A look at the black church and the fundamental spiritual beliefs that gave King courage and commitment.
In His Own Words
“Of course I was religious. I grew up in the church. My father is a preacher, my grandfather was a preacher, my great-grandfather was a preacher, my only brother a preacher, my daddy’s brother is a preacher. So I didn’t have much choice.
“It has been my opinion ever since reading Rauschenbusch (http://encarta.msn.com/index/conciseindex/08/008F9000.htm?z=1&pg=2&br=1) that any religion that professes concern for the souls of men and is not equally concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion only waiting for the day to be buried.”
“Above all, I see the preaching ministry as a dual process. On the one hand I must attempt to change the soul of individuals so that their societies may be changed. On the other I must attempt to change the societies so that the individual soul will have a change. Therefore, I must be concerned about unemployment, slums, and economic insecurity. I am a profound advocate of the social gospel.”
– from The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It has always been the responsibility of the church to broaden horizons, challenge the status quo, and break the mores when necessary. The task of conquering segregation is an inescapable must confronting the church today.
“Religion reminds every man that he is his brother’s keeper. To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right. It is a way of allowing his conscience to fall asleep. At this moment the oppressed fails to be his brother’s keeper. So acquiescence — while often the easier way — is not the moral way.
“In the terrible midnight of war men have knocked on the door of the church to ask for the bread of peace, but the church has often disappointed them. What more pathetically reveals the irrelevancy of the church in present-day world affairs than its witness regarding war? In a world gone mad with arms buildups, chauvinistic passions, and imperialistic exploitation, the church has either endorsed these activities or remained appallingly silent. During the last two world wars, national churches even functioned as the ready lackeys of the state, sprinkling holy water upon the battleships and joining the mighty armies in singing, ‘Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.’ A weary world, pleading desperately for peace, has often found the church morally sanctioning war.
“And those who have gone to the church to seek the bread of economic justice have been left in the frustrating midnight of economic deprivation. In many instances the church has so aligned itself with the privileged classes and so defended the status quo that it has been unwilling to answer the knock at midnight.”
– from The Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Hands That Rocked the Movement’s Cradle
Many works on the civil rights movement focus on ministers — King, Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson. Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Diane Nash, and Septima Clark aren’t as well known as the men, but played important roles in the resistance to white supremacy. In black churches, churchwomen do the unceasing work of helping the poor and hungry, raising children and money, and energizing the struggle. The churchwomen are clear that black religion facilitates black survival.
A Creative Ministry
The black Christian church has always existed as a paradox. On the one hand, the Christian message of submission to God’s will (as interpreted by white people) and the promise of heavenly reward, was used to keep people of color — especially African slaves and their descendants — docile. On the other hand, since its introduction to blacks, Christianity has nurtured leaders utterly committed to the black freedom struggle. Black revolutionary theology nurtured slave ministers like Nat Turner, Gabriel Prosser, and Denmark Vesey, who led uprisings against slave owners.
In fact, after the Nat Turner revolt, the black church was greatly feared and slave-owners throughout the South forbade slaves to gather in worship unless an overseer was in attendance. Black liberation theology directly and indirectly fueled the constant longing to be free.
But most blacks in the antebellum South looked to religion to take their minds off their suffering and focused on the blissful rewards of the hereafter. Religion kept most blacks humble, obedient, and loyal. The very same dynamics operated in the black Christian church in Martin Luther King’s day; and they operate today.
The fact that King shed his early training in fundamentalist thought and embraced a liberal, social gospel to bring about social and political justice for his people doesn’t make him unique. What makes King unique is that he became a symbol of the liberation struggle within the church. He espoused a theology of love as a power to affect social change. King did not see love as separate from justice, and he spoke of the need to “love your enemies” as a weapon to bring about social justice. King saw true Christianity — as he saw Christ — as militant and rightly engaged in battling the status quo.
King believed that the church should minister to people in material, as well as spiritual, ways. The gospel had social implications and responsibilities. “The church must also become increasingly active in social action outside its doors,” King wrote in Stride Toward Freedom. “It must take an active stand against the injustice that Negroes confront in housing, education, police protection, and in city and state courts. It must exert its influence in the area of economic justice. As guardian of the moral and spiritual life of the community the church cannot look with indifference upon these glaring evils.”
Ultimately, King said that there was no more segregated place on earth than the church, that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning was the most segregated time of the week, and that ideally, there should be no separate black or white church. He was realistic, though, and understood that until equal justice and opportunity are available for all, a major responsibility of the black church is to nurture both the spiritual life and the struggle against oppression. As Michael Eric Dyson, author of I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr., writes, “Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public.”
A Closer Look
Each lesson has a section called “A Closer Look” for two reasons:
- To clarify what King stood for in relation to today’s issues
- To inspire self-reflection
Activist black churches aren’t as noticeable as they were in King’s day, although there are some where work continues in the King tradition. In Austin, Texas, there is a pastor actively fighting racial profiling, who has secured funds and is building affordable homes. He has also led midnight marches through drug-infested neighborhoods to minister to addicts and to put criminals on alert, and he works in the struggle to suspend the death penalty in Texas until those on death row — almost all of whom are poor and/or people of color — can get competent representation.
Few prominent whites agree with his tactics and middle-class black folks admire him secretly and avoid public association. See, some things haven’t changed since the ’60s. Yet, these are some of the very same issues King would be addressing if he were alive. How do we know? Because they were the issues he fought for when he was alive. And the first place King confronted these issues was in his beloved church.
A quick look at both the religious right and left offers insight into issues of relevance. So-called new age spirituality has a fatal flaw.
As Dyson writes: “Positive-thought materialists believe that their own health, wealth and success are the keys to salvation. They neglect social transformation, political activism, and moral vision advanced by the church’s prophetic brigade. Positive-thought materialism has taken hold of many black Americans just as they enter the middle class. It may provide a way for many religious blacks to justify their upward mobility without feeling responsible for their less fortunate kin. In such a pernicious social vision, the poor are viewed as being unhealthy, unsuccessful and unwealthy because they are morally flawed. To put it crudely, the poor are seen as spiritual failures because they do not think right, pray right, or live right. Positive-thought materialists are thus relieved of the burden of brotherhood imposed by the gospel. They fail to shoulder any responsibility for the less well off while shirking the pursuit of social justice on behalf of the poor. Why should they? If the individual is at fault, the remedy surely will not come through social or political measures.”
On the other hand, the religious right has left an indelible and unpalatable residue in the black church. While conservatism has — to some degree — been a feature of the black church since its inception, the religious right has appealed to “the black church’s homophobic inclinations, its sexist sentiments and its nostalgic hunger for a golden era of ‘family values’ that never existed,” writes Dyson. “To be sure, the black church has enough regressive morality without the assistance of the religious right. But it is troubling how the religious right snares black Christians in the trap of transcendence: the illusion that they can do away with the racial history that colors the interpretation of the gospel. The right also wields its biblical literalism as a bludgeon, convincing many black Christians that progressive views on sex, gender, race or class betray the faith (even as white conservative evangelicals aggressively pursue their own political agenda). That is a far cry from the gospel of freedom embraced by early black Christians.”
Finally, Dyson argues, when progressive blacks reach out to form coalitions with progressive whites, their unique experiences and expressions are often sacrificed to a white-defined “universalism,” which usually means that all manifestation of the soulfulness of black cultural and political expression is either co-opted by whites (witness white rap, blues, and soul musicians) or “integrated” out of existence.
Assignment: A Dynamic Faith
If you haven’t done so already, read the text of King’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” (http://www.mlkday.com/theman_index.html). Do some research in your community. Find out if there is a black Baptist church that is involved in social issues in the community. If you are not a black Baptist, attend an 11:00 a.m. Sunday service. If you are African American, find a synagogue that has an active social ministry and attend services. Attend with a friend or alone, and write down your thoughts about the experience.
