In
this Dexter sermon King reads a fictional letter from the apostle Paul
to American Christians of the mid-twentieth century. Loosely based on
Paul's letter to the Romans, King's sermon notes the gap between the
nation's scientific progress and its ethical and spiritual development.
Deploring exploitative capitalism, spiritual arrogance, racial
segregation, and self-righteous egotism, he offers the remedy of
Christian love. "Only through achieving this love," King writes, "can
you expect to matriculate into the university of eternal life." King
delivered the same sermon on 7 September at the National Baptist
Convention.1
I would like to share with you an imaginary letter
from the pen of the Apostle Paul. The postmark reveals that it comes
from the city of Ephesus. After opening the letter I discovered that it
was written in Greek rather than English. At the top of the first page
was this request: "Please read to your congregation as soon as possible,
and then pass on to the other churches."
For several weeks I have worked assiduously with the
translation. At times it has been difficult, but now I think I have
deciphered its true meaning. May I hasten to say that if in presenting
this letter the contents sound strangely Kingian instead of Paulinian,
attribute it to my lack of complete objectivity rather than Paul's lack
of clarity.
It is miraculous, indeed, that the Apostle Paul
should be writing a letter to you and to me nearly 1900 years after his
last letter appeared in the New Testament. How this is possible is
something of an enigma wrapped in mystery. The important thing, however,
is that I can imagine the Apostle Paul writing a letter to American
Christians in 1956 A.D. And here is the letter as it stands before me.
I, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to
you who are in America, Grace be unto you, and peace from God our
Father, through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
For many years I have longed to be able to come to
see you. I have heard so much of you and of what you are doing. I have
heard of the fascinating and astounding advances that you have made in
the scientific realm. I have heard of your dashing subways and flashing
airplanes. Through your scientific genius you have been able to dwarf
distance and place time in chains. You have been able to carve highways
through the stratosphere. So in your world you have made it possible to
eat breakfast in New York City and dinner in Paris, France. I have also
heard of your skyscraping buildings with their prodigious towers
steeping heavenward. I have heard of your great medical advances, which
have resulted in the curing of many dread plagues and diseases, and
thereby prolonged your lives and made for greater security and physical
well-being. All of that is marvelous. You can do so many things in your
day that I could not do in the Greco-Roman world of my day. In your age
you can travel distances in one day that took me three months to travel.
That is wonderful. You have made tremendous strides in the area of
scientific and technological development.
But America, as I look
at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress
has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to me that
your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress. Your poet
Thoreau used to talk about "improved means to an unimproved end." How
often this is true. You have allowed the material means by which you
live to outdistance the spiritual ends for which you live. You have
allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your
civilization to outdistance your culture. Through your scientific genius
you have made of the world a neighborhood, but through your moral and
spiritual genius you have failed to make of it a brotherhood. So
America, I would urge you to keep your moral advances abreast with your
scientific advances.
I am impelled to write you concerning
the responsibilities laid upon you to live as Christians in the midst of
an unChristian world. That is what I had to do. That is what every
Christian has to do. But I understand that there are many Christians in
America who give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and
customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be
accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: "everybody
is doing it, so it must be alright." For so many of you Morality is
merely group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are
accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that
right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority
opinion. How many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way.
But American Christians, I must say to you as I said
to the Roman Christians years ago, "Be not conformed to this world, but
be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."
2 Or, as I said to the Phillipian Christians, "Ye are a colony of heaven."
3
This means that although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate
allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You
live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore,
your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not
to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his
ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts
with God's will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it.
You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made
institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty
God.
I understand that you have an economic
system in America known as Capitalism. Through this economic system you
have been able to do wonders. You have become the richest nation in the
world, and you have built up the greatest system of production that
history has ever known. All of this is marvelous. But Americans, there
is the danger that you will misuse your Capitalism. I still contend that
money can be the root of all evil.
41
It can cause one to live a life of gross materialism. I am afraid that
many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a
life. You are prone to judge the success of your profession by the index
of your salary and the size of the wheel base on your automobile,
rather than the quality of your service to humanity.
The misuse of Capitalism can also lead to tragic
exploitation. This has so often happened in your nation. They tell me
that one tenth of one percent of the population controls more than forty
percent of the wealth. Oh America, how often have you taken necessities
from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. If you are to be a
truly Christian nation you must solve this problem. You cannot solve the
problem by turning to communism, for communism is based on an ethical
relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept.
You can work within the framework of democracy to bring about a better
distribution of wealth. You can use your powerful economic resources to
wipe poverty from the face of the earth. God never intended for one
group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others
live in abject deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to
have the basic necessities of life, and he has left in this universe
"enough and to spare" for that purpose. So I call upon you to bridge the
gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth.
I would that I could be with you in person, so that I
could say to you face to face what I am forced to say to you in
writing. Oh, how I long to share your fellowship.
Let me rush on to say something about the church.
Americans, I must remind you, as I have said to so many others, that the
church is the Body of Christ. So when the church is true to its nature
it knows neither division nor disunity. But I am disturbed about what
you are doing to the Body of Christ. They tell me that in America you
have within Protestantism more than two hundred and fifty six
denominations. The tragedy is not so much that you have such a
multiplicity of denominations, but that most of them are warring against
each other with a claim to absolute truth. This narrow sectarianism is
destroying the unity of the Body of Christ. You must come to see that
God is neither a Baptist nor a Methodist; He is neither a Presbyterian
nor a Episcopalian. God is bigger than all of our denominations. If you
are to be true witnesses for Christ, you must come to see that America.
But I must not stop with a criticism of
Protestantism. I am disturbed about Roman Catholicism. This church
stands before the world with its pomp and power, insisting that it
possesses the only truth. It incorporates an arrogance that becomes a
dangerous spiritual arrogance. It stands with its noble Pope who somehow
rises to the miraculous heights of infallibility when he speaks ex cathedra.
But I am disturbed about a person or an institution that claims
infallibility in this world. I am disturbed about any church that
refuses to cooperate with other churches under the pretense that it is
the only true church. I must emphasize the fact that God is not a Roman
Catholic, and that the boundless sweep of his revelation cannot be
limited to the Vatican. Roman Catholicism must do a great deal to mend
its ways.
There is another thing that disturbs me to no end
about the American church. You have a white church and you have a Negro
church. You have allowed segregation to creep into the doors of the
church. How can such a division exist in the true Body of Christ? You
must face the tragic fact that when you stand at 11:00 on Sunday morning
to sing "All Hail the Power of Jesus Name" and "Dear Lord and Father of
all Mankind," you stand in the most segregated hour of Christian
America. They tell me that there is more integration in the entertaining
world and other secular agencies than there is in the Christian church.
How appalling that is.
I understand that there are Christians among you who
try to justify segregation on the basis of the Bible. They argue that
the Negro is inferior by nature because of Noah's curse upon the
children of Ham. Oh my friends, this is blasphemy. This is against
everything that the Christian religion stands for. I must say to you as I
have said to so many Christians before, that in Christ "there is
neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither bond nor free, there is
neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus."
5
Moreover, I must reiterate the words that I uttered on Mars Hill: "God
that made the world and all things therein . . . hath made of one blood
all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth."
6
So Americans I must urge you to get rid of every
aspect of segregation. The broad universalism standing at the center of
the gospel makes both the theory and practice of segregation morally
unjustifiable. Segregation is a blatant denial of the unity which we all
have in Christ. It substitutes an "I-it" relationship for the "I-thou"
relationship.
7
The segregator relegates the segregated to the status of a thing rather
than elevate him to the status of a person. The underlying philosophy
of Christianity is diametrically opposed to the underlying philosophy of
segregation, and all the dialectics of the logicians cannot make them
lie down together.
I praise your Supreme Court for rendering a great
decision just two or three years ago. I am happy to know that so many
persons of goodwill have accepted the decision as a great moral victory.
But I understand that there are some brothers among you who have risen
up in open defiance. I hear that their legislative halls ring loud with
such words as "nullification" and "interposition." They have lost the
true meaning of democracy and Christianity. So I would urge each of you
to plead patiently with your brothers, and tell them that this isn't the
way. With understanding goodwill, you are obligated to seek to change
their attitudes. Let them know that in standing against integration,
they are not only standing against the noble precepts of your democracy,
but also against the eternal edicts of God himself. Yes America, there
is still the need for an Amos to cry out to the nation: "Let judgement
roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."
8
May I say just a word to those of you who are
struggling against this evil. Always be sure that you struggle with
Christian methods and Christian weapons. Never succumb to the temptation
of becoming bitter. As you press on for justice, be sure to move with
dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull
you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to the
temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will
be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your
chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless
chaos.
In your struggle for justice, let your oppressor know
that you are not attempting to defeat or humiliate him, or even to pay
him back for injustices that he has heaped upon you. Let him know that
you are merely seeking justice for him as well as yourself. Let him know
that the festering sore of segregation debilitates the white man as
well as the Negro. With this attitude you will be able to keep your
struggle on high Christian standards.
