Honoring and dishonoring Martin Luther King Jr.
To the Editor,
I am proud to live in a nation whose people observe a holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. As a Christian, I am proud of the “days of service” organized by churches and other faith communities. King would feel grateful and honored that his birthday is celebrated in this way.
But MLK would feel dishonored by the churches’ silence in response to his pleas to boldly and publicly oppose racial and economic injustice. Across America, churches’ websites proclaim the beauty of their sanctuaries, their worship opportunities, their programs for youth and adults. They do not proclaim that white nationalism, and silence in response to white nationalism, are sins against God.
King wrote that “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” He believed this is as true for churches as for individuals. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” he wrote, “So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is the arch-defender of the status quo. … the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are. But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. 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.”
King’s words were prescient. Since he wrote them, millions have abandoned their churches.
In their daily lives, they see the societal moral decay that they expect their church to speak to, unequivocally. They are leaving because their churches have abandoned imitatio Dei in favor of quietude in the pews. They are leaving in dismay at their churches’ deafening silence in the face of blatant social injustice.
Martin Luther King Jr. knew that silence in response to evil is itself evil. As long as he is honored, Christian churches will be forced to consider their complicity in injustice. But awareness is only the first step toward wholeness, toward aligning a church’s actions with its preaching. Congregations, not just clergy, must speak boldly and clearly. They must put aside their fear, and then dare greatly, screw their courage to the sticking place, and act.
A good start might be to camp out at the offices of congresspersons, carrying the church’s banner. Let the representative know, in love, that there are no nice white nationalists. Ask them to say that publicly, in honor of, and with gratitude toward, Martin Luther King Jr.
Grant Grissom
Media
