Obama and His Church
In dealing with the firestorm of criticism over the views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama had a choice of approaches. He was probably smart to focus on race; the subject has hung over his campaign in positive and negative ways from the beginning, and he's now made it clear that the legacy of racism--not just Democratic and Republican gridlock or the narcissistic baby boomer conflicts of the 1990s--is part and parcel of the "past" he is promising to help transcend through acts of reconciliation.
But the Wright controversy also touches on religion, and in a few brief references in his speech, Obama hinted at an alternative approach he probably considered, and might even return to in the future.
Here's what Obama had to say about Trinity UCC Church and its pastor:
The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS....Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children...I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.
On one level, this is a statement of racial solidarity. But on another, it's an argument that the church is the embodiment of the community it serves, with all its imperfections, which Obama bluntly describes. This is a very old, very "Catholic" idea of the church as an organic expression of "the people" as they happen to exist. It is likely to be baffling to those white Protestant Americans who think of church membership as more of a matter of consumer preference, doctrinal agreement or family heritage (none of which seem to have been major factors in Obama's original "conversion" at Trinity UCC) and who also probably don't understand why Obama didn't just choose a different congregation the first time he heard something objectionable from Wright's pulpit.
The difference in perspective, which Obama indirectly alludes to, is the unique community leadership role played in this country by the African-American church. In Jim Crow society, the church was often the only strong institution in many African-American communities. It had to play a social and even political role, and it's no accident that it supplied most of the leaders of the early civil rights movement, along with its anthems and martyrs.
The sense of community responsibility is sometimes felt with special poignance by the African-Americans of the UCC (successors of the Congregationalists), long identified with the highest levels of the black bourgeiosie. That seems to have been true of Trinity. Jack and Jill Politics blogger Rikyrah said this about the church in a post at OpenLeft yesterday:
Trinity UCC is about empowerment. It is not full of 'radicals'. It's full of 'Strivers' like Barack and Michelle Obama. It is full of what has to be called ' The Talented Tenth'. These folks are not radicals; they are the most connected to 'The System' within the Black community....Wright demanded of his congregation that they have an active part in the world in which they live. Trinity is one of the most affluent congregations, regardless of race, in the entire state. That they show some self-respect; that Dr. Wright, and now Rev. Moss challenge them to give back - how is that a bad thing?
When they were building their new multi-million sanctuary, they could have gone anywhere in the city or suburbs - they would have been welcome. THEY CHOSE to locate, literally across the railroad tracks, from a housing project. This was a display of their commitment to the community.
But there's another important thing to say about Rev. Wright that's as much about religion as about race. In his offensive comments about America, he wasn't just making an inflammatory political statement. He was overtly adopting a prophetic stance. "God Damn America" isn't just a profane and angry set of three words; it is quite literally an invocation for God to chastise what Wright considered a wicked society, much as his namesake, the Jewish Prophet Jeremiah, called on God to bring his own people back into obedience by subjecting them to the wrath of the Babylonians.
The prophetic stance has a very old history in Protestantism, and in fact, is the implicit and sometimes explicit foundation for the current political radicalism of the Christian Right. While conservative evangelical pastors have so far as I know avoided calling on God to "Damn America" (though Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson came very close to it when initially blaming 9/11 on the country's sinful ways), the phrase may well be in the back of their minds as they describe America as a depraved country that casually kills its children by the millions, persecutes Christians, and seeks to destroy the family. Those conservative commentators who have expressed so much shock and outrage at Wright's words need to look around at their comrades on the cultural barricades.
So while the saga of Barack Obama, his church and his pastor is most definitely about race, it's also about the inherently uneasy relationship of Christian believers to "this world." As a politician who has shown a remarkable degree of depth in weighing into the usually shallow waters of debate on the subject of religion and politics, Obama might want to address this subject more directly at some point. I don't know anyone better equipped to, say, compare and contrast Wright's prophetic stance to that of Martin Luther King, Jr., who moved and changed America instead of damning it--precisely what Barack Obama says he intends to do as president of the United States.
Comments (39)
. . . compare and contrast Wright's prophetic stance to that of Martin Luther King, Jr. . . . .
