Faith in Action
I took note that President Trump neglected to offer any remarks regarding Monday’s observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, that is until about 8:15 pm after considerable pressure from the NAACP.
His statement was, unsurprisingly, less than inspiring:
“Dr. King pioneered a movement that would go on to triumphantly reaffirm our national conviction that every man, woman, and child is endowed by their Creator with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the statement read. “As President, I am steadfastly committed to ensuring that our country will always be guided by the same principles that Dr. King defended throughout his life and to upholding the timeless truth that our rights are not granted by government but endowed by Almighty God.”
More than uninspiring (and philosophically problematic), it contains the same sanitized rhetoric that honors a man whose actual life, work, and legacy is hardly reflected in American culture today.
There is always the perennial problem of white power structures anxious to move on, as if the Civil Rights movement, once and for all, solved America’s race problem. This view has become so dominant that our Supreme Court is on the verge of finishing off what’s left of the Voting Rights Act, despite the realities of the proliferation of racially based gerrymanders that predominantly disenfranchise communities of color.
Lost to history (and not by accident) is also the reality that Dr. King knew that racial disparities were intimately linked not only to our nation’s original sin, but also to economic exploitation and militarism.
And, more explicitly, that he recognized that our response to those three great evils, through the embodiment of our faith, requires organization, mutual support, and physical proximity to one another.
At the same time, as people of faith, we recognize that Dr. King’s work cannot be reduced to sheer economic materialism. The necessary economic corrective that must come must also be balanced, for those of us who are Christians, in light of the gospel itself.
When Christian teaching is not reduced to a perfunctory recitation of the “sinners prayer”, or a cheap grace that requires no transformation from within, or a faith that produces no fruit of the spirit (action), only then can we see the challenge of the narrow path. A path that is narrow not because of a lack of grace, or some moralistic sense of judgment, but because we are uncertain of how to receive and give unconditional love.
The challenges before us are significant. My prayer for our work ahead is that we will continue to center and grow our bonds of love for one another, that we will seek out and become proximate to the beloved community all around us, and that we will find creative ways to powerfully and non-violently build a world transformed by love, compassion, and joy.
