In his great speeches King’s voice continues to call out for freedom; just as God’s voice within us is calling out for a new
kingdom, so that we may one day all sing out “Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
AMERICA NEEDS A NEW KING
By E.C. Andercheck
The voice calling out for freedom and
justice continues today, it continues to exclaim an urgent need for help, on
behalf of the oppressed and marginalized, it calls from prisons, from
underfunded schools and from the unemployment lines. It calls out from these
hurting places giving witness to injustice and evidencing the persisting
systematic impact of racist and classist policies. This voice calls out to all,
to all who will listen, in a special way it demands that all Christians
consider our society’s failure to deliver justice and preserve human dignity.
This voice is God’s voice within us, exclaiming the need to renovate the core societal
structures, which are failing too many of God’s people.
The call to Religious Leadership
might sound different today, but this call to justice is based on the same call
for human rights and human dignity that called out in Birmingham Alabama to a
young Martin Luther King Jr. in 1955.
The Montgomery Improvement Association began a new movement to bring an
end to the segregationist and violent atrocities erupting from racism and
oppression. The horrors from this lack of social justice were too often
brutally fatal, however so is the outcome of a lack of economic justice today. Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy
of personalism and human dignity lie at the liberation theology roots of the civil
rights movement call to social justice, and today’s call to economic justice; these
two calls are inseparable. Human suffering from poverty echoes the
mid-twentieth century call for a liberating theological response.
I
believe the message of human dignity and love, which were the theological
underpinnings that Martin Luther King Jr. brought to the civil rights movement
seeking social justice, would be the same if he were here to lead a call for
economic justice today. It is my notion that in order to be effective agents of
change, religious leaders today must ground their calls for economic and social
justice firmly with liberating theological underpinnings of love and human
dignity, recalling the lost memory of the work of the Black Church and Southern
Christian Leadership Conference under Martin Luther King Jr.. Social justice
cannot bloom into true liberation and economic justice under the racist and
sexist clouds of classism allowing oppression of marginalized people. Today’s
new social and cultural forms of evil might be subtler in their public action,
but they are no less horrific in their crippling effect on people.
Martin Luther King Jr. provided a
consistently strong theological message based on love and human dignity, with
an unyielding moral vision of the urgent and immediate need to address the
challenges facing the African American people and communities. This acted out
evidence of his interiority, witnessing the depth of his work’s theological
underpinnings provided the basis for the power of his leadership to be an agent
of change. Dr. King’s moral vision of the dignity due to mankind as a human
right, frames the ethical dilemma that struck directly at his core moral
philosophy, which was built significantly on the objective ideal base derived
from his study of Philosophy, Personalism and his Theology.
The need for a more effective agency of change
in today’s struggle for economic justice is clearly calling out for prophetic
leadership. In examining the role of the black
preacher during a National Public Radio interview, Rev. Stephan Epps, asserted,
“I don't think that our community has done, through the black church, as much
to deal with the economic issues first, before politics.”[i]
The future of the Black Church in America is challenged, as are her youth,
unemployment is systemic for young Black men who suffer the lowest demographic
propensity to graduate from high school in our country. Our prisons host one out of every nine young
Black men and one out of every one hundred Americans, a multiple of more than
five times that of any other industrial society. An uninterrupted agenda of racialized
social justice will clearly yield continued economic injustice, and
uninterrupted classism predicts continued racialized poverty.
Viscount Nelson aligns the evolution
of a ‘waning of Black Leadership’ with conservative domination, as evidenced at
a 1980 forum, where he stated, “Thomas Sowell intended to move blacks away from
the ‘old civil rights movement’ towards a more enlightened policy that would
ameliorate the African American condition….reviewing the eighteen blacks and
five whites attending the two day meeting, an overwhelming number comprised
conservatives far to the right of mainstream African American society.”[ii] In the midst of this message we might hear an
echo of Joseph H. Jackson’s conservative priestly approach to focusing on the
positive side and acquiescing to the suffering in survival. This new
conservatism provides the framework for a personal agenda that allows the
socially rising members of today’s more “consumerist” religious America to
follow a Prosperity Gospel and ignore economic justice for the least of
Christ’s people.