No problem.
Jeremiah Wright's a Christian, who looks to God's Providence to change the world; Martin Luther King, Jr., was an atheist -- well, maybe a deist -- who looked to humanity itself to change that world.
March 18, 2008 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
I really enjoy your comments, but I wonder, in this particular case, how it is you concluded the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an atheist or a deist?
King was motivated by his belief that Christian's cannot and should not wait, but must make themselves instruments of justice in the world. His brand of Christianity sees being a Christian as first and foremost a long and irrevocable set of responsibilities and living one's life accordingly. I don't think King could have conceived of doing all he did without his deep Christian commitment.
March 19, 2008 2:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
King was motivated by . . . his deep Christian commitment.
How could you possibly know what motivated him? How could you possibly know what he believed in?
March 19, 2008 4:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
The reason I know this is because he wrote and spoke extensively about it. I take him at his own word. He was, after all, an ordained minister so his deep commitment to his religious beliefs should come as no surprise. It's because of this that I was sort of amazed you assert he was an atheist or deist.
March 19, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
You are a blooming idiot. No other way to say it. You couldn't even be bothered to check your foolishly wrong assertion with the most basic of research: Wikipedia:
"Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. King's father was born "Michael King", and Martin Luther King, Jr. was initially named "Michael King, Jr.", until 1935, when "his father changed both of their names to Martin to honor the German Protestant (Martin Luther)."[2] He had an older sister, Willie Christine (September 11, 1927) and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel (July 30, 1930 – July 1, 1969). King sang with his church choir at the 1939 Atlanta premiere of the movie Gone with the Wind. He entered Morehouse College at age fifteen, skipping his ninth and twelfth high school grades without formally graduating. In 1948, he graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, and graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity (B.D.) degree in 1951. In September 1951, King began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University and received his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) on June 5, 1955[3] (but see the Plagiarism section for controversy regarding this degree). In 1953, at age 24, King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama."
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us what he believed in through his writings. Perhaps you should read some of them: from sermons to speeches and "Letters from a Birmingham Jail," if you bother to look before you leapt headlong into idiocy you might have learned something.
Stick to topics you know.
March 19, 2008 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you've demonstrated that MLK took courses in sociology and in the family business -- and that he became a if not the leader of the Civil Rights Movement and in performing that role employed Biblical language.
What you've failed to demonstrate, however, is that he was a Christian or even, that he believed in God.
March 19, 2008 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
And of course equally you've failed to prove that he was an atheist or deist, as nobody can prove what he truly believed. Let's move on.
March 19, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right you are; and thusly, "Ye shall know them by their fruits" (Matt. 7:16) is all the proofs we can or should ask for.
March 19, 2008 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
Here's a brief passage from a book by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The book's title was "The Strength to Love." It was published in 1963. It is but one of many indications of his deep Christian faith. I think you might find it pertinent.
Here it is:
One of the most dedicated participants in the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama was an elderly Negro whom we affectionately called Mother Pollard. Although poverty-stricken and uneducated, she was amazingly intelligent and possessed a deep understanding of the meaning of the movement. After having walked for several weeks, she was asked is she were tired. With ungrammatical profundity, she answered, "My feets is tired, but my soul is rested."
On a particular Monday evening, following a tension-packed week which included being arrested and receiving numerous threatening telephone calls, I spoke at a mass meeting. I attempted to convey an over impression of strength and courage, although I was inwardly depressed and fear-stricken. At the end of the meeting, Mother Pollard came to the front of the church and said, "Com here, son." I immediately went to her and hugged her affectionately. "Something is wrong with you," she said. "You didn't talk strong tonight." Seeking further to disguise my fears, I retorted, "Oh, no, Mother Pollard, nothing is wrong. I am feeling as fine as ever." But her insight was discerning. "Now you can't fool me," she said. "I knows something is wrong. Is it that we ain't doing things to please you? Or is that the white folks is bothering you?" Before I could respond, she looked directly into my eyes and said, "I don told you we is with you all the way." Then her face became radiant and she said in words of quiet certainty, "But even if we ain't with you, God's gonna take care of you." As she spoke these consoling words, everything in me quivered and quickened with the pulsing tremor of raw energy.
