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Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr., and non-violence

MLK Montgomery March 1965 (Photography by Associated Press)

MLK Montgomery March 1965 (Photography by Associated Press)

Martin Luther King, Jr., will be honored tomorrow with a federal holiday that celebrates his birthday. This has inspired a few thoughts:

This morning I read this excellent short blog post titled “Weapons and Jesus” from the blog Rudimentary Bible. The author reminds readers that passages like Matthew 26:52 (“For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”) give us good reason to attribute some sort of philosophy of non-violence to Jesus while passages like Luke 22:36 (“And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one…”) temper our anabaptist ideals. He writes:

“The Jesus movement was small.  He warned against a futile effort of resisting imperial rule with violence, not unlike Isaiah who warned against futile alliances with Egypt.  That’s the most we can say in terms of Jesus and weapons.”

When we discuss Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr., we must acknowledge though Jesus as remembered in the Gospels may have inspired these men, Jesus existed in a different context. As the aforementioned blogger notes, Jesus’ movement was small and he was aware that there was no defeating Rome. Gandhi and King benefitted from living in evil societies whose consciences could be pricked by appeals to Christian teachings (the British Empire and the United States).  Gandhi and King could appeal to the Jesus of the Gospels to shame British and American “Christians” who were not following their religion’s ideals. If Jesus would have challenged Rome to live according to the ideals displayed by pagan deities then I think events would have unfolded the same way. Roman deities were murderers, fornicators, and cheaters. While Israel’s God was remembered as a warrior in various contexts there were traditions like the Suffering Servant of Isaiah or the sacrificial deaths of the Maccabean martyrs upon which Jesus could draw from the culture’s memory, but as the Jewish War of 66-70 indicates, approaches like that of Jesus were far less enticing to many than those that advocated violent uprising.

There is something that Jesus shared with King that is more important than what these men taught though: their actions. While we may have a hard time reconstructing Jesus’ teachings on non-violence because we don’t have enough material to establish whether Jesus was being more or less pragmatic (why fight Rome if defeat is assured?), or principled (killing other humans is wrong) or somewhere in-between these two poles, we do know that Jesus is remembered as choosing not to fight and that he suffered a horrible death passively.

Likewise, the early Christians interpreted Jesus’ willingness to die as (1) the will of God for a greater purpose; (2) something he could have prevented, even arguing that he said he could have asked his Father to send warrior angels to his defense; and (3) that (for most Christians) violence does not appear to be an option if one is to be a true disciple (until the rise of Emperor Constantine). We have narratives that depict the early Christians as willing to suffer violence and death as a way of modeling their crucified messiah to the world. If it is impossible to reconfigure Jesus’ exact words on non-violence it is much easier to reconfigure how most early Christians interpreted Jesus’ death.

King’s non-violence is obvious. We have articles and books he wrote. We have interviews he gave to magazines and radio stations. We have audio, video, and transcripts of speeches he gave. Yet, like Jesus, we honor King because he died non-violently, not because he taught non-violence, per se. If King would have fought back, or killed another person in defense of his well-being, we would not remember King as we do. We might forgive him for failing to live up to his ideals. We may have debased him as a hypocrite. We wouldn’t celebrate his birthday every year. It was King’s death that was his ultimate message.

As a Christian who is an American citizen this is where I find my inspiration. I don’t call myself a “pacifist” because, well, I don’t like how it implies being “passive”. I do advocate non-violence though. I do affirm that as a disciple of the teachings of Jesus his actions speak as loud or louder than his words, and I do not think I am alone in interpreting Jesus’ death as a message greater than any of his sermons, since the earliest Christians, as far as we know, interpreted Jesus’ death as advocating for their own cruciform posture in the world.

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We could discuss hypothetical situations where my idealism would be challenged: would I defend my wife from an attacker in the home (yes, but not with the aim to kill)? would I have killed Hitler if I had a time machine that put me in the position to do so, saving millions of lives (we don’t know if it would have saved millions of lives since any venture in multiverse must include the reality that one change creates many others, which means it is possible that an outcome worse that World War II could have occurred)? Yet hypothetical extremes do a terrible job of addressing present concerns. When our world and nation are captivated by violent solutions to our problems–whether war against terrorist all over the globe or “Gun Appreciation Day” to advocate for our right to own weapons a few weeks after many of our children were slaughtered by weapons–we don’t need to worry about extreme hypotheticals. We need to worry about taking steps toward peace, especially if we claim to be Christians. As a Christian who is an American citizen let me say to fellow American citizens that our obsession with weapons is more than concerning. We don’t want to own something to shoot a deer only. We want something that can destroy dozens of people at one time. We want weapons made for extreme warfare to be available in our homes. I hope that this causes some to pause for a moment. Even if you are not an advocate of non-violence, surely, common sense indicates that our edginess and our culture of fear is going to increase violence.

