I remember it like it was yesterday. April 4, 1968—a chilly spring evening in
Austin, Texas where I was attending a Christian university as a freshman. It was also the day Martin Luther King, Jr.
lost his life. Lost it for being
courageous. Lost it for wanting things to change. Lost it for daring to expose
a major flaw in the American dream.
You see, his dream was different. He actually believed what
our forefathers had written almost two centuries before was true. All are created equal. All persons—every living, breathing
soul. And at his core, Dr. King knew that
the words to an old familiar hymn were also true:
Jesus loves the little children
All
the children of the world
Red and yellow, black and white,
they
are precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little
children of the world
To Martin’s enemies, the only problem with his thinking was
that Jesus didn’t love them equally.
Or maybe they were content to think “We ain’t Jesus.” Whatever their reason, he
died that day for the crime of wanting a different reality, a new way of
living, an American dream focused more on life and liberty that merely the
pursuit of (one’s own) happiness.
And as much as I deplore this fact, do you know what my
first reaction was to this man’s death, tucked safely, as I was, in the
confines of that small religious institution?
“WHAT A RELIEF. Thank God someone killed that ‘movement’. Now maybe we
can get back to some normalcy.” Oh,
don’t get me wrong. I would never
applaud someone’s cold-blooded murder, in and of itself. But if one has do die to allow the rest of us
to live in relative peace, then so be it.
I was ignorant. I was a bigot in sheep’s clothing. But I was not alone.
Dr. King himself knew all too well that he was swimming upstream, going against the grain,
perhaps fighting a losing battle. Pick your metaphor, but perhaps the most
painful resistance came from his brothers in the clergy, some of whom urged him
to stop upsetting the apple cart. Many, perhaps in their own weariness, had
adopted a “go along to get along” philosophy long ago. Five years prior to his death, Martin wrote
these words from a Birmingham jail to this very fraternity:
“I came across your
recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely."
Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. Since I feel that
you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set
forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient
and reasonable terms.
“… I am in Birmingham
because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left
their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the
boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village
of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the
Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my
own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for
aid.
“Moreover, I am
cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit
idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever
affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live
with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives
inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within
its bounds.”
How profound were his insights, not only for the issues of
his day, but for what we, as Americans, face today. Martin Luther King, like
all true followers of Christ, sought to be an extremist for love, for justice,
and for peace. His faith, propelled by
the saving grace of Christ in his life, would not allow him to stand idly by as
others suffered at the hand of the other extremists—those promoting ignorance
and hate, separation and conformity.
Today, we face a similar challenge. While the presenting
issue for Dr. King was the national cancer of racism, his fundamental issue was the tyranny of lovelessness. If King were alive today, I don’t think he would be
limiting his marches to matters of race.
True, racism exists in many, if subtler, forms today, but lovelessness also manifests itself in
our public discourse on topics
ranging from political preferences to individual rights, religion, and community
values. It is exposed in our growing
inability to disagree with one another agreeably.
And at its ugliest, it has reared its head in the form of Islamic extremism, an
ideology which seeks to annihilate every person and belief system counter to
its own.
To all of this, I believe Martin would say, rise up,
Church! Rise up, people of God. Oppose injustice at every level, whether it
affects you directly or not. Don’t let
your silence be deafening. As Edmund
Burke once wrote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good
[people] to do nothing.
My original title for this article was “Confessions of a former racist.” As I examine my heart each day, reacting to
the struggles of people unlike me
culturally, ethnically or otherwise, I realize I am still a work in
progress. But what I do know is that I
am changing. Christ is changing me. And
today, I don’t see change in itself
as a threatening thing. It’s what we are
becoming that really matters. But it starts with a dream.
tad
No comments:
Post a Comment