Category: Liberation

Martin Luther King Jr. and God’s Good News

Jesus came proclaiming the good news of God’s reign. He said to the crowds who came out to hear him, “Repent and have faith for the reign of God is near.” Many received this good news as good news. The reign of God was seen as a reign of love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, healing and new life.

But not all heard the good news as good news. King Herod felt threatened and sought to have Jesus killed. Governor Pilate oversaw his crucifixion.

Prophets proclaim God’s good news, for God is always about our good. But often, God’s good news is experienced as bad news to its recipients. The prophet, Jeremiah, had prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and captivity in Babylon. It was a word of judgment, but it was also the word God’s people needed. They did not hear it as good news, but it was. Israel needed to sit down awhile in a place distant from their homeland. They needed to do some self-examination. They needed to acknowledge their idolatry and injustice, so that they would come back to the God who created and called them and experience again God’s mercy and plans for them. (After 70 years in Babylon another prophet proclaimed the good news of freedom to go back home to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple.)

Martin Luther King Jr., as a pastor and a prophet, proclaimed the good news of liberation, but not all received his message as good news. The White establishment, the crafters of Jim Crow laws and terror lynchings, received King’s message as bad news. They heard it as the destruction of their system and way of life, and they fought against it with violence and brutality.

God is about our freedom, and King proclaimed liberation. What the White establishment did not realize was that with the freedom King proclaimed, they would also have opportunity to be free—free from hatred and the struggle to hold another people down. They could be freed from all the time and attention and struggle to maintain an evil system that robbed them of their true humanity.

Where we are in our relationship to the God of love determines how we hear the good news of liberation—whether we hear it as good news or bad news. Martin Luther King proclaimed the good news of liberation. Response to that good news revealed where people stood in relation to freedom and humanity and love.

Lately, I have been thinking of King and his coming out against the Vietnam War. I have wondered, if he lived today, what he would say about the war in Gaza and our nation’s actions in response to it. He would certainly speak against war and genocide and its support.

There were leaders in the Civil Rights Movement who pressed King not to come out against the Vietnam War, but rather to remain focused on the issues of the Civil Rights Movement. King had a strong relationship with President Johnson who was pushing through civil rights legislation. King had an open door to the White House. He could call President Johnson and the president would come to the phone.

But at the same time that Johnson was addressing civil rights, he was also ratcheting up the war in Vietnam. The concern of many Civil Rights leaders was that, if King came out against the Vietnam War, he would lose the open door he had with the president. There were also those who saw the peace oriented nature of the protests as a tactic, not realizing that for King the issue of peace and peacemaking went much deeper.

When King came out against the Vietnam War, he made clear how essential peacemaking was to our humanity :

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. How much longer must we play at deadly war games before we heed the plaintive pleas of the unnumbered dead and maimed of past wars? Why can’t we at long last grow up, and take off our blindfolds, chart new courses, put our hands to the rudder and set sail for the distant destination, the port city of peace (The Atlantic)?

King spoke to people dedicated to war as a solution. He called them (and us) to repent and become peacemakers. It was not a word that President Johnson and many lawmakers and others (then and now) wanted to hear, but it was and is a word of truth we need to hear.

The words and actions of peacemakers are bad news to those committed to war as a solution and to those who profit from war. They are good news to our true humanity made in the image of God.

Filed under: Justice, Liberation, Peace, Racism, WarTagged with: , ,

Martin Luther King On Love Over Hate

I read a column in the Washington Post entitled, Hug an election denier. It was a gentle call to see the humanity in the person you believe has left reality behind and has embraced ways of thinking and operating that undermine our society. Given the nature of the article, it mainly addresses “moderates” and “progressives.”

The comments of readers of the article were revealing: Many who see themselves as progressives are not particularly progressive when it comes to seeing the humanity in those they labeled fascists or simply saw as gullible. While the right may tend to demonize the left, many on the left (who tend not to believe in demons) make the right out to be crazy or mentally deranged.

