Christianity seems like a hard sell these days. Some of its most famous (or infamous) salesmen are blowhards, narcissists, charlatans, or criminals. Every week it seems, yet another denomination is rocked by accusations or revelations of terrible misdeeds. Various Christian institutions have tolerated, promoted, or even participated in racism, slavery, antisemitism, war, sexual abuse, and on and on.
Yet the world has billions of Christians, and its central
ideas are well known, often respected. In fact, the Christian faith has
animated social reformers through the ages, particularly against slavery and
for civil rights: for example, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Martin
Luther King, Jr. Most people would agree that Dr. King was nominally a
Christian because he was a Baptist Minister. However, some on the left
(including me in times past) would ignore his Christian faith as irrelevant
while revering him as a kind of secular saint. Some on the right would deny that
his faith was genuine or criticize his ideas as un-Christian. I will argue that
his Christian faith was genuine, and fundamental to his formation and effectiveness
as a civil rights leader.
Who or What Is a Christian?
Before we get too far, what do I mean by “Christian”?
Basically, that would be a follower of Christ, of Jesus’ teachings. Most
denominations or individual churches have some kind of statement of beliefs
posted on their website. Though Protestants deny that “works” will “save” you,
they still look for evidence in a believer’s life. A believer should show
evidence of repenting from sins, of spiritual growth, of transformation (“born
again” or “a new creation”). Personally, I look for what the Apostle Paul called the “fruit
of the Spirit”: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance (Galatians 5:22-23).
King: Peacemaker? Troublemaker? Prophet? Martyr?
Communist? Christian?
A white Baptist pastor told me that, growing up Baptist, he was
taught that Dr. King was a communist. I had been reading Birmingham
Revolution: Martin Luther King’s Epic Challenge to the Church, by Edward
Gilbreath, so I copied this and handed it to him on Martin Luther King Day:
A year after the [Montgomery bus] boycott,
in 1957, when the evangelist Billy Graham invited King to lead a prayer at his
Madison Square Garden crusade, he eagerly asked King how he managed to keep the
boycott so peaceful. “Prayer,” said King, simply. “Montgomery was a movement of
prayer.” (pp. 48-49)
Graham also asked Dr. King to lead the New York revival group
in prayer. As Jemar Tisby puts it:
The differences between King and
Graham would become more prominent as the Civil Rights movement continued.
Graham spoke of “law and order” as a solution to urban uprisings. He criticized
King’s direct action nonviolent tactics and admonished him to work within the
established legal and political systems. But in 1957, in front of a crowd of
18,000 New Yorkers who had come to hear about Jesus from this famous
evangelist, King espoused his hope for a racially unified tomorrow.
The entire prayer is at Stanford
University's Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute:
Invocation Delivered at Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Crusade.
(PBS aired a Billy
Graham documentary that describes his rise as “pastor to Presidents,”
including his infamous inclusion on the Nixon tapes.)
The Calling
The catalyst for Graham’s invitation was the Montgomery,
Alabama bus boycott, which started in December 1955 and ended 385 days
later. King had graduated from Morehouse College with a BA in Sociology, Crozer
Theological Seminary, and then Boston College with a PhD. In 1953, he married
Coretta Scott, and the next year, at age 25, he became pastor of the Dexter
Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. Shortly after their first child was born,
Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white man. King was not
the initiator of the boycott. He was brought into the movement somewhat
hesitantly at first. He had declined to be considered for the local NAACP (National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People) chapter presidency due to
his young family, his relative newcomer status, and pastoral responsibilities. Local
leaders saw something in him however and chose him to be the president of the
Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA).
No other candidates were put
forward, and King was asked if he would accept the position. [Ralph] Abernathy,
seated beside him, fully expected King to decline. Instead, after a pause, King
told his colleagues, “Well, if you think I can render some service, I will,”
and accepted the presidency. (Bearing the Cross, p. 22)
Was King called by God? Why would God call a young, even green
pastor, for this mission? When God called David, he was the youngest of eight
brothers. He was still a youngster when he defeated the giant Goliath. When God
chose Israel as His people, it was because they were a small nation, not
because they were great. Incidentally, King was 5’7” tall.
 |
| Martin Luther King, Jr. in front of a Montgomery bus after the successful boycott. Courtesy pbs.org. |
Nonviolence, Love, and Christianity
King would give his first speech as president of the MIA to
a church full of people the same night he was elected:
“First and foremost, we are American
citizens. We are not here advocating violence. We have overcome that.… The only
weapon that we have… is the weapon of protest… the great glory of American
democracy is the right to protest for right… We must keep God in the forefront.
Let us be Christian in all of our action.” The protesters must not hate their
white opponents but be guided by Christian love while seeking justice with
their demands. “Love is one of the pinnacle parts of the Christian faith. There
is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation.” But
the protest was not simply a matter of convincing the white officials of
Montgomery of the justice of the MIA’s cause, King indicated. “Not only are we
using the tools of persuasion, but we’ve got to use tools of coercion. Not only
is this thing a process of education, but it is also a process of legislation.”