Since that dreary night in 1956, Mother Pollard passed on to glory and I have known very few quiet days. I have been tortured without and tormented within by the raging fires of tribulation. I have been forced to muster what strength and courage I have to withstand howling winds of pain and jostling storms of adversity. But as the years have unfolded the eloquently simple words of Moth Pollard have come back again and again to give light and peace and guidance to my troubled soul. "God's gonna take care of you."
This faith transforms the whirlwind of despair into a warm and reviving breeze of hope. The words of a motto which a generation ago were commonly found on the wall in the homes of devout persons needs to be etched on our hearts:
Fear knocked at the door.
Faith answered.
There was no on there.
March 19, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Kilgore says:
I don't know anyone better equipped to, say, compare and contrast Wright's prophetic stance to that of Martin Luther King, Jr., who moved and changed America instead of damning it--precisely what Barack Obama says he intends to do as president of the United States.
I think it would be a good idea to read a bit more King before making this comparison. Here's King, speaking at the National Cathedral in Washington in 1968:
"One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of things we’ve done. Yes, we will be able to say we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings to kiss the skies. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate oceanic depths. We brought into being many other things with our scientific and technological power.
It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, 'That was not enough! But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me.' That’s the question facing America today."
Read the whole thing at
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/sermons/680331.000_Remaining_Awake.html
Prior to this, King recounts the Parable of Dives and Lazarus, noting that Dives was sent to Hell, and all his riches didn't save him.
King may have been more "literary" and "polished" than the Reverend Wright. I don't know, I've only heard what the media has chosen to let me hear. But I think it inescapable that King was calling America to Divine Judgment no less than Wright, even though he was perhaps too polite to use the word Damn in the National Cathedral. To my mind, there wasn't a lick-spittle's difference in their prophetic stances beyond the elegance of King's rhetoric, and King was killed for his.
aMike
March 18, 2008 9:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems that I can hear the God of history saying . . . .
Are you sure it's not just tinnitus?
March 18, 2008 11:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, I get it now. Here's your internal logic: (a) I, Ellen, don't believe in God, (b) I like
Martin Luther King Jr., (c) therefore, there's no proof MLK believed in God or was a Christian. Whether he was a practicing minister in Christianity is besides the point. You're both pathetic and comical.
March 19, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi Ed:
Thanks for this. As I posted in a blog yesterday, it's quite plausible that there were many reason Obama would stay at his church:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/why-did-barack-obama-stay-at-t.php
I based some of this on my own experience as a pastor. You've filled in more of the gaps by providing some of the context of the actual situation at Trinity. I had the chance to visit there once it the 90s...and although it was clearly centered in the black tradition, there was nothing that I found particularly surprising that morning.
Thanks again.
March 18, 2008 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
But Eric, the whole argument still relies on some religious exceptionalism. Something like: "It's okay to belong a church where you don't agree with what the pastor says because the church represents the community... good and bad." We don't tend to make that argument about any other institution. If I were a regular at a bar where the bartender was a fascist, wouldn't you say: "Uh... why do you go there?" If I shopped at a store that exclusively sold products made by child labor (or worse, if I shopped at Wal-Mart) wouldn't you say: "Uh, why do you shop there?"
I just have to reject the notion that different rules should apply to a church just because it's part of religion.
March 18, 2008 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, I have to admit that I don't find Rev. Wright's comments offensive or shocking. In fact, I'm more shocked and offended by the fact that so many of my fellow whites seem so incapable of understanding black Americans' ambiguous feelings about a government and power structure that allowed them to be enslaved for its first century and severely discriminated against for its second. Wright's rhetoric is strong (and in places stretches the facts), but exaggerated rhetoric has a long tradition in all religions. Read the Old Testament prophets or the sermons of the Puritans for just a few examples.
