I was an odd young man. Living as a high school student in suburban/rural Georgia in the late 80s, I had posters on my wall. That part wasn’t odd. One of the posters, however, was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” that he delivered in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. The nation was in turmoil. While the Supreme Court struck down segregation in 1954, much of the South resisted any change to those racist conditions. King delivered that historic speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial as part of a march and movement to enact change.
I can still remember one of my favorite passages from that speech. “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
I read that speech on my wall. Studied it. It informed part of my motivation to choose history as my major in college.
Born the son of a Baptist minister in 1929, Martin Luther King, Jr. grew up in Atlanta and eventually became a Baptist minister himself. King went to Morehouse College, then Cozer Theological Seminary for his Master’s and Boston College for his Doctorate studies, which he officially finished in 1955.
His first head pastor position was in Montgomery, Alabama, at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1954 at the age of 25. In 1960, King became co-pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, partnering with his father until his death in 1968. He was only 39 years old.
As a pastor, Martin Luther King became internationally famous for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s.
After the Supreme Court ruled against segregation in 1954 (Brown v Board of Education), Martin Luther King, Jr. met with other African American ministers in Montgomery and began to strategize ways to protest and try to change the oppressive conditions of African Americans in the American South and ultimately in the United States. Influenced by biblical notions of justice and love, the nonviolent methods of Gandhi in India, and the American ideals of equality and opportunity, King organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott through his church and the African American church network in the city.
The success and visibility of that boycott placed King on a national stage in the conflict over civil rights in America. Since the NAACP had been either outlawed or targeted by political leaders in the South that wanted to keep segregation the law of the land, King founded his own organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to organize nonviolent protests primarily in the South where the old Jim Crow laws were still in effect.
Other civil rights organizations sprang up through the 60s, and not all of them nonviolent, but King remained a voice of change through love until he was assassinated in 1968.
Once again, we live in a divided time in America—politically, socially, racially. Through different sources of and social media, many feel we are more divided than ever. There are still issues involving race and equality in our country.
The Devil, our spiritual enemy, loves the conflict and division (John 10:10), the stone-throwing from both sides. What is the role of the Church at this time?
The Church has been empowered to be the voice of Truth (1 Timothy 3:15), not to pick a political side necessarily, but to call all people to repentance unto the person of God (call to repentance). Our message is not one of hate but love. God calls us to lift our vision above the conflicts to see that people from other political, social, or denomination “tribes” aren’t our enemy, and we must stop treating each other as such (Matthew 5:44).
It is a difficult journey to speak biblical truth in love, to love both sides of an argument to dignify them and call them to something higher and better. And to reveal where the true fight is—spiritual.
And we are called to live for that mission. Even give our lives for that Gospel (Luke 9:24).
Martin Luther King, Jr. has inspired people of all races and backgrounds in ways to stand against evil (such as racism) while treating even those perpetrating oppression with love. His ideas and ways of communicating can help us in the Church begin to frame our responses today. Not to add to the divide but to try and be the peacemakers that Jesus explained are blessed.
Also, King lived his life from the compassion that lined up with Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Just like the Samaritan, a racial and religious category hated by the Jews, Martin Luther King, Jr. witnessed the suffering of those being oppressed or living in poverty and took personal responsibility to help them, to empower them.
He empowered them with the Gospel, teaching them to receive the violence and refuse to hit back. To instead respond in ways that turned an enemy into a brother with God’s love.
And King gave his life for what he believed in. For love. For peace.
King was a powerful communicator. Read through “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” the aforementioned speech in 1963, and his explanation of terms like “soul force,” some of my favorite articles.
Another sermon I love to return to is King’s discussion on the importance of being “maladjusted”—that we should all want to be well adjusted in life, ourselves, and our children. But there are some things we should never be well adjusted to. We must be “maladjusted” to racism, oppression, violence, and more against people that God loves.
Reading through the following quotes, we see King’s vision of the Kingdom of God, of the power of love, the need for us to be free and courageous enough to call out evil no matter where we see it (in our own tribe or another), and how the Gospel is a light to engage a divided world and try to bring peace.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man for his time, an example for God’s people today to take God’s compassion into a broken, divided world in creative and powerful ways.
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
“We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”
“There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.”
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
“A lie cannot live.”
“The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows”
“He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
“It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”
“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.”
“Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
“A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.”
“We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.”
“Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.”
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
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