Last Sunday, my church had its annual service honoring the memory and the dream of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. These services have always been an important part of my experience with the church, especially since the arrival of a new pastor who, as a young man, walked with King in Tennessee. His stories of his father's struggles as a white pastor of a predominantly black congregation have moved my church's usually stoic congregation to tears for the past two years.
This year was particularly poignant because of America's war on terrorism. As my pastor talked of King's unrelenting messages of nonviolence, forgiveness and love, I couldn't help wondering whether King's message would have changed after experiencing the World Trade Center catastrophe. How would King, whose criticism of President Lyndon Johnson for the war in Vietnam was sharp and devastating, react to the detainment of Muslims in America and the bombing of another country almost as far away as Vietnam?
I am almost certain King would oppose the war. I can almost imagine him denouncing hatred and revenge from his pulpit, offering the olive branch of Christian forgiveness to Osama bin Laden and leading marches to free imprisoned Muslims. It would be his Christian response to the enemy's slap in the face.
King's teachings bear a striking resemblance to Christ's teachings. This may seem obvious since King was a pastor, but rarely do ordinary people, even pastors, find the courage to follow so closely in Jesus' footsteps. King's time on Earth was spent defending the oppressed, offering forgiveness to the persecutors and bringing to light the suffering of the poor. He did it in the face of hostile Southern governments and political leaders motivated solely by self-interest.
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution ran a story Monday about a rally held at King's crypt where one of the participants, Carolyn Jackson, hung a framed picture of King above his grave. Jackson said the picture belonged to her father who hung it next to a picture of Jesus in her living room. \My father would put all of our successes up around it, as if we were fulfilling the dream,"" Jackson said.
The comparison between Jesus and King, though often considered inappropriate, is a telling message of what King meant to this country. The fact that, more than 30 years after King's death, politicians and public leaders of all ethnicities race to King's altar to deliver sermonettes on American society is a testament to the purity of his message and his memory.
Like Jesus, King also said some things that American political leaders would probably like to forget. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount urged all Christians ""not to resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also."" Imagine turning the other cheek to a person like Osama bin Laden. I doubt President Bush would find that message politically appealing.
Yet, during the later years of King's life that message was delivered across the country in a variety of speeches that urged a peaceful end to the war in Vietnam and called American foreign policy ""the greatest purveyor of violence in the world."" King held this country to a higher standard. The political leaders of King's era did not meet those standards and King told them so, despite receiving flak from nearly every major political organization in the country.
In today's conflict, America is again falling short of those high standards. Muslims and people of Arab descent are being held without charge for months at a time in American prisons. The prisoners of the war in Afghanistan are being shackled, blindfolded and psychologically attacked in order to gain intelligence information. America's political leaders are striking bargains with Northern Alliance leaders whose Uzbek forces are raping and pillaging ethnic Pashtuns in Northern Afghanistan.
Not only is America violating the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, it is also betraying the ethical and universal ideals that underlie American democracy. If King were still alive today, he would be touring the nation giving passionate speeches denouncing these betrayals. Taking a line from a popular slogan, King would be doing what Jesus would do.
I spent last Sunday praying for those throughout the world who hate America, just as King spent his days praying for those in the South who hated blacks. I would encourage every American, despite his or her religious background, to do something similar. King proved that goodwill, rather than violence, can indeed change the world.
