A Freedom Fighter and An Extremist – Thank God!

Today we celebrate the life of one of my heroes – the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In his memory, the family and I listened to his most famous speech and I re-read his masterful writing in Letter from a Birmingham Jail. After reading this again, I’ve decided there is a lot I want to say about Dr. King. Perhaps I will write more on the anniversary of his death or next year on this holiday, but today I wanted to defend his reputation as an American and Christian. Bear with me – I am going to get there the long way today.

Like millions of Americans, I have looked forward to January 20, 2009 for quite some time – since the last inauguration in fact. My anticipation grew stronger as I came to believe in a new candidate. I plan to write more on Wednesday next week about why I decided to vote and campaign for Barack Obama, but I will admit now that his race was a factor. I would never have voted for him simply because he would become our first African American President, but there is no doubt that I was (and am) caught up in his proposal for change and the fact that he is different is exciting to me.

Though race was a factor for me, I did not fully comprehend how enormous an event this would be until election night. I’ll never forget that evening. The whole family was excited, we made O shaped food, put on our T-shirts and sat down to celebrate change. As we watched the coverage, it became clear to all of us that this was indeed an historic event. An African American man would become our next President and the face of our nation. I was still excited about the real policy changes that I believe Barack Obama might bring to our nation, but now I was excited about something more. We could no longer say that all of our presidents were rich, white men.

As the inauguration approached and I realized that it would fall on the day after a day we set aside to celebrate the life of one of my heroes, I grew even more excited. This would be a true celebration of progress in America. Obviously we have not arrived, but we have clearly made progress. And this brings me to what I really wanted to talk about …

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has long been one of my heroes. I remember reading about him and his work in elementary school. I attended an elementary school with a student population that was at least 50% African American in a the “white section” of a city with terrible public schools. At one point, four of the schools in our city were among the ten worst schools in New Jersey. Living among, attending school with, and playing with children of color was simply part of my life. It did not occur to me until later that the state of our school system might somehow be related to the race of many of the children in our city. My parents never spoke ill of anyone based on race. They, like many of that generation, had stereotypes to overcome but they never spread bigotry or fear – for that I am very grateful. I feel as though I grew up in an environment where I could learn to understand people’s differences and embrace them.

I can only remember one serious classroom discussion about race – in fourth grade (1976-77). While reading about Dr. King, we read that people of color used to be referred to as “colored,” negroes, or worse. In my time, it was becoming more common to call them “black” and we discussed this in the classroom. I’ll never forget my teacher calling on each of my black classmates so that they could tell us what they thought. It was clearly embarrassing to them. One girl said “I don’t care, you can call me purple if you want to!” It may have been my first glimpse into the bias of a white adult in my life. I couldn’t believe that less than 15 years before African Americans had been treated so poorly, and now it seemed my teacher did not have any sensitivity to it – or didn’t know how to show it. (In the interest of full disclosure, this was – by a long shot – the worst teacher I’d ever had. She was mean and vindictive to all students. I’m not saying that to explain away her actions in this situation – I would eventually meet other adults who were outright bigots.)

As we continued to learn about Dr. King, I was mesmerized by his willingness to break the law in support of freedom. Even at a young age, I was a lover of freedom and these stories were my favorites – stories of those who stood up to the establishment. I would not understand until high school what I admired about Dr. King, Ghandi, Rosa Parks. It was the willingness they showed to disobey unjust laws and to put up with the punishment for disobedience. As a teenager, I realized that there were examples of this in Scripture – Daniel, who prayed in public when he knew it was against the law; Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, who refused to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s idol; and others.

When I finished elementary school after sixth grade, my parents enrolled me in a private Christian school where I would attend until I graduated in 1985. To this day, I believe this school prepared me to be the thoughtful, truth-seeking individual I am. I am a better person for having attended, but there are things about that place that sadden me. One is that they teach students that the universe is less than 10,000 years old when it is a matter of virtual certainty that it is at least 12,000,000,000 years old, but that is a topic for another day. The other is that everything we learned about the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King was tainted by insinuations that he was a communist. This was the early 1980s, so we thought any communist was as evil as Satan himself. We were NOT taught Dr. King was a communist, but nothing was done to defend him from those rumors. It was defamation by omission and I am ashamed to have been a part of it.

I am grown now and I’ve read Dr. Kings works myself and listened to his speeches. I am certain he was not a perfect man. I am also certain that perhaps someone has evidence of some wrongdoing committed by Dr. King. None of that matters to me. So many of us live our lives and contribute nothing to our fellow man outside of criticism of someone else’s life and work. Dr. King dedicated his adult life to standing up for others and preaching Scripture.

His Letter from a Birmingham Jail is filled with quotes I will write about at a later date – quotes about extremism, unjust laws, etc. Today, I want to reflect on what he said about the church. It seems an appropriate ending to my thoughts today.

If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.

And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.

I simply don’t understand how someone can honestly read his writings and listen to his speeches without a real reverence for his work and ministry while on this earth.