Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero

Today we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Most of us celebrate a convenient, domesticated Martin Luther King. As a nation we readily embrace the I-have-a-dream-King who envisioned a day when black and white children would hold hands in unity. We can rally around a King who was a great orator, a dreamer of racial harmony, a national leader that even Ronald Reagan could support in signing a bill for his birthday to become a national holiday, even though he opposed the kind of legislation for which King fought and died.

Vincent Harding, in his book Martin Luther King; The Inconvenient Hero, points us to the post-1963 King, who was more troublesome and dangerous. This King railed against the three great evils of militarism, materialism, and racism. This King opposed the Vietnam War. This King fought for the rights of the poor. This King critiqued the privileged minority in the world and the inequitable distribution of resources. This King challenged white power and privilege.

This is the inconvenient hero that we so readily praise on his birthday (80th today), but find difficult to follow in today's social and political contexts. Like the radical Jesus who challenged the oppressive systems of his day, we have domesticated both Jesus and King into more palatable figures who remain distant from the enormous gap between the rich and poor, the gutting of social welfare and domestic programs, continuing systemic racism, unchecked greed and consumerism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, billions of dollars spent on the military-industrial complex, and the establishment of thousands of U.S. military bases around the world to protect U.S. interests. These are the realities that go unchallenged by an America who celebrates King's birthday today. This is the inconvenient hero who we can sigh over, name streets after, and name a national holiday after now that he is gone. Everyone can sing the praises of a dead prophet!

In 1969, following King's assassination, poet Carl Wendell Himes, Jr. penned these most appropriate words that we should keep in mind on this day of the inconvenient hero:

Now that he safely dead
Let us praise him
build monuments to his glory
sing hosannas to his name.
Dead men make
such convenient heroes: They
cannot rise
to challenge the images
we fashion from their lives
And besides,
it is easier to build monuments
than to make a better world.
So, now that he is safely dead
we with eased consciences
will teach our children
that he was a great man...knowing
that the cause for which he lived
is still a cause
and the dream for which he died
is still a dream,
a dead man's dream.

Down by the Riverside

Yesterday morning I attended the Sunday service of the historic Riverside Church in New York City. On the bulletin the church describes itself as "interdenomination, interracial, international, open, affirming, and welcoming." It is affiliated with both the American Baptist Churches, U.S.A. and the United Church of Christ. Riverside has had a number of well known pastors, such as Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick )(1930-1946), Rev. Dr. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (1977-1987) and most recently Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Jr. (1989-2007). At the service I attended they were welcoming their new pastor Rev. Dr. Brad Braxton.

It just happened to be their Stewardship Sunday, so the theme of the service was on abundance and giving. I wanted to stay for the service, but had some dread about remaining for a tradition Stewardship Sunday. Even though Stewardship was the theme, social justice, a theme that has rang loud and clear from the church's pulpit for many years, could still be heard echoing throughout the service. Peace and social justice were not overwhelmed by Sunday's theme, the extravagance of the cathedral and its many stained glass windows or the beautiful sounds of a visiting choir and orchestra from Sweden. I still heard the words of justice and ring out in the prayers, litanies, ministries, hymns, and preaching.

I was reminded of the words of another preacher whose voice rang out loud like a bell for justice and peace from the pulpit of Riverside---Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His address was delivered at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned on April 4, 1967, exactly a year before his assasination. His message was entitled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence." His speech was written by Dr. Vincent Harding, who I have had the pleasure to know since 2003, MLK's close friend. It was a historic address in which for the first time he linked the Vietnam War and the Southern Freedom movement. King preached at Riverside:

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people?" they ask. And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling.

King went out to point out that his was a vocation of peacemaking, which meant he had to "love his enemies":

But even if it were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men (sic) -- for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?

At the end of his address he outlined a trinity of injustices that must be opposed:

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

King's Vietnam speech at Riverside Church is one that we should all revisit, particularly in the context of the Iraq War, the costs of our military industrial complex, the widening gap between the rich and poor, and the hidden agenda of race in the current presidential campaign and upcoming elections. I thought of heard King's voice still echoing down by the Riverside.