There were, however, also comments from those who understood the importance of loving others no matter their beliefs, actions, or conditions. One commenter quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

These words come from a Christmas sermon in 1957. Here is a fuller quote:

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 out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says, “love your enemies,” he is setting forth 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.

Pastor King knew something of what is required of us to “love our enemies.” He lived it, and we saw the power of people marching out of prayer meetings into the streets to face dogs and fire hoses and beatings and jail, and even death. We also witnessed change come to our society.

I recall John Lewis, in his book, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, writing of his experience on the first freedom ride when he was hauled off the bus and beaten. A police officer asked him if he wanted to press charges against the man who beat him. Lewis said something to the effect that the man who beat him was a victim of and a part of a system. Lewis was fighting the system. So, no, he was not pressing charges; he was getting back on the bus in order to bring down the Jim Crow system.

For John Lewis, love was central. He was attracted to the non-violent nature of the movement because it provided a way for love to act to bring about real change. Love allowed him to see the humanity in those who opposed his freedom. He was able to see beyond what they were caught up in. He was able to see what they could be if they let go of and were liberated from their racism.

Along the same vein, Frederick Douglass wrote of how the slaveholder also was a victim. His slave-holding robbed him of his humanity, robbed him of compassion and the ability to love; it deteriorated all his relationships. Abolish slavery and both slave and slaveholder are set free. At least, the slaveholder has the possibility of freedom, if he embraces it rather than seeks to reinstate slavery under other names.

“Love of enemies” is a spiritual reality. It comes from God who loves a broken, hurting, alienated humanity, a humanity that has made itself enemies of God, enemies of Love. We hear this love in the words of Jesus on the cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This love forgives; it looks beyond faults and sees needs. It changes the trajectory of our lives.

This love is a gift from God. It is grace. We can open our lives to it and be changed by it. The apostle Paul says it is the greatest gift. “Faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Filed under: Justice, Liberation, LoveTagged with: , , ,

Those of us who are White need Black history.

My White children grew up in a Black neighborhood and Black church. They went to Black schools where they sang the Black national anthemn and learned Black history. This experience deeply enriched their lives and expanded their knowledge and understanding. Above all, it gave them a truer view of American history than they would have received in many other places. I would like something of their experience for all children.

It is deeply troubling to see the current White backlash to teaching children the realities of American history—the good, the bad, and the ugly. This determination to keep the truth from our children, will only hurt and stunt their lives and close them off from others whose experience is different from their own.

In a speech last year, Richard Corcoran, the Florida education commissioner said, “I’ve censored or fired or terminated numerous teachers. There was an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter and we made sure she was terminated.” (Washington Post) And this action helps our children?

Many states have introduced new laws on how history and current events are taught. It is clear that the impetus for these laws is a fear of students receiving viewpoints of American history other than that of a White view. Without history seen through the lens of the Black experience and that of Indigenous peoples and others, we are left with a skewed and White supremicist view—a view that makes the White experience and perspective the norm: Our revolution, the constitution we created, the leaders and presidents we put in place, and the laws and policies we instituted. We then operate as if the only history is the one we tell ourselves.

The history of this nation as experienced by African Americans is very different from those of us who are of European descent. We need Black history—as well as the history of Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans without which we do not have American history.

We especially need to receive from those who have experienced oppression, the “underside of history.” We love stories of “our” heroes. We need the stories of those victimized by our heroes; we need their struggles, their overcoming of oppression, and their leadership in movements for change. We simply need reality. Our children need truth. It will set them and our nation free.

I look at this issue as a follower of Jesus who sends me out to all. I need to hear from the experience of those Jesus sends me to. My family and I need others; we need the views of others—those whose experience is very different from ours. We do not need to remain in a White bubble or a particular class bubble. We do not need to remain in our “comfort zones”—nor do our children.

We do not need to be afraid of the truth, including the truth about ourselves, our brokenness, our nation’s history, and our complicity in the racism of our nation. With God who is Truth Itself, there is forgiveness and healing and liberation.

Filed under: Justice, Liberation, Racism, TruthTagged with: , ,