Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from Birmingham Jail: Fighting

School: Liberty University - Course: CSTU 102 - Subject: Accounting

CSTU101 DB 1 In his letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. addresses many issues and speaks on the actions of many. In his letter, two of the values which stood out most to me were his values of justice and integrity. At the time that the letter was written, segregation, racism, and social mistreatment of African American individuals were still highly prevalent. King brings up the specific difficulty of trying to explain to a child why "white people treat colored people so mean" and why they cannot go to the new amusement park that just opened and is closed to colored children. In explaining why he was in Birmingham, King said, "Just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid." King felt the call on his life and the best use of his gifts and talents was to fight injustice, not with violence, but with the truth. This is a very biblical way to face injustice. There are many Scriptures to support this, such as Zechariah 7:9-10, which says, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.'" Another is 1 John 3:17-18, which says, "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth" (ESV). This brings us to the second value I mentioned, which is integrity. Integrity and justice both have a lot to do with truth. Integrity is defined as "the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness" by the Oxford Dictionary. Operating under this definition, it would be safe to say that one could not uphold integrity without also being honest. Scriptures speak on integrity often and truth (like justice) is a major theme of Jesus' mission on Earth. Titus 2:7 says, "Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity," and Proverbs 10:9 says "Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out." There were many who did not understand King's urgency in fighting for this justice and integrity toward African Americans, but King still did not waver. As he fought injustice and oppression of African American, the poor, and individuals who would be considered "less than" and thus treated harshly or differently than higher-class individuals, he did so on a biblical foundation and with conviction. Regarding his efforts and social perception of those efforts, he wrote, "I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent [of African American individuals towards racism] can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist... Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So, the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill, three men were crucified. We must never forget that all

three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth, and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment."