From: cms@dragon.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re:  Martin Luther King Jr. and the Prophets of Israel
Date: 8 Jan 93 21:17:37 EST
Organization: Computer Projects Unlimited

 I wrote this essay for a class I took in Old Testament Prophets.  I 
became interested in the way blacks applied the theology of the 
Prophets to the Civil Rights Movement.  In the end, after some 
research, I decided to focus my paper on Martin Luther King Jr.  I 
thought there used to be a soc group dedicated to American Blacks, but 
I didn't see it.  Is there such a group out there?  At any rate, since 
we're close to Martin Luther King's birthday, I thought this was 
appropriate time to post this essay.


             Martin Luther King Jr. and the Prophets of Israel



     Martin Luther King Jr. was a prophet in the black community

who brought words and imagery from Scripture to further his cause

for righteousness in the black civil rights movement.  He drew a

great deal of his imagery from the Old Testament prophets,

although much of his imagery was also drawn from New Testament

prophets (frequently apostles).  He regarded Jesus primarily in

his prophetic role as one who called all people to repentance and

justice, who pled for nonviolance and practiced what he preached,

and who was crucified for civil disobedience.  From the Old

Testament prophets King drew his themes of justice and

righteousness, from the New Testament prophets he drew themes of

the coming New Age, and from Jesus he drew his themes of peace --

not the negative peace of oppression, but the positive peace of

justice and righteousness -- and love and brotherhood. 

Furthermore, King not only describes Jesus in his role as

prophet, but also exhorts Christians to play the role of prophet,

to imitate the prophet Paul, to imitate the Old Testament

prophets who differentiated between just laws (God's laws) and

unjust laws (often the laws or ordinances of the king), and to

fight for the same justice that the Old Testament prophets fought

for.  King encouraged political and church leaders to be

prophets, to practice prophetic injunctions against injustice and

oppression, to be patient sufferers of the Kingdom as the

prophets and apostles were, and to be spiritual guides for the

oppressed.  King preached sin, repentance, and redemption,

equality not domination of whites, and the importance of one law

for all people.  All of these calls to be prophets were

intimately related to spiritual battles, not just physical

battles, fought by every brother and sister in the Kingdom of

God.



PROPHETS AND JUSTICE



	Martin Luther King frequently called the civil rights movement 

a "struggle between justice and injustice, between the forces of light 

and the forces of darkness" (The Power of Nonviolence, 1957).  The 

role of the prophet in ancient Israel was to be a messenger from the 

deity.  The messages which the prophets gave from God frequently 

involved calls for justice.  When Israel was unrighteous, the prophets 

were the first to say so and call for remediation.  After punishment, 

the newly just Israel was called by God to fight their unjust 

oppressors.  Time and again, the prophets called Israel to do right 

and abhor wrong.  King also called on America to do right and abhor 

wrong, labeling the struggle the same as the prophetic struggle for 

justice.  As Isaiah said, "Justice will bring about peace; right will 

produce calm and security" (32:17).  Above all, King wanted peace in 

the streets of America, but rightly felt that peace could not be 

achieved without justice, calm and security could not be achieved 

until America did right and gave all her citizens equal rights under 

the law.  When this happened, King felt it would be a "victory for 

justice, good will, and democracy" (ibid).



	Early in his career, King felt a strong desire to eliminate 

social evil.  Like the Old Testament prophets before him, King did not 

see a distinction between the sacred and the profane when it came to 

evil.  Evil had to be rooted out of society, and it was the 

responsibility of the prophet to call to his society's attention the 

nature of the evil and the means of its removal.  Segregation, King 

felt, was a moral evil that had to be rooted out of American society, 

and it was incumbant upon him to call for its removal (Pilgrimage to 

Nonviolence, 1960).  Though he never expressed it directly, it is 

obvious that King felt "called" to call America to repentance (which 

is the duel meaning of "prophet":  the caller and the called).  In his 

struggle, King felt the presence of God, saying that the compatriots 

in his struggle "had Cosmic companionship" (Power of Nonviolence, 

1957).  He called upon America "to let judgement/justice roll down 

like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream," a quotation from 

Amos he cites at least half a dozen times in his essays.  Amos 

proclaims the judgement of the nations "for three crimes and for 

four," who, though punished, still did not return to the Lord their 

God.  Eventually, however, when Israel repents, Yahweh restores her 

fortunes.  In this way, King sought repentance from American 

businesses.  King punished American businesses by calling for 

boycotts, and when the businesses repented and agreed to hire more 

Negroes, or allow them to ride at the front of the buses, or sit at 

lunch counters, then Yahweh, acting through the Negroes, restored 

their fortunes by bringing Negro customers back.