Beyond that, I don't understand why politicians should be expected to be 100% consistent--or be forced to reject the entire body of person's or an organization's work just because some single aspect of it is "politically incorrect" in one way or another. The reality is that life is very complex and people who think in more complicated ways than the Fox News crowd (or their left-wing equivalents, if there are any anymore) can't be 100% consistent in all things. Demanding such consistency is the same as demanding idiocy. Consistency, as the saying goes, really is the hobgoblin of little minds.
All that said, the religiousity of Americans strikes me as a bit atavistic. It strikes me as odd both that Obama felt the need to emphasize his religious connections and that Americans actually care about what goes on in his church. As someone willing to accept complexity and "the whole package," I don't feel any need to insist that Obama reject religion for me to vote for him to be President. Still, this emphasis on religion is one part of Obama--and one part of our entire political culture--that I would like to see disappear.
March 19, 2008 7:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seeing a church as a commodity that can be shrugged off like a bad stole is an apparent trademark of our current market driven and consumerism-mad society. Or perhaps this perspective comes from those who are unfamiliar with churches or other organizations--like quitting a choir singing music one loves because the pianist is gay?
This sort of rhetoric is not familiar to most whites--but perhaps it should be. Ignoring the black perspective on events is our mutual tragedy. In the aftermath of Katrina with a Prez who flew over and looked down, do we expect love or rage from black pulpits? Perhaps most sadly we expect silence.
No, Obama would not have left his church because he has actually listened to the anger and rage accompanied by the sorrow. What a sad life white Americans must want to lead as they turn and walk away from every challenge in a rigid insistence that their particular view is correct for everyone. What I like about Obama is that he tries a different model--condemning without deserting.
March 19, 2008 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the point is that bartenders, pastors, grandmothers, uncles--in fact, any of us, are not simply "racists" or "fascists" (or liberals or conservatives or whatever).
Perhaps your bartenders has some stupid political views which he occassionally expresses, but never really does anything about. But you also know that he looks after his patrons, gently cutting them off before they get too plastered, getting them a ride home, talking to them about their troubles. And he is respectful of his wife and caring toward his children. And you know there is this bartender down the street who expresses political views which match your own, but you know he's an ass in his personal life.
My late Italian-American father-in-law expressed many ethnic and racial slurs. But he had many more black friends and business associates than I ever will, through his years of working as a fight manager and nightclub owner. As I grew to know him, and to learn about the course of his life, I understood how this paradox had developed in him. And I could love and respect him for the totality of what he was, while I rejected his occassional hateful language.
What Obama said was that he knows much more about Wright than what is in those clips, from many, many other sermons, from his many private discussions with him, and from watching his actions and interactions as the pastor of a church which, from the reports which I've seen, appears to be very much in the mainstream, and a very positive social force in the community.
And Obama said that he understood how Wright's background had led him to a certain point of view about racism being endemic in this country, but that he thinks Wright is clearly wrong on that point. But that given all that he knows much more about Wright than his position on that one point, he still believe Wright deserves his love and respect for the entirety of his person.
March 19, 2008 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
"white Protestant Americans who think of church membership as more of a matter of consumer preference"
Isn't there a thread between the American Protestant church and Trinity? If not, why not? I'm no longer a white Protestant American (damn, still white, still American) but isn't this more the case of Senator Obama's "consumer preference." An agnostic, he left his white Protestant American upbringing and his white Protestant American world of Harvard and relocated to Chicago's South Side and "chose" a church that gave him AA cred for his community activism and political journey and immediately converted to Christianity as defined by his church, anyway. The whole thing is a political issue (or just a primary campaign issue at this point). Defining it as a religious or grand race problem is a political strategy. Pastor Wright is just that, a pastor. Barack Obama is not MLK (well, maybe for a day).
March 19, 2008 5:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is no "American Protestant church," but in fact the United Church of Christ is a mainstream protestant denomination.
I think Kilgore is kind of missing the point, though. It wasn't that Obama chose to focus on race rather than religion; rather, Obama was acknowledging that the two are inextricably linked in a church like Trinity.
March 19, 2008 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, DancingBear. It was a very late night when I posted and I didn’t know what I was talking about even more than usual. I simply meant "Am Protestant tradition and Trinity church." I agree with you and would add that not only race and religion but politics are intertwined there. That Obama joined Trinity as an agnostic seems to say something about consumer choice.
March 19, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think some white churches are about consumer preference. Look at the rise of mega-churches. Is Joel Osteen "selling" a kind of Christianity that comes with a "feel good" message? Rick Warren? Too soft for you? What about Oral and Richard Roberts? Or Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist?
In every community across this country there are churches and temples and synagogues that cater to a particular "flavor" of every religion. There are those with a strong community mission and there are those who set up in temporary storefronts and preach hellfire and brimstones, who rail against evolution and speak of God's wrath. There are parents who send their children to Jesus camp for indoctrination over the summer with (former) reverends like Ted Haggard who hid his authentic gay self by vehement gay bashing. Did those parishioners walk out in a huff? No, they sent their kids back to Jesus camp.
But I think what many white folks are not looking at is the fact that many of their churches deliver the same kinds of messages to largely white audiences that would make the little hairs on the backs of black necks stand on end... or gays feel hated, as well. There is a similarity to sermons that preach "God damns gays" (and once upon a time not so long ago damned blacks and browns); to sermons that teach God damns America with these plagues of natural disasters like Hurricanes named Katrina.
I find it disingenuous that white folks are saying "I would have walked out" when in reality they've stayed glued to their seats, and dutifully paid their tithes to hear messages just as divisive. Perhaps not delivered with such theatricality, but a similarly chilling message. I've seen white preachers lead white people in school busing boycotts that got violent. I'm talking about Boston, not Selma.
How conveniently short are our memories?
I see a larger and more telling difference between a man going to a place he knows is a bastion of religious intolerance to seek their blessing -- going to Bob Jones University for example versus a man who before personal motivation moved him to find political office found his spirituality in a church that supported his mission of social change.
If he knew 20 years ago, or back in kindergarten that he was running for the Presidency in 2008, perhaps Obama would have made a politically safe choice and joined the "right" church instead of the "Wright" church. I'm glad he picked the one he did.
March 19, 2008 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
But “God Hates Fags.”
Isn’t that pure hate speech? I agree totally, Jade, and Bob Jones is a good case in point. I recall Bush’s pilgrimage there in 2000. It’s hypocritical all around, but I would like to see religion scrubbed from politics and government as much as possible.
Still, the gay bashing issue might not be the example to use here as many AA churches seem to be guilty of the same. And Obama has had a problem with this, too. From Mother Jones: “Despite the backlash, gay-bashing preacher-singer Donnie McClurkin brought the noise to the contender's South Carolina, pander-to-black-hatred tour stop yesterday.”
I believe this was more of a campaign gaffe, but I do think that Obama has a problem with the tenets of Trinity. It's just that it is a political problem and has little to do with religion (except in terms of perception).
March 19, 2008 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a newsflash on AA churches, Obama and gays:
(1) Obama has spoken out about the homophobia which has been freely expressed at many Black churches;
(2) Reverend Wright has married homosexual couples and has also spoken out against homophobia;
(3) The Donnie McClurkin episode was a political gaffe in an effort to garner more Black votes, but not at all an example of Obama's own views.
March 22, 2008 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen suggests it may be ringing in my ears rather than the Voice of God. If it is, the ringing was in MLK's ears and not in mine. The italicized section indicating a direct quote from King's Sermon at the National Cathedral should have extended one more paragraph. Had this mediocre new posting mechanism allowed a preview I would have caught it.
But I guess the privilege of receiving an Ellen snark makes the lack of proofreading ability all worthwhile.
March 19, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen -- why is it incumbent on others to prove MLK was a Christian, when he himself claimed to be? What's your evidence that he's lying? The guy was an ordained Baptist minister who preached Sunday sermons and discussed Jesus all the time, as in his letter from Birmingham jail and in his final speech, as just two examples. You seem to know next to nothing about one of the most prominent figures in American history.
March 19, 2008 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" is a political document arguing in favor of civil disobedience. It has the added rhetorical punch of hoisting the Christian minister-addressees on their own petard. It just as well could have been written by Thoreau or for that matter Ambrose Bierce.
March 19, 2008 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
The bottom line for me is that I believe that one's religious preference and one's sexual preference are nobody else's damned business.
Let's face it, politicians have "jobs"--the presidency is a "job"--so the question is "can he/she do the job?" not "what is his/her religion/family life/ marriage like?"
I was not offended by nor interested in what was said in Obama's (or, for that matter, Romney's) church. This is wholly a media construct that has nothing at all to do with the issues.
March 19, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
On the merits you don't have much to stand on. Have you ever read MLK's autobiography? In it he constantly talks about a running conversation that he has with God. He speaks of leaving the thin abstract God of liberal theologians to follow the true living Jesus who stands for justice, etc. Bellow is just one occasion that stands out. It's early in the bus boycott and he is now beginning to face up to the consequences of the path he is heading on - being a leader in this movement. He writes of how in a moment of intense prayer with God that he in fact is met by Jesus who speaks to him:
"One night toward the end of January I settled into bed late, after a strenuous day. Coretta had already fallen asleep and just as I was about to doze off the telephone rang. An angry voice said, "Listen, nigger, we've taken all we want from you; before next week you'll be sorry you ever came to Montgomery." I hung up, but I couldn't sleep. It seemed that all of my fears had come down on me at once. I had reached the saturation point.
I got out of bed and began to walk the floor. I had heard these things before, but for some reason that night it got to me. I turned over and I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't sleep. I was frustrated, bewildered, and then I got up. Finally I went to the kitchen and heated a pot of coffee. I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. I sat there and thought about a beautiful little daughter who had just been born. I'd come in night after night and see that little gentle smile. I started thinking about a dedicated and loyal wife, who was over there asleep. And she could be taken from me, or I could be taken from her. And I got to the point that I couldn't take it any longer. I was weak. Something said to me, "You can't call on Daddy now, you can't even call on Mama. You've got to call on that something in that person that your Daddy used to tell you about, that power that can make a way out of no way." With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory: "Lord, I'm down here trying to do what's right. I think I'm right. I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But Lord, I must confess that I'm weak now, I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage. Now, I am afraid. And I can't let the people see me like this because if they see me weak and losing my courage, they will begin to get weak. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone."
It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: "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."
I tell you I've seen the lightning flash. I've heard the thunder roar. I've felt sin breakers dashing trying to conquer my soul. But I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me alone. At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before. Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything."
Just about everything you need to know via primary sources is over at the Stanford University web site. http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/mlkpapers/
I'm not saying you have to believe anything, I'm just saying that the primary sources tell a different story than what you believe.
March 19, 2008 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops. 'Bellow' should be 'below'. Thanks.
March 19, 2008 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
Here's a brief passage from a book by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The book's title was "The Strength to Love." It was published in 1963. It is but one of many indications of his deep Christian faith. I think you might find it pertinent.
Here it is:
One of the most dedicated participants in the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama was an elderly Negro whom we affectionately called Mother Pollard. Although poverty-stricken and uneducated, she was amazingly intelligent and possessed a deep understanding of the meaning of the movement. After having walked for several weeks, she was asked is she were tired. With ungrammatical profundity, she answered, "My feets is tired, but my soul is rested."
On a particular Monday evening, following a tension-packed week which included being arrested and receiving numerous threatening telephone calls, I spoke at a mass meeting. I attempted to convey an over impression of strength and courage, although I was inwardly depressed and fear-stricken. At the end of the meeting, Mother Pollard came to the front of the church and said, "Com here, son." I immediately went to her and hugged her affectionately. "Something is wrong with you," she said. "You didn't talk strong tonight." Seeking further to disguise my fears, I retorted, "Oh, no, Mother Pollard, nothing is wrong. I am feeling as fine as ever." But her insight was discerning. "Now you can't fool me," she said. "I knows something is wrong. Is it that we ain't doing things to please you? Or is that the white folks is bothering you?" Before I could respond, she looked directly into my eyes and said, "I don told you we is with you all the way." Then her face became radiant and she said in words of quiet certainty, "But even if we ain't with you, God's gonna take care of you." As she spoke these consoling words, everything in me quivered and quickened with the pulsing tremor of raw energy.
