MLK Day

A couple of lines from Dr. King have been stirring around my thoughts during the past few days. The first comes from a speech that King delivered at the Riverside Church in New York in April, 1967, when he spoke out publicly against the war in Vietnam for the first time. If you read that speech today, A Time to Break Silence rings just as true about Iraq now as it did about Vietnam four decades ago -- just substitute "Iraq" for "Vietnam" and "terrorism" for "communism."
Here's the line that's been bugging me:
"A country that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
Now it's not so much the truth of this observation by itself that is bugging me these days -- after all, it's been true for decades no matter how you slice and spin the federal budget. What's aggitating me in January, 2005, is the continued truth of the second line:
"There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. . . . But the judgment of God is upon the church [today] 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 20th century."
There is a deep and profound connection between these two lines, and the continued silence of the mainline church with respect to the war in Iraq and the so-called war on terror damns it as much as its silence in Birmingham. I know that many denominational bodies have written letters that opposed the invasion 18 months ago, but too few congregations are preaching peace and pressing for it. Until the middle of America becomes disgusted with what is disgusting, it will continue. The church's voice could make a difference.