Some Discomforting Words from MLK, Jr.

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. At my congregation we have a tradition on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day that we’ve kept for several years now. We invite people to sign up to read from his sermons, letters, and other writings, with half-hour shifts all day long from 9am until 7pm. Members of the community are then invited to come to the church throughout the day and listen to the words of Dr. King, or to watch the readings happen live on our church Facebook page. One of the gifts of this practice to me is that it has exposed me much more to the depth of Dr. King’s writings. Whereas before, like many, my greatest familiarity was with his “I have a dream” speech and his profound and convicting “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In reality, though, Dr. King wrote on many other subjects, including capitalism, socialism, the military industrial complex, nuclear proliferation, and the war on Vietnam, just to name a few. I’m also aware that probably most everyone in our own day and age has some respect and even reverence for Dr. King. But he was actually a controversial and even polarizing figure before his death. So I would imagine that if many people, particularly those on the right, read more of his works they might find themselves uncomfortable with the positions he took, maybe they might even ask themselves whether their own politics align with justice as Dr. King understood it. So, in honor of Dr. King’s holiday, this week I’d like to break the myth of the gentle Dr. King of mythology by sharing with you some of his quotes that I have found particularly compelling and insightful, quotes that might even encourage you reconsider some of your own views on important questions that still face us today. The first is from his speech, Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution, “I am convinced that [the Vietnam] is one of the most unjust wars that has ever been fought in the history of the world. Our involvement in the war in Vietnam has torn up the Geneva Accord. It has strengthened the military-industrial complex; it has strengthened the forces of reaction in our nation. It has put us against the self-determination of a vast majority of the Vietnamese people, and put us in the position of protecting a corrupt regime that is stacked against the poor. It has played havoc with our domestic destinies. This day we are spending five hundred thousand dollars to kill every Vietcong soldier. Every time we kill one we spend about five hundred thousand dollars while we spend only fifty-three dollars a year for every person characterized as poverty-stricken in the so-called poverty program, which is not even a good skirmish against poverty.” How prescient his words proved to be, as the military-industrial complex is far stronger now than it was in Dr. King’s time. After all, in fiscal year 2021, we had a total defense budget of $753.5 billion. That means we are spending $2,287 per year per citizen on defense spending in our country. By contrast, we spend less than a third of that, only spend $212 billion dollars on programs that provide assistance to those in poverty. This point is particularly important as we watch Washington DC refuse to extend a Child Tax Credit which lowered the poverty rate among children by 16%-13%, effectively keeping 3 million children out of poverty, particularly Black and Latino children. Finally, as we continue to wrestle with the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement, I’d like to draw your attention to this quote from The Other America, “But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay.” I’d encourage you to take some time and read from these and other lesser-known works of Dr. King. He has much to teach us, so much to say, particularly when it comes to, as he put it in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice. We have much more to learn from him… and much more to do. Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today.