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mlk-the-strength-to-love-cover-image1In his book Strength to Love King knew that his advocacy of non-violence would be deemed “impractical”, to which he retorted:

“My friends, we have followed the so-called practical way for too long a time now, and it has led inexorably to deeper confusion and chaos. Time is cluttered with the wreckage of communities which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation and the salvation of mankind, we must follow another way.”[1]

I think we have bought into the lie that our wars, and our violent postures, are the “lesser evil”. We imagine scenarios where if this war didn’t happen this enemy would have risen to greater power bringing this evil on the world. Of course, none of these hypotheticals have happened, but our wars, wars we do not know how to end (as an American it seems like Afghanistan and Iraq are eternal wars, and places like Afghanistan seem ready to collapse into chaos as soon as our military withdraws, causing me to wonder what we did there that was good ultimately).

[1] Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (Philadelphia: Fortress Press), 56.

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1961 interview with Martin Luther King, Jr.

I notified people on Facebook and Twitter regarding this interview a couple days ago, but I realize many who read this blog may not be connected to me via social media, so I want to place a link here as well. WNYC has released a previously unedited interview with Martin Luther King, Jr., recorded in 1961. You can listen to it here.

Dr. King discusses a variety of thing related to being Black in the south, his education, his reason for becoming a minister, his understanding of the “social Gospel”, his approach to non-violence as influenced by the teachings of Jesus and Gandhi, and much more.

One quote from early in the interview that I appreciated in this one (statement starts around 2:54): ”I came to see that religion could be emotionally satisfying as well as intellectually respectable.” I agree, Dr. King!


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Forgiveness and reconciliation: a challenge from Martin Luther King, Jr.

mlk-the-strength-to-love-cover-image1Today is the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. I decided to read some of his writings this week (with the 21st being the federal holiday in his honor), so I began with a book from which I have read large portions before today that I enjoyed. Yet the quotation that I want to ponder is not one I enjoy, so I chose to share it, because my reaction to Dr. King’s words were more defensive than usual. Let me share the quote, then I will tell you why I reacted less favorably that usual, then you can tell me your thoughts in the comments:

“Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning. It is the lifting of a burden or the cancelling of a debt. The words ‘I will forgive you, but I’ll never forget what you’ve done’ never explain the real nature of forgiveness. Certainly one can never forget, if that means erasing it totally from his mind. But when we forgive, we forget in the sense that the evil deed is no longer a mental block impeding a new relationship. Likewise, we can never say, ‘I will forgive you, but I won’t have anything further to do with you.’ Forgiveness means reconciliation, a coming together again. Without this, no man can love his enemies. The degree to which we are able to forgive determines the degree to which we are able to love our enemies.”[1]

Now, I know Dr. King is addressing the love of enemies. I have at least one relationship of which I am conscious that would be challenged by Dr. King, but I don’t consider the person to be an enemy. Rather, I consider this person to be someone who after many years and many attempts at relationship showed disinterest over and over again. So, over time, I decided that if that person did not want to invest in the relationship then I wasn’t going to worry myself any longer, and I quit trying. Honestly, I haven’t missed the person at all. Then I heard from a couple sources that this person has complained about my unwillingness to have anything to do with them, which I found ironic.

If I were pastoring or counseling, and I saw someone being hurt time and time again, I would tell them that one can forgive that person while also putting themselves in a place to avoid further physical or emotional abuse. Whether it was the child of an abusive parent, or the ex-spouse of a scorned lover, it has been my conviction that one can come to a place where one loves that person, prays for that person, hopes the best for that person, and honestly can say that day-to-day there is no hatred manifesting in their hearts or anger in their emotions, yet (!) this person knows that it is best for their well-being and the well-being of the abuser if contact is minimalized, if not ended altogether. It seems to me that Dr. King’s vision of true forgiveness wouldn’t allow for this.

Now, I know Dr. King’s words aren’t timeless. He was a man with a context writing to an audience who shared that context. Much like reading the Gospels or the Pauline Epistles one wonders what Jesus or Paul may have said if someone raised their hand after a discourse on something like loving one’s enemy, turning the other cheek, or something far more practical like divorce, and asked, “What if my child is in danger?” or “What is my spouse sexually abuses my children?” Would Jesus and Paul have altered their answers? If Dr. King was given several hypothetical situations would he stand by his statement’s seemingly universal declaration on forgiveness? I don’t know, but for the sake of discussion tell me your thoughts. What do you think about Dr. King’s statement on real forgiveness? Can one forgive without full reconciliation?

[1] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving your enemies” in Strength to Love (Philadelphia: Fortess Press, 1981), 51.


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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.


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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.