In contrast, Dr. King’s voice brought
a visionary and prophetic call for immediate and unrestrained change, delivered
within a theologically grounded message of love and portrayed through personal
action in demonstrations witnessing his beliefs. Dr. King’s moral vision of the
dignity due to human kind as a human right, this frames the moral dilemma that
struck directly at his core. The moral
philosophy, which King built was derived from his study of Personalism. Kenneth
Smith describes the “Themes of Personalism in King’s thoughts: Several themes
occur and reoccur in King’s writings that are clearly traceable to the
influence of personalism. These themes may be treated under the following
headings: (1) the inherent worth of personality, (2) the personal God of love
and reason, (3) the moral law of the cosmos, and (4) the social nature of human
existence.”[iii] The notion of Dr. King’s Beloved Community is built on moral
philosophies of personalism and liberalism, it is demonstrated in the
theological grounding of his speeches from Montgomery to Memphis. We see it in
his numerous references to the redemptive value of love, notably in the story
he tells of Abraham Lincoln and his great detractor Stanton, to his promotion
of the hateful opponent to Secretary of War Stanton, then to the eulogizing
loving and redeemed voice of an affectionate Stanton after Lincoln’s death.
Dr. King lived and studied in the
north; both at Crozier Theological Seminary and at Boston University Graduate
School, this opportunity provided a breadth of theological training and exposure
to philosophical thinkers well grounded in Personalism. The Social Gospel was
actively a part of that dialogue and King engaged it fully, drawing a contribution to his theology. John Colin
Harris summarized, “A logical consequence of the personalist perspective is an
emphasis upon the relation of religion and philosophy to the total historical
process. The social relevance of religious concepts and concerns was one of the
emphases of Boston personalism that found fertile ground in King’s developing
perspective.”[iv]
The human condition of poverty and its debilitating effects on human
personality were a pressing moral concern for Dr. King; Peter Paris said “King
viewed economic justice as a necessary structural framework for the ultimate
end, the blessed community.”[v] King’s moral vision of the society’s
treatment of individuals formed a necessary theological response, and already
while in Boston he had begun the framing of the necessary political theories of
change, which would become activated in Montgomery, Alabama before the ink on
his thesis for Boston University was dry. John Ansbro asserts that, “King
maintained that the social mission of the Christian Church requires that it
have as its primary goal the development of the beloved community.”[vi]
In the beloved community, Dr. King again defines his vision of a freedom
obtained through God’s overarching love in society with love as the force
directing the human social relationships and actions of each member.
Shayne Lee has provided some important
insights into American religion in his nuances regarding religion and economics
in his book America’s New Preacher, T.D. Jakes. Certainly, self help ministries
are accelerants for a providing a message of Christian Hope, and it is apparent
that Jakes is doing so for many people. He is a business ‘success story’ coming
from humble roots to shepherding a flock of 30,000 members in Potter’s House in
Dallas and millions beyond in his TV Ministry. But this raises a question, not
is he a great promoter of his ministry, but is he doing great ministry
promoting justice for all of God’s people? I went to T. D. Jakes website and I
couldn’t listen to a Potter’s House Sunday sermon without clicking in the
donation button. Is the prosperity
gospel only for those who are already educated, employed and are self
actualizing individuals without criminal records? Lee concludes, “T.D. Jakes
mirrors an American dream tainted by materialism. But one thing that has not
changed is that from the depth of his soul to the core of his experience,
Thomas Dexter Jakes is an American Phenomenon.”[vii]
The potential for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as a dream for
all of mankind under an American democracy, has been perverted to an American
dream of selfishness at anyone else’s expense. This is cause for reflection on
our society’s ethics and our voter supported policies. A Christian community
fails to be Christian if it prospers solely the few, mirroring a self enriching
materialistic dream. This perversion might be caused by the loss of memory of
Christian love, and cured by the consciousness religious leadership needs to
recall from the lost memory of our church, community, family and religious
history.
A continued search for systemic
structural flaws that support economic injustice provides insight into King’s
perspective on the failings of society; his genius was that in discovering the
systemic failing he enabled the search for a path to cure. Johnny Hill gives us
a glimpse of the international thought of Dr. King in his book Martin Luther
King Jr. and Desmond Tutu, “King, in particular, was very concerned with
America’s expanding imperialism abroad and the exploitation of American
corporations in Latin America. As he turned his attention to the structural
forces that perpetuate systems of poverty, he recognized there was a pattern of
racialized poverty flowing from western nations across the globe.”[viii]
Today, throughout the world and in America’s great cities, poverty is attacking
human dignity and defeating Christian Hope.