Many persons will realize the urgency of seeking to
eradicate the evil of segregation. There will be many Negroes who will
devote their lives to the cause of freedom. There will be many white
persons of goodwill and strong moral sensitivity who will dare to take a
stand for justice. Honesty impels me to admit that such a stand will
require willingness to suffer and sacrifice. So don't despair if you are
condemned and persecuted for righteousness' sake. Whenever you take a
stand for truth and justice, you are liable to scorn. Often you will be
called an impractical idealist or a dangerous radical. Sometimes it
might mean going to jail. If such is the case you must honorably grace
the jail with your presence. It might even mean physical death. But if
physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children
from a permanent life of psychological death, then nothing could be more
Christian.
9
Don't worry about persecution America; you are going to have that if
you stand up for a great principle. I can say this with some authority,
because my life was a continual round of persecutions. After my
conversion I was rejected by the disciples at Jerusalem. Later I was
tried for heresy at Jerusalem. I was jailed at Philippi, beaten at
Thessalonica, mobbed at Ephesus, and depressed at Athens. And yet I am
still going. I came away from each of these experiences more persuaded
than ever before that "neither death nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come . . . shall
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
10
I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest
thing in the world. This is the end of life. The end of life is not to
be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The
end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.
I must bring my writing to a close now. Timothy is
waiting to deliver this letter, and I must take leave for another
church. But just before leaving, I must say to you, as I said to the
church at Corinth, that I still believe that love is the most durable
power in the world. Over the centuries men have sought to discover the
highest good. This has been the chief quest of ethical philosophy. This
was one of the big questions of Greek philosophy. The Epicurean and the
Stoics sought to answer it; Plato and Aristotle sought to answer it.
What is the
summon bonum of life? I think I have an answer
America. I think I have discovered the highest good. It is love. This
principle stands at the center of the cosmos. As John says, "God is
love." He who loves is a participant in the being of God. He who hates
does not know God.
11
So American Christians, you may master the
intricacies of the English language. You may possess all of the
eloquence of articulate speech. But even if you "speak with the tongues
of man and angels, and have not love, you are become as sounding brass,
or a tinkling cymbal."
You may have the gift of prophecy and understanding all mysteries.
12
You may be able to break into the storehouse of nature and bring out
many insights that men never dreamed were there. You may ascend to the
heights of academic achievement, so that you will have all knowledge.
You may boast of your great institutions of learning and the boundless
extent of your degrees. But all of this amounts to absolutely nothing
devoid of love.
But even more Americans, you may give your goods to
feed the poor. You may give great gifts to charity. You may tower high
in philanthropy. But if you have not love it means nothing. You may even
give your body to be burned, and die the death of a martyr. Your spilt
blood may be a symbol of honor for generations yet unborn, and thousands
may praise you as history's supreme hero. But even so, if you have not
love your blood was spilt in vain.
13
You must come to see that it is possible for a man to be self-centered
in his self-denial and self-righteous in his self-sacrifice. He may be
generous in order to feed his ego and pious in order to feed his pride.
Man has the tragic capacity to relegate a heightening virtue to a tragic
vice. Without love benevolence becomes egotism, and martyrdom becomes
spiritual pride.
So the greatest of all virtues is love. It is here
that we find the true meaning of the Christian faith. This is at bottom
the meaning of the cross. The great event on Calvary signifies more than
a meaningless drama that took place on the stage of history. It is a
telescope through which we look out into the long vista of eternity and
see the love of God breaking forth into time. It is an eternal reminder
to a power drunk generation that love is most durable power in the
world, and that it is at bottom the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. Only
through achieving this love can you expect to matriculate into the
university of eternal life.
I must say goodby now. I hope this letter will find
you strong in the faith. It is probable that I will not get to see you
in America, but I will meet you in God's eternity. And now unto him who
is able to keep us from falling, and lift us from the fatigue of despair
to the buoyancy of hope, from the midnight of desperation to the
daybreak of joy, to him be power and authority, forever and ever. Amen.
14
1.
For details of the reception it found there, see C. W. Kelly to King, 8
September 1956, pp. 365-366 in this volume. King later published the
sermon in revised form in
Strength to Love (1963).
3. Philippians 3:20: "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jess Christ."
7. See Martin Buber,
I and Thou (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1937).
9.
In a speech to the National Committee for Rural Schools, King
attributed this statement to Kenneth Clark, replacing "Christian" with
"honorable" (see King, "Desegregation and the Future," 15 December 1956,
p. 478 in this volume).
12. 1 Corinthians 13:1-2/
