Dr. King and the Religious Left

In these times, we are sorely lacking in moral leaders. We have people like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, Jr. who claim to be our nation’s moral authority. And yet they continue to back a man whose actions and behavior serve as an example of what is unchristian: denying immigrants a safe refuge from their respective countries; working not as a steward to the environment, but as a shill for coal mining companies; and forgetting what Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” These abhorrent examples among others have shown that we are lacking a true moral authority.

These men of the cloth, along with their predecessors: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Oral Roberts among others, have used their faith to move this country, the United States of America, in the wrong direction; towards a fiery path of destruction, hatred, and malice; and away from (to ironically quote Ronald Reagan) a shining city on the hill, where equality, love, and respect rule the day.

In these times though, we can at least look back at the example of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we celebrate today. Though celebrated on all sides of the political spectrum, and though manipulated to justify not supporting current civil rights issues of our time, like the Black Lives Matter movement and the work of Colin Kaepernick; the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was on the religious left.

Yes, the religious left. Not the same team as the Falwell's and Grahams of the world, but rather something else. Dr. King, who people forget was a Southern Baptist Minister, was always guided by his faith when advocating for civil rights, economic rights, and environmental justice, among other issues.

One verse of scripture that Dr King always carried in his heart was the Golden Rule. “Therefore whatever you desire me to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) Dr. King saw the Golden Rule as being of utmost importance because he saw that black people and other people of color were not (and still are not) getting a fair shake in life. With Jim Crow Laws, poll taxes, police brutality, and other forms of de-jure segregation ruling the day, Dr. King used the Golden Rule to justify his fight for civil rights among other issues.

The Golden Rule is also why, in addition to being influenced by the works of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King advocated for non-violence. “Put your sword back in its place; for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52) For how can someone advocate for treating others the way they want to be treated, if they’re violent with others? Dr. King may have been arrested tens of dozens of times through his life, but it was never because he was violent. After all, violence begets violence.

Dr. King often quoted scripture in his writings and speeches. In his Letter From A Birmingham Jail, Dr. King wrote:

“Was Jesus not an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice? Paul for the Christian Gospel? And Martin Luther, John Bunyan, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson? And so the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?”

Because of scripture, Dr. King knew in his heart that what he was doing was right and good. Many people claimed Dr. King was an extremist, but he knew that his “extremism” was rooted in the right place and was for the right reasons.

We see him quote scripture some more in his I Have A Dream speech, where he proclaims, while quoting Amos this time “No we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” With this reference, Dr. King stresses not just the urgency of the civil rights movement, but also the urgency for economic justice. He acknowledged that equal rights were no good if you had no money or other financial means to enjoy them. And mind you, it’s often forgotten that this speech was given at the March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom, which emphasized both messages.

In his final speech, I’ve Been To The Mountaintop, which was given the night before his martyrdom, Dr. King evoked God in order to defend the rights of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, who were on strike for equal treatment and better working conditions. “We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God’s children...we don’t have to live like we are forced to live.” Going back to the Golden Rule, Dr. King was saying that under God’s eyes, and as the children of God, we’re all equal. And since we are all equal under God, why can’t we be equal under the law of man?

Of course, there are other fine examples of Americans on the religious left, who used their faith as a guide to making the United States of America “a more perfect union,” as our constitution emboldens us to do. This included Cesar Chavez, a devout Roman Catholic who successfully fought to unionize migrant farm workers in California and the Southwest; Dorothy Day, a convert to Roman Catholicism who was also a strong advocate for workers rights; Helen Keller, a Swedenborgian Lutheran who was one of the founding members of the American Civil Liberties Union; Pauli Murray, the first black female ordained as an Episcopal Priest, and who also co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW); and Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic Nun best known for her work in advocating for the abolition of the death penalty, among others.

With the exception of Sister Prejean, all of these people are long dead; which leads me to ask: who will take their mantle? Or rather, who has taken their mantle?

One person that is the most promising person on the religious left today is the Rev. William Barber of North Carolina. After Pat McCrory, a Republican, was elected Governor, he led an effort to cut social spending and education in North Carolina, gut LGBT rights, reproductive rights, and disenfranchise black voters. Rev. Barber counterattacked this regressionist agenda by leading a weekly protest called Moral Mondays, which involved hundreds of people gathering at the North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh, rallying for politicians to stop doing these things. Every week, many dozens of people, including the Rev. Barber, were arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience, in the same vein as Dr. King was.

But because of Rev. Barber and the efforts of others, Pat McCrory was not reelected Governor of North Carolina. And his Moral Mondays protests spread to other states across the south, where they are seeking to change the status quo in those places. And now, 50 years after the martyrdom of Dr. King, Rev. Barber is picking up on his work. Because of Rev. Barber, we are seeing a renewed effort for another Poor People’s Campaign, advocating on closing the ever widening gap of income inequality, universal health insurance, a living wage, and other issues of economic justice. Before Dr. King was martyred, he was working on the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968, but died before seeing it come to fruition. Though the campaign didn’t achieve many of the things it wanted, it prompted an increase in social spending in areas like education and housing. Regardless though of the previous outcome, seeing this effort renewed, as well as his other work, Rev. Barber gives me hope.

Finally, though I ask who will take the mantle of Dr. King and others, we must also remember what the Bible says about hearing our calling. At my church the other day, we did a reading from the book of Samuel, where Samuel hears Eli call him, but everytime he answers Eli, Eli tells him that he didn’t call for him. Finally, Eli figures out that God is calling Samuel and then Samuel hears the word of God and does his bidding. After the reading, the Reverend at my church (I attend an Episcopal Church) stressed in his sermon that we must listen for our call. Though he kept the sermon mostly about hearing our calling in the terms of our faith (being baptized, serving in a soup kitchen, etc.), he also meant hearing our calling to do the right thing and the honest thing, which in a sense is doing the work and bidding of God. This includes voting, attending marches and protests, and calling for radical change, and doing so called radical things, like getting arrested, and other acts of civil disobedience; for like Dr. King, we too can be “extremists for love.”

So with that said, we must not just wait around for people like Rev. Barber to do this work, but we must also look into ourselves for moral authority, and we must also get to work ourselves.

I think Dr. King would have felt the same.