Then King closed, reminding the audience to protest courageously but with
dignity and Christian love. Rising to their feet, the people applauded heartily.
(Bearing the Cross, pp. 23-24)
In March 1956, during the on-going boycott, King was invited
to speak at a Brooklyn church. He mentioned Gandhi using passive resistance to break
loose from the British Empire. But he said “I have been a keen student of
Gandhi for many years. However, this business of passive resistance and
nonviolence is the gospel of Jesus. I went to Gandhi through Jesus.” (Bearing
the Cross, p. 75)
Hearing Jesus
It is possible to be raised in a faith tradition, attend
religious services regularly, even become a minister of that faith, and not
truly feel transformed by it. For example, John Wesley, British founder of
Methodism, had been an Anglican minister for ten years when he felt his “heart
strangely warmed” in 1738 and began his movement. (How to Pray, p. 95)
King was leading the boycott, but after a month and a half, and
an arrest on January 26, 1956, he had received death threats to himself and his
young family. These events shook the confidence of King, who had just turned 27.
Late at night, he prayed alone at his kitchen table:
"Lord, I'm down here trying to
do what's right," he prayed, "but I have nothing left." The
voice of Jesus came quietly, King said, but he heard it: "Martin Luther,
stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo, I
will be with you. Even until the end of the world." (Birmingham
Revolution, pp. 51-52)
From that point on, King said that he was not afraid to die,
that the cause was greater than one man, and could continue without him. In
March, King held a press conference after his conviction under an
antiboycott statute. Asked if he was afraid, King said:
No, I’m not. My attitude is that
this is a great cause… the consequences for my personal life are not
particularly important…. And my great prayer is always that God will save me
from the paralysis of crippling fear because I think when a person lives with
the fear of the consequences for his personal life, he can never do anything in
terms of lifting the whole of humanity and solving many of the social problems
that we confront. (Bearing the Cross, pp. 75-76)
Just a few nights after his kitchen table prayer, King’s
house was bombed. Windows were broken and there was a hole in his concrete
porch, but Coretta and his young daughter were unharmed. Martin was at the
First Baptist Church, supervising a collection to help pay for gas, oil, and
tires for volunteer drivers who were transporting boycotters in lieu of using
buses. Coretta called the church and Martin went home. The Police Commissioner,
Mayor, and Fire Chief, and several hundred Black onlookers were already there. As
the crowd grew larger and angrier, the Police Commissioner assured the crowd
they would work to solve the crime, then asked King if he would say something
to the crowd. He told them that everyone was all right, and said:
Don’t get your weapons. He who lives
by the sword will perish by the sword. Remember that is what God said. We are
not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. I want you to love our
enemies. Be good to them. Love them and let them know you love them. I did not
start this boycott. I was asked by you to serve as your spokesman. I want it to
be known the length and breadth of this land that if I am stopped, this
movement will not stop. If I am stopped, our work will not stop. For what we
are doing is right, what we are doing is just. And God is with us. (Autobiography,
p. 80)
The legal actions between the city and the boycotters went
all the way to the Supreme Court. Nearly a year after its start, at another
large meeting at a church, where many ministers from across the South and
beyond attended, King said the real goal was not to defeat the white man, but
“to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense
of superiority.… The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is
the creation of the beloved community” where all men would treat each other as
brothers and equals. (Bearing the Cross, p. 81)
The Black Church and the SCLC
The boycott was not started by King or directly by the
church, but once involved, King and the area Black churches organized it,
publicized it, and held frequent meetings at churches with thousands of
attendees. From the first meeting with King as MIA president, the leaders asked
the attendees to endorse their decisions. The church was the only Black institution
with the standing, membership, and leadership skills to lead the movement.
In 1899, W. E. B. DuBois called the African Methodist
Episcopal (AME) Church, which was by then over 80 years old:
“by long odds the vastest and most
remarkable product of American Negro civilization,” and the Black preacher “the
most unique personality developed by the Negro on American soil – a leader, a
politician, an orator, a ‘boss,’ and intriguer, an idealist.” The community was
generating an original form of leadership that would culminate in Dr. King. (Head
and Heart, p. 292)
After the Montgomery bus boycott, the MIA looked ahead to
public school integration. Bayard Rustin wanted to use “the Montgomery movement
as a basis for a wider civil rights movement across the South.” (Bearing the
Cross, p. 84) This movement would confront Jim Crow laws through mass
direct non-violent action and voter registration. The new organization would be
called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). King insisted on
“Christian” “to emphasize that most of its participants and its potential
popular base came from the black church.” (Bearing the Cross, p. 97) The SCLC
slogan was “to redeem the soul of America.” (Bearing the Cross, p. 285)
King led a “Pilgrimage” to DC in 1957. “This will not be a
political march,” King said. “It will be rooted in deep spiritual faith.” (Bearing the
Cross, p. 90)
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