Category: Martin Luther King Jr.

J. Kameron Carter’s sermon “When God Calls.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed forty-four years ago today. I find this recent sermon by Dr. J. Kameron Carter to be a fitting tribute (begins around minute thirty-eight):

Mondays with MLK: Why we should forgive our enemies.

Each year after September 11th it is good to remind ourselves that while we may “never forget” that does not mean we should not seek to forgive. Today I will share a few excerpts from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon “Loving Our Enemies” published in Strength to Love (reprinted by Fortress Press in 2010, pp. 47-48). He gives three main reasons:

“Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive our hate; only love can do that. Hate multiples hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiples toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies,’ he is setting for a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil  - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

“Another reason why we must love our enemies is that hate scars the soul and distorts the personality. Mindful that hate is an evil and dangerous force, we too often think of what it does to the person hated, This is understandable, for hate brings irreparable damage to its victims….But there is another side that we must never overlook. Hate is just as injurious to the person who hates. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

“A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.”

Mondays with MLK: toughness of mind v. softness of mind.

Now that Daniel James Levy has adopted the weekly blog post dedicated to the writings of N.T. Wright it is time that I write on someone else. For the next while I have chosen Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After reading portions of Strength to Love (reprint by Fortress Press, 2010) it became evident that I should read more of this man’s writings. Today will be my first post.

In a sermon titled “A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart” based on Matthew 10.16 (“Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”) Dr. King says the following:

“Who doubts that this toughness of mind is one of man’s greatest needs? Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

“This prevalent tendency toward soft mindedness is found in man’s unbelievable gullibility. Take our attitude toward advertisement. We are so easily led to purchase a product because a television or radio  advertisement pronounces it better than any other. Advertisers have long since learned that most people are soft minded, and they capitalize on this susceptibility with skillful and effective slogans.

“This undue gullibility is also seen in the tendency of many readers to accept the printed word of the press as final truth. Few people realize that even our authentic channels of information – the press, the platform, and in many instances the pulpit – do not give us objective and unbiased truth. Few people have the toughness of mind to judge critically and to discern the true from the false, the fact from the fiction. Our minds are constantly being invaded by legions of half-truths, prejudices, and false facts. One of the great needs of mankind is to be lifted above the morass of false propaganda.” (Strength to Love, pp. 2-3)

Dr. King exposes what the same thing the show Mad Men exposes regarding advertisements. He debunks the “Fair and Balanced” claim of propaganda machines like Fox News. He deconstructs society with the precision of Jacques Derrida. Oh, and by the way, he says all of this about culture more than five decades ago. Seems like little has changed, huh?

Five thoughts on the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was to have been dedicated this last Sunday, but that was interrupted by Hurriance Irene. This monument has already received much publicity, both positive and negative. These are my thoughts on the matter:

(1) This Memorial was inevitable. Can we imagine Washington D.C. never displaying a statue of the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? I can’t. So whether or not you think that his statue should have been added to the National Mall you should realize that it was bound to happen sooner or later.

(2) Personally, I like that he has been given a Memorial in the National Mall. Dr. King did as much for our nation as Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and others. He deserves our recognition for what he did for the United States. He stood against many of us, for us, and he helped make us better.

(3) Yet I understand the concerns expressed by Cornel West and others. In a New York Times article titled “Dr. King Weeps from His Grave” Dr. West argues that Dr. King wanted a revolution, not a memorial. He says,

“King weeps from his grave. He never confused substance with symbolism. He never conflated a flesh and blood sacrifice with a stone and mortar edifice. We rightly celebrate his substance and sacrifice because he loved us all so deeply. Let us not remain satisfied with symbolism because we too often fear the challenge he embraced.”

So true, and this is the great danger we face in creating a memorial for Dr. King. It may allow us to think we have arrived. We may think that Dr. King’s dream has been fulfilled. We may think the work is over. A Memorial can be empire’s way of saying, “Congratulations on a job well done. You got what you wanted, now shut up.” We cannot let this happen.

(4) We must continue to fight for Dr. King’s dream. This is still a Eurocentric culture. It still espouses white privilege. It is still easier for a Caucasian to get a job than a Black or a Latino. Our prisons continue to be overpopulated with Black and Latino men for reasons that often go far beyond crime-and-punishment. It is still true that a man makes more per hour doing the same job as a woman because he is a man. It is still easier for the rich to get richer than for the poor to get out of poverty. There is much that must be fought for and against. Dr. King’s Memorial cannot come to mean that we are done. It must remind us that we’ve only just begin.