Since that dreary night in 1956, Mother Pollard passed on to glory and I have known very few quiet days. I have been tortured without and tormented within by the raging fires of tribulation. I have been forced to muster what strength and courage I have to withstand howling winds of pain and jostling storms of adversity. But as the years have unfolded the eloquently simple words of Moth Pollard have come back again and again to give light and peace and guidance to my troubled soul. "God's gonna take care of you."
This faith transforms the whirlwind of despair into a warm and reviving breeze of hope. The words of a motto which a generation ago were commonly found on the wall in the homes of devout persons needs to be etched on our hearts:
Fear knocked at the door.
Faith answered.
There was no on there.
March 19, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
“Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation” (Papers 5:136). India Trip Speech 1959
Not exactly what one would call an expression of a "deep Christian faith," eh wot?
But then again, MLK was always exquisitely sensitive to the terms of whatever discourse would appeal to the particular audience he intended to influence -- here and abroad. Such a politic fellow.
March 19, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
When you make a point like this it gives me the impression you either just don't know very much about what you're talking about and want to appear as though you know something no one else knows or perhaps you are simply unable to admit a mistake.
Nothing in the Christian theological tradition of MLK would preclude his discussion of the moral structure of the universe. He did it all the time both at home and abroad. In fact, all of his preaching and beliefs rested on the notion of the universe possessing moral laws as immutable as the law of gravity which is what he was pointing out.
Gandhi was King's inspiration for bringing Satyagraha to the United States as the means by which to challenge the morality and ethics of segregation and injustice in America. King found, as did many others, that one of the best means of demonstrating his Chrisitan convictions was to use Satyagraha (Love Force/Soul Force/The nonviolence of the strong, as Gandhi defined it) to fight and defeat oppression.
It just seems odd to me that you seem so wedded to the notion that somehow King was deceiving everyone about his beliefs. It also seems odd to me that you seem to believe that only if King were beating his chest about Jesus in every sentence he ever uttered would there be any reason to believe he was a devout Christian. King literally wrote volumes about his Christian beliefs, their strength and depth yet you seem to believe that by citing any instance where he uttered a sentence wherein that is not the immediate subject at hand it is proof he was an atheist or deist. I don't get it. Could you makes sense of this for me because I can't make any sense of it.
March 19, 2008 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Belief in universal moral principles does not preclude devotion to Christianity. In fact there are many verses in the bible which could be taken as clear support for such a belief. Christians throughout history have commented on such things. It seems you are viewing your information through a very narrow window, with some heavy perscription glasses on.
You obviously are very wedded to you (equally as obviously wrong) belief that MLK was not a Christian. Should you choose to do so, by all means, live on in ignorance.
March 19, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm afraid you presume too much. I don't have a dog in your hunt, because no one can know what another believes.
Discussions based upon the claim of such knowledge always proceed from ignorance. They are, as well, irrelevant since a person's published belief does not predict how a person will act under any particular set of circumstances.
March 19, 2008 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about Jesus? Was he Christian?
March 19, 2008 9:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
With respect my dear, your position is pure sophistry.
March 20, 2008 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh yeah, when MLK said "I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! ... Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" he didn't mean it (not). MLK had a Doctorate in Divinity, as does Reverend Wright. Both are/were Biblical scholars who were exposed to and appreciated different ideas but remained Christian. Some have suggested Jesus Himself might have been influenced by Buddhism. Go fig.
March 22, 2008 5:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Ellen read the 1st of Taylor Branch's trilogy on the Civil rights struggle/MLK biography. If you don't finish the book, you will walk away thinking he's an atheist because he struggled with doubt.
Reading furhter and into book 2, you discover that he overcame those doubts.
March 20, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but this is one of the most ill-informed and flat-out wrong comments I have ever read. MLK was a reverend and Christian. To somehow make out that he was simply a deist, or even more absurdly, an atheist is beyond ridiculous. I say that as an atheist myself.
March 20, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink