Martin Luther King, Jr.
I spent the last two days reading up on this man of much moral force, a person who stood for what he believed in in a world of religious farce and much evil condoned by a society of bigots. There is much to say about Martin Luther, but I don't think I can aptly convey the immensity of the hope and inspiration his life story can give. Please take some time to read some of his speeches and philospohy if you're free. He goes beyond instincts of self-preservation and faced extreme hostility in its cold light to give the black people a new lease of life. Here are some quotes i got from the book I'm reading his life story from. (Excerpts taken from Philip Yancey - Soul Survivor):
King: “ I left India more convinced than ever before that nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”
References to Daniel and his three friends, who disobeyed the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, who faced hungry lions rather than submit to unjust laws of the Roman Empire. As he later articulated: “ One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly and with a willingness to accept the penalty.”
King clung to nonviolence because he profoundly believed that only a movement based on love could keep the oppressed from becoming a mirror image of their oppressors. He wanted to change the hearts of the white people, yes, but in a way that did not in the process harden the hearts of the blacks he was leading towards freedom. Non-violence, he believed, “ will save the Negro from seeking to substitute one tyranny for another.”
“Christianity”, he said, “has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear…”
King: “ Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”
Many of the Christians who still balk at seeing Martin Luther King, Jr., as God’s instrument have no problem worshipping in churches that once portrayed him as the enemy, that opposed his ideals, and that either directly or indirectly perpetuated the sin of racism he fought with his own body. We saw the mote in his eye but not the beams in our own.
Only one thing haunts me more than the sins of my past: What sins am I blind to today? It took the greatness of Martin Luther King, Jr., to awaken the conscience of a nation in the last century. What keeps us in this new century from realizing the beloved community of justice, peace and love for which King fought and died? On the wrong side of what issues does the church stubbornly plant its feet today? As king used to say, the presence of injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
In the end, it was not King’s humanitarianism that got through to me, nor his Ghandhian example of nonviolent resistance, nor his personal sacrifices, inspiring as those may be. It was his grounding in the Christian gospel that finally made me conscious of the beam in my eye and forced me to attend to the message he was proclaiming. Because he kept quoting Jesus, eventually I had to listen.
(This was written by Philip Yancey, who is a christian, yet used to be an avid racist himself. He grew up in churches that perpetuated the belief that racism has groundings in the bible.)
I spent the last two days reading up on this man of much moral force, a person who stood for what he believed in in a world of religious farce and much evil condoned by a society of bigots. There is much to say about Martin Luther, but I don't think I can aptly convey the immensity of the hope and inspiration his life story can give. Please take some time to read some of his speeches and philospohy if you're free. He goes beyond instincts of self-preservation and faced extreme hostility in its cold light to give the black people a new lease of life. Here are some quotes i got from the book I'm reading his life story from. (Excerpts taken from Philip Yancey - Soul Survivor):
King: “ I left India more convinced than ever before that nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”
References to Daniel and his three friends, who disobeyed the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, who faced hungry lions rather than submit to unjust laws of the Roman Empire. As he later articulated: “ One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly and with a willingness to accept the penalty.”
King clung to nonviolence because he profoundly believed that only a movement based on love could keep the oppressed from becoming a mirror image of their oppressors. He wanted to change the hearts of the white people, yes, but in a way that did not in the process harden the hearts of the blacks he was leading towards freedom. Non-violence, he believed, “ will save the Negro from seeking to substitute one tyranny for another.”
“Christianity”, he said, “has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear…”
King: “ Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”
Many of the Christians who still balk at seeing Martin Luther King, Jr., as God’s instrument have no problem worshipping in churches that once portrayed him as the enemy, that opposed his ideals, and that either directly or indirectly perpetuated the sin of racism he fought with his own body. We saw the mote in his eye but not the beams in our own.
Only one thing haunts me more than the sins of my past: What sins am I blind to today? It took the greatness of Martin Luther King, Jr., to awaken the conscience of a nation in the last century. What keeps us in this new century from realizing the beloved community of justice, peace and love for which King fought and died? On the wrong side of what issues does the church stubbornly plant its feet today? As king used to say, the presence of injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
In the end, it was not King’s humanitarianism that got through to me, nor his Ghandhian example of nonviolent resistance, nor his personal sacrifices, inspiring as those may be. It was his grounding in the Christian gospel that finally made me conscious of the beam in my eye and forced me to attend to the message he was proclaiming. Because he kept quoting Jesus, eventually I had to listen.
(This was written by Philip Yancey, who is a christian, yet used to be an avid racist himself. He grew up in churches that perpetuated the belief that racism has groundings in the bible.)
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