In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
Dr. King’s faith in Jesus Christ and his call to be a minister of the gospel were the foundation for his leadership of the Civil Rights Movement. When he is critical of the Church’s response to the struggle for racial justice, he is not doing so as an outsider but as a person deeply committed to the Church as an expression of God’s Beloved Community. He dares to call out the Church when its actions are inconsistent with its purpose. His words from 60 years ago still ring true today:
In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: “Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.” And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.
Out of his love for the Church, Dr. King issued a warning for any of us in the Church who fail to see that commitment to racial justice is an essential aspect of Christian discipleship:
So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are. But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.
This warning is not a condemnation. Rather Dr. King’s vivid language is meant to help us become conscious of the reality we face so we can stop conforming to the divisions and apathy that characterize much of the Church’s response to movements for racial justice today. Then we can open ourselves to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to become the Beloved Community that God calls us to be. Click here for the text of the entire letter. I hope that you will continue to read, reflect, and share this letter that captures so much of Dr. King’s prophetic witness for today.