Robinson wrote: “We may escape the verdict of a human court, but we cannot escape God’s verdict.”

This appeal to divine justice when earthly justice has not been done is a familiar part of the African-American Protestant tradition, throughout which a people, suffering years of discrimination and oppression, have sustained themselves through Christianity. Indeed, statistics revealed by the Pew Research Forum found that 79 per cent of African Americans say religion is very important in their lives, compared to 56 per cent of the US adult population as a whole. The same report also revealed that 53 per cent of African Americans attended worship services at least once a week, as opposed to 39 per cent of the total population. It would seem that many will continue to look to God to help them through struggle.