(5) The Memorial must remind future generations of where we’ve been and what we’ve done. I say that out of both sides of my mouth. We have made progress. Slavery has been abolished. Segregation is no longer legal. But it was this country that supported slavery and Jim Crow laws. If I have children I want to take them to the Memorial to tell them of the great Dr. King. I will tell them of the importance of the Civil Rights Movement. But I won’t tell them this so they think we’ve progressed and that all is said and done. It will be a reminder of our corporate sins, our injustice, and the human capacity for evil. It will be a reminder that if we aren’t careful there will be a group that becomes oppressed right before our very eyes. I want my children to know that we’ve come along ways, but I don’t want them to forget from where we’ve come.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Kingdom

The legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., is great. It seems that every major city in the United States has a street named after him. The meat of his legacy, of course, is in what he did in the fight for civil rights and how he did that through nonviolent means. Much of what I see in King’s approach reflects the values of the Kingdom. This is no surprise since King was a Christian minister. What is surprising is how those often claiming the label Christian have failed to pick up on the power in his approach, especially since it aligns itself with Kingdom values.

(1) The equality of persons. The movement led by King focused on the equality of the African American. This is reminiscent of a passage like Galatians 3:28 where “there is neither Jew nor Greek, . . . for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The Jewish-Gentile tensions in early Christianity appeared to be heavy, and the early Christians and the apostle Paul had to address this tension often.

(2) Nonviolent resistance. One of the emphases of King’s civil rights movement is that of nonviolence. Similarly, the Kingdom came through the proclamation of the gospel with love—a nonviolent method. True to the form of nonviolence, the early Christians were arrested and martyred. Jesus stated that the Kingdom was not of this world and that is why the disciples did not fight to stop the arrest (John 18:36). Yet, with this nonviolence came resistance: in the twentieth century it was resistance to inequality, while in the first, it was resistance to the forces of darkness.

(3) Social justice. In addition to civil rights, King also fought for the aid of the poor. Jesus and the Epistle of James and have similar exhortations. Truly, the Christian has the obligation to love one’s neighbor, and this includes the poor. While God is often found in suffering, the church is to help those who suffer.

King was not a perfect human being and often fell short, but the civil rights that were established because of him cannot be denied. Wherever we find Kingdom values upheld, whether this be through a believer in Christ or through a God-despiser, we find God’s intentions carried out. So we celebrate this day in honor of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., who carried out those intentions.

Sunday Quote: Martin Luther King Jr. on Firm Dissent

Today, Cynthia R. Nielsen wrote an excellent piece on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1967 speech “Beyond Vietnam“. She notes the connection that King made between his own efforts in the Civil Rights Movement and the war in Vietnam. For King it was self-evident that any nation who spends vast resources on war is destined to forget the poor in their own land (something I believe history proves, but I will defer to Nielsen’s article for further exposition). This includes those who are neglected for many reasons–race and ethnicity being only one of those. I recommend you read the entire thing here. It is from her post that I found this week’s quote.

After his introduction King began his speech against the war in Vietnam saying this:

“Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation’s history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements, and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.”

I cannot think of a more fitting rebuke to echo for our nation over the last decade. We have been too quick to support the war policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. We haven’t reviewed our priorities, but instead we have maintained our standing as a nation of war all across the globe while the citizens for whom this nation’s government is to care are often overlooked. Many of us buy into war rhetoric that what is best for this country is our forceful presence against “evil” everywhere else.

While I am sure there is some truth to this, it is always statements with a hint of truth that are most deceiving. It may be exhausting for our preachers to remain prophetic against our nation’s leader’s hunger for war. We need less “prophesying of smooth patriotism” and much, much more “firm descent based  upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history”. Lord, give us more peacemakers like Dr. King in this violent world.


 

Against the Populist: Athanasius, Cyril, and King

I found it interesting that on the same day that we here in the United States remember one whom we consider to be a prophet and a saint, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Orthodox church remembers the great Athanasius of Alexandria and Cyril of Alexandria. While for some there may be little or no connection I see a very important one. All three of these men stood against the populist agenda of the day maintaining what they knew to be truth even if the whole world stood against them.

Athanasius stood against the Arian heresy. The Arian heresy maintained that Jesus was the first created being, but not God (much like modern Jehovah’s Witnesses). As more and more people were swayed into this heresy, even emperors who sided with them, Athanasius stood against them. He wrote, he debated, and he won. When it was all said and done we Christians had returned to orthodoxy rightly worshiping Jesus as ‘very God of very God‘.

Cyril stood against the Nestorian heresy. The idea that Jesus could be fully God and fully man was bothersome to Nestorius and his followers. It was proposed that there was a human Jesus and a divine Jesus in one body. Two person in Jesus. Cyril stood with those who rightly argued that Jesus is one unified person with two natures: God and man. The Nestorians faded away; orthodoxy remained.

Finally, Martin Luther King Jr. stood against those who thought one race of people could be superior to another. He reminded us all that we are made in the imago dei and therefore skin color cannot determine the worth of a person. The fight that he fought is one that we are still fighting today.

All three of these men were prophets of God in their day. All three stood for truth against a populist opinion that taught falsehood. Let us remember with Athanasius, Cyril, and King that it is not numbers that determine the truth but the Truth itself.