Tribute to King

Tribute to King

" Protest should not be merely the politics of complaint, .... It should instead show the way for both personal and social transformation. That’s what excites people and invites them to give their lives for something larger than themselves. The power of protest is not in its anger but in its invitation. The test of protest is whether it points and opens the way to change or merely denounces what is. When protest is both instructive and constructive in a society, it becomes something that has to be dealt with and not merely contained."(1)

Martin Luther King Junior comes immediately to my mind when I read this. He was a man who helped change America not with hatred and violent rhetoric, but non violent protest done with love and a vision of a better way for all people. He was largely responsible for finishing the job started by the founding fathers in being a catalyst for granting civil rights for all Americans. It can be argued, in my opinion, that if they ever wanted to add a bust on Mt. Rushmore, they can do worse that Martin Luther King!

Changing the Wind

What King did was to "change the wind" of American society. The problem with politicians who want to make change is that they feel they have to stick a wet finger in the wind, as it were, to gauge whether the social winds would warrant change. But as Jim Wallis, in his fine book , God’s Politics, explains;
‘ The great practitioners of real social change, like Martin Luther King Jr. And Mahatma Ghandi, understood something very important. They knew that you don’t change a society by merely replacing one wet-fingered politician with another. You change a society by changing the wind.
Change the wind, transform the debate, recast the discussion, alter the context in which political decisions are being made, and you will change the outcomes. Move the conversation around a crucial issue to a whole new place, and you will open up possibilities for change never dreamed of before. And you will be surprised at how fast the politicians adjust to the change in the wind."(2)

Politicians bend to wind

Wallis goes on to relate how King organized the voting rights march in Selma, Alabama after President Johnson told him that it would take 5-10 years to pass such as act. People all over the U.S. people watched the brutal response of the police and two weeks later hundreds of clergy from all over the country and every religion came to march from Selma to Montgomery. All of America watched and American attitudes were changed. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed in five months!

Christian vision

As Christians we would do well to remember this. We are to try to restore the moral vision that is eroding from our ailing society society by changing the wind as King did. We are to attempt to transform culture by presenting a better vision, one soul at a time if need be. We must present a picture of a God of mercy and love, not just judgement. We can not merely point out that certain practices are contrary to moral law of church precepts, though that is a part of it. We must explain with love why what the Church teaches is important. We must present a way of life that shows why what the Church says makes our lives more livable, more in line with reality. We must show in what we say and how we live that what the Church teaches is more than just dry convention but vital and fulfilling way of life.
This of course means that we ourselves must live this out in our lives and not conform to the present secular culture. That is why we in the Church must be true to its teachings.After all if we want to change the direction of the wind, we have to know the direction we want it to go.

1. Wallis , Jim, God's Politics, Harper Collins, San Francisco, CA. 2005, p. 46

2. Ibid, p. 22