c. 1996 Religion News Service

(RNS)-Here are excerpts from the speeches and writing of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., touching on his theological concept of the `beloved community’:

“The ultimate aim of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is to foster and create the `beloved community’ in America where brotherhood is a reality. … The SCLC works for integration. Our ultimate goal is genuine intergroup and interpersonal living-integration.” Newsletter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference “From the beginning a basic philosophy guided the movement. This guiding principle has been referred to variously as nonviolent resistance, noncooperation and passive resistance. But in the first days of the protest none of these expressions was mentioned; the phrase most often used was `Christian love.’ It was the Sermon on the Mount, rather than the doctrine of passive resistance, that initially inspired the Negroes of Montgomery to dignified social action. It was Jesus of Nazareth that stirred the Negroes to protest with the creative weapon of love.” Stride Toward Freedom

“The cross is the eternal expression of the length to which God will go in order to restore broken community. The resurrection is a symbol of God’s triumph over all the forces that seek to block community. The Holy Spirit is the continuing, creating reality that moves through history.” Stride Toward Freedom “Love must be at the forefront of our movement if it is to be a successful movement. And when we speak of love, we speak of understanding, good will toward all men. We speak of a creative, a redemptive sort of love, so that as we look at the problem, we see that the real tension is not between the Negro citizens and the white citizens of Montgomery, but it is a conflict between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, and if there is a victory-and there will be a victory-the victory will not be merely for the Negro citizens and a defeat for the white citizens, but it will be a victory for justice and a defeat of injustice. It will be a victory for goodness in its long struggle with the forces of evil.””Walk for Freedom,”Fellowship magazine “Jesus took over the phrase `the Kingdom of God,’ but he changed its meaning. He refused entirely to be the kind of a Messiah that his contemporaries expected. Jesus made love the mark of sovereignty. Here we are left with no doubt as to Jesus’ meaning. The Kingdom of God will be a society in which men and women live as children of God should live. It will be a kingdom controlled by the law of love. … Many have attempted to say that the ideal of a better world will be worked out in the next world. But Jesus taught men to say, `Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.’ Although the world seems to be in a bad shape today, we must never lose faith in the power of God to achieve his purpose.””What a Christian Should Think About the Kingdom of God””We have inherited a large house, a great `world house’ in which we have to live together-black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, (Muslim) and Hindu-a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.” Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?

“But the real reason that we must use our resources to outlaw poverty goes beyond material concerns to the quality of our mind and spirit. Deeply woven into the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God, and that they are souls of infinite metaphysical value. … In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied together. They entered the same mysterious gateway of human birth, into the same adventure of mortal life.” Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?

end