In the introduction to A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches
of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. [ix]
Andrew Young cites King’s daily involvement and moral commitment as a key part
of Dr. King’s engaging leadership in the operations of the civil rights
movement. Andrew Young said, Dr. King “Clearly delineated the moral issues” and
as a leader he was a voice of hope to all men but, “He was first of all a man
of faith, a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus.” The element of the devout
Christian theologian within Dr. King is abundantly clear wherever he travels
and deeply framed within his prophetic calls to action. His leadership’s moral
and theological underpinnings are evidenced in the success of his calls for
justice and in his movement of great forces to drive political change.
For many
years the role of supporting the survival of a flock was the noble and primary
charge of many pastors, this work was beneficial and in a manner consistent
with “the priestly type” of religious leader as defined by Peter Paris[x].
But this is not the necessary agency of change for today, nor was it the
approach of the young Dr. King who brought a prophetic non-violent approach to
change. The liberating theology of Martin Luther King Jr. might be defined
simply as a doctrine growing from the natural response to each of God’s
people’s pain and the response of conscience to call for immediate and equal
justice for each of God’s people. Our hope for political change must be based
on a renewed Christian sense of conscience, faith in God, and the potential of
a truly responsive representative democracy. Dr. King’s, ‘I Have A Dream’ Speech says it best,
“I have a
dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of
its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created
equal……….I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and 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.”[xi]
In
introducing a revival of Dr. King’s, ‘Where
Do We Go from Here’ sermon, the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy spoke about,
“the clarity of King’s vision of economic and social justice as inseparable in
the fight against racism and classism.”[xii] In Dr. King’s speech ‘Where Do We Go from Here’ he says discrimination and segregation
successes are deeply felt….but Black Americans still live in the basement of
the great society and there is a long way to go and,
“We have left the sands of
Egypt….. but we must assert our dignity and worth.
A Majestic sense of self
worth is what is needed
Power without love is
reckless and abusive
Love without power is
sentimental and anemic
Power at its best is
Love implementing the
demands of Justice
And Justice at its best
is love correcting everything that stands
against love.”[xiii]
The call
to economic justice is clearly a Christian Agape Love based ideal asking for
justice to empower the oppressed; this should resonate with all truly Christian
people. However, true economic justice policy results can only be obtained if
the agency for change implements the call to action with an appreciation of the
system.
What is the mysterious formulation for a
Christian Ideal to become fully acted out in a representative democracy today?
First, the theological underpinnings must be well formed at the foundation of
the interiority of the prophetic agency for change. This economic justice
message delivered with intensity and emotional impact will necessarily agitate
systemic structures and threaten institutions.
Second, the agency of change cannot be successful without legitimizing
credentials recognized by a large community of followers and the agents must be
seen as being concerned with systemic reform, not institutional destruction. In
the absence of credentialization, or reforming goals the agent of change will
agitate more fear than the institutional stakeholders can tolerate and the
agency will be denied or terminated.
It is my
appraisal that Dr. King’s leadership contained the key essential elements for
prophetic religious change agency, well grounded in a moral vision of human
equality, based on a Christian theology of agape love, and driven to bring
about a societal systemic change through a political renovation not a
revolution. There is a strong argument to support the notion that the Civil
Rights movement gained its degree of success so directly because of the
concurrent, if not always unified, activity of multiple types of religious
leaders. This having been said, if we combine within our agency of change the
elements of the leaders of the civil rights movement we see agitation to
revolution with a balancing set of calls to reasonable renovation. I would make
the case that the civil rights movement could not have achieved the degree of
success it did without the extraordinary liberationist leadership of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., a theologically endowed prophetic leader and I believe he is
the most effective leadership model for the center of today’s economic justice agency
for change.
