OPINION
This post happened across my Facebook feed this morning.
This post is pretty typical of many politicians on MLK Day. It purports to honor Martin Luther King Jr. while separating him from the context of his life and work.
All of this is done while many of the same politicians enact laws and support policies and wars that Dr. King preached against.
I am sure Dr. King believed in being kind, showing compassion and serving our communities. I am sure he may have mentioned these things in his sermons.
But that is not what he preached about.
Read Dr. King’s Sermons
If you want to know what Dr. King actually preached about you should read Strength to Love.
Dr. King preached about love. But his view of love and what it means for our world is counter-cultural. It is not a weak love, and it is not always kind and compassionate. It is strong love that only exists when it leads to action against injustice.
It is a love that seeks and works toward the welfare of others, not ourselves. In these days of Christian Nationalism which rejects love for something alien, it is worth the time to read and reflect on the real sermons of Dr. King.
He began writing the sermons in this book while in jail. They were preached during and after the Montgomery Bus Boycott. They are not mere philosophy or theological reflections. They are a call to active love. To King love cannot be passive. Christian love requires movement and action.
“How often are our lives characterized by a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds! We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism. We proclaim our devotion to democracy, but we sadly practice the very opposite of the democratic creed. We talk passionately about peace, and at the same time we assiduously prepare for war. We make our fervent pleas for the high road of justice, and then we tread unflinchingly the low road of injustice. This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man’s earthly pilgrimage.” –Strength To Love
The Dr. King Many Prefer
We seem to like the sanitized version of Dr. King better than the reality.
White society has quickly forgotten how much they hated him and how relieved many of our fathers and grandfathers were when he was dead.
We live in an era where our political leaders, including Mr. Pfluger want to “white wash” history. Make it pleasant and make it nice and don’t mention all the horrible things our grandparents believed and did or allowed to happen.
They promote an idea of Dr. King that is more Mr. Rogers than anything else–harmless and safe.
The truth of history can, in the hands of a clever manipulator, be transformed into a story, and eventually a myth. Soon the myth replaces the reality. This is a great loss because truth teaches while myths are a pleasant narcotic.
It is understandable why the MAGA radical right, of which Mr. Pfluger is one, does not want to deal with the uncomfortable reality of MLK Jr.
The Uncomfortable Dr. King
Today many of our leaders like to portray Dr. King as the perennial man of peace. We repeat his pleasant and comfortable words and tend to forget the other things he said.
Things like:
The majority of white Americans consider themselves sincerely committed to justice for the Negro. They believe that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony. But unfortunately this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity.” — Where Do We Go From Here, 1967
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” —“Beyond Vietnam,” 1967
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.” — Speech to SCLC Board, 1967
And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?…It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.” — “The Other America,” 1968
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” — Letter From Birmingham Jail, 1963
Much like Jesus and Gandhi we lose sight of that fact that King did not call for a passive peace but active resistance against injustice, for the overthrowing of the existing order. That is what strong love, what Christian love, demands.
Dr. King and MAGA
I write these things in this new era in our country when it is in vogue to pretend like racial discrimination, systemic injustice and crippling poverty are things of the past.
Now you hear ideas expressed openly that were only whispered before. Things like humans have no right to clean water, food or healthcare.
We believe the lie that a safety net for farmers and business are considered a necessary function of government, but a safety net for the least of these fallen on hard times is a handout.
Right now it is popular to do away with DEI, welfare programs or anything that smacks of correcting long standing, historical injustices.
We act as if slavery, lynching, Jim Crow laws, and ungodly wealth held selfishly in the hands of a few are still good policies we should pursue.
We pretend like these historical things no longer exist while at the same time we create newer more modern versions that have the same result. They are all dog whistles.
If you starve a man to death he is just as dead as if you hanged him from a tree.
If you refuse to educate children on science and historical truth you make them just as illiterate as if they were slaves.
In fact that is the only thing they will be fit for since they will no longer be allowed or able to think for themselves.
Spiritual Transformation and Love
Dr. King preached that only through spiritual transformation was it possible to love and fight the evils of the world with a humble and loving spirit.
He did not call for kindness, compassion and service to our community. He called for a revolution of love to overthrow the powerful and build a world based on courage, hope, strong love and justice.
So we killed him for it.
And we were glad.
Now we vote for and applaud a political movement trying to kill Dr. King’s dream and make sure there will be no resurrection.
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