In order to bring about an assault sufficient
to commence a real change in economic justice in America today, I envision the
need for an agency of change with a prophetic call sounded through a strong
theological message with a well credentialized socio political approach. Religious leadership will have to unify in
calling out for God’s power to advance the democratic principles of our nation
to foster massive new social enterprises, commit substantial government
resources to support the re entry of prisoners into the main stream of American
life, to equally educate all Americans and to be certain that every American
who can work has a job or a government job and those who cannot work will have
a life saving net of dignified public support. In working towards the beloved
community, Dr. King said “We are tied together in a single garment of destiny,
caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.”[xiv] Kenneth Smith summarizes, “This was King’s
homiletical way of affirming that reality is composed of structures that form
an interrelated whole.”[xv]
Martin Luther King Jr.’s work provides both a theological and an ethical vision
of the Liberation Praxis necessary to address the challenges facing the
American people today.
America’s need for a new King (a modern day version
of Martin Luther King, Jr.) is more evident than ever; it is love that brings
freedom and polarization that enslaves. King knew Freedom was never easily
achieved; but he knew the fight would be worth it when one day we could all
sing out “Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” In his great speeches King’s voice continues to calls out for freedom; just as God’s voice
within us is calling out for a new kingdom.
Edward C Andercheck
[i] Stephan Epps, Examining the role of the Black Preacher, In a National Public
Radio interview, (New York, National Public Radio, 2007)
[ii] Nelson Viscount, The
Rise and Fall of Modern Black Leadership, (New York, University Press of America, 2003)
,pg251
[iii] Kenneth L. Smith, Search
for the Beloved Community: The thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr., (Valley
Forge, Judson Press, 1974), 104.
[iv] John Colin Harris, The
Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr.,(PhD diss., Duke University Department
of Religion, 1974), 97.
[v]
Peter J.
Paris, Black Religious Leaders Conflict
in Unity, (Louisville, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991), 140.
[vi] John J. Ansbro, Martin
Luther King Jr.,Nonviolent Strategies and Tactics for Social Change, (New
York, Madison Books, 2000), 187.
[vii] Shayne Lee’s, America’s New Preacher, T. D.
Jakes,(2005, NYU Press,) 189
[viii] Johnny Bernard Hill, The Theology of Martin Luther King Jr. and Desmond TuTu,(New York,
Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 159.
[ix] Andrew Young, A
Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King jr., Hachette
Audio compact disc, 2009.
[x] Peter J. Paris, Black
Religious Leaders Conflict in Unity, (Louisville, Westminster/John Knox
Press, 1991), 17.
[xi]Martin Luther King Jr., speeches that changed the world,
(London, Smith Davies, 2005), 152
Xi Edward M. Kennedy, A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King
jr., Hachette Audio compact disc,
2009.
Xii Martin Luther King Jr., Where do we go from
here, Speeches that changed the world,
(London, Smith Davies, 2005), 152
[xiv] Martin Luther King Jr., The speeches that changed the world, (London, Smith Davies, 2005),
154.
[xv] Smith, Kenneth L. , Search for the Beloved Community: The thinking of Martin Luther King,
Jr., (Valley Forge, Judson Press, 1974)
Partial Bibliography
Ansbro, John J., Martin Luther King Jr.: Nonviolent
Strategies and Tactics for Social Change, (New York, Madison Books, 2000)
Epps, Stephan, Examining
the role of the Black Preacher, In a National Public Radio interview, (New York, National
Public Radio, 2007
Harris, John Colin, The Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr.,(PhD
diss., Duke University Department of Religion, 1974)
Hill, Johnny Bernard, The Theology of Martin Luther King Jr. and
Desmond TuTu,(New York, Palgrave MacMillan, 2007)
Kennedy, Edward M. , A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches
of Dr. Martin Luther King jr., Hachette Audio compact disc, 2009.
King, Martin Luther Jr., I Have a Dream, speeches that changed the
world, (London, Smith Davies, 2005)
Lee, Shayne, America’s New Preacher, T. D. Jakes,(New
York, NYU Press, 2005)
Nelson, Viscount, The Rise and Fall of Modern Black Leadership,
(New York, University Press of
America, 2003)
Paris, Peter J.,Black Religious Leaders Conflict in Unity, (Louisville,
Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991)
Smith, Kenneth L. , Search for the Beloved Community: The
thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr., (Valley Forge, Judson Press, 1974)
Young, Andrew, A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches
of Dr. Martin Luther King jr., Hachette Audio compact disc, 2009