	King acted as a prophet in comforting his oppressed people, 

pleading with Yahweh on their behalf.  He cried that, for the Negro, 

"the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be 

plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the blackness 

of corroding despair" (Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963).  He 

encouraged young students who took "the deep groans and the passionate 

yearnings of the Negro people and filtered them in their own souls and 

fashioned them in a creative protest which is an epic known all over 

our nation" (The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousness, 1960).  As the 

prophets often took the groans and cries for justice of the 

Israelites, so the Negro prophets took the groans and cries for 

justice of the Negro people and laid them before the throne of God.  

Yet King complained that the oppressors cannot "understand or 

appreciate the deep groans and passionate yearnings of those that have 

been oppressed and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice 

must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action" 

(Birmingham Jail).  As the Israelite king's prophets often threw God's 

true prophets in jail, so God's Negro prophets suffered the indignity 

of jail for their faith in the God of Justice.  When a prophet hears 

the word of God, he must speak; when a prophet hears the groans and 

passionate yearnings of his people, he cannot remain silent.  God 

commands him to speak and to act on behalf of his people.  Though 

"seared in the flames of withering injustice" (I Have a Dream, 1963), 

the prophet has faith God will set his people free, just as the 

Emancipation Proclamation "came as a joyous daybreak to end the long 

night of their captivity" (ibid).



	King, as a prophet, called on his fellow Christians to also be 

prophets for the Kingdom of God by calling upon them to embrace 

nonviolence as a way of life (Pilgrimage to Nonviolence).  As the 

prophets called for justice in both the northern and southern kingdoms 

of Israel, so King frequently called for justice in the North and 

South of the United States of America.  King said it would be much 

harder to overcome prejudice in the North than in the South, because 

Southern institutions are so easy to point to and say "this is wrong," 

whereas in the North prejudice is a matter of deep-rooted belief not 

visibly manifest in Northern society as a whole.  Though the prophets 

were often abused and thrown into jail or the pit, they did not 

violently retaliate, and King sought to emulate this and encouraged 

other Christian prophets to emulate this.  As the prophets fought with 

words, so the Negro prophets fought with words; the pen is mightier 

than the sword.  But King also said that prophets must put their 

bodies where their words are, "always...willing to talk and seek fair 

compromise, but...ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our 

lives to become witnesses to the truth as we see it."  He regarded 

physical death as "the price that a man must pay to free his children 

and his white brethren from a permanent death of the spirit," but 

"nothing could be more redemptive" (Rising Tide of Racial 

Consciousness).  A prophet, he contended, must prepare his body "as a 

means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and 

national community" (Birmingham Jail).  And, again, to those who 

claimed that social concerns were no business of the Gospel, he 

responded by pointing out that prophets of old did not make a 

distinction between the sacred and the profane -- to them, that would 

be as strange a distinction as between the soul and the body 

(Birmingham Jail).



	As a prophet, King called on the leadership of his country to 

be true to God.  "The urgence of the hour," he said, "calls for 

leaders of wise judgment and sound integrity -- leaders not in love 

with money, but in love with justice; leaders not in love with 

publicity, but in love with humanity; leaders who can subject their 

particular egos to the greatness of the cause."  The prophets of 

Israel could not have said it better, who called for their kings to do 

exactly the same thing.  King urged leaders to place "their moral 

power behind their law" (My Trip to the Land of Gandhi, 1959).  For 

King, this trip was his purification in the desert before he began his 

powerful mission for justice and righteousness.  King complained that 

our religious and civic leaders urged white citizens to integrate 

"because it's the law," but rarely because "it's morally right."  This 

distressed him greatly, since he frequently urged his followers only 

to obey just, and not unjust, laws.  The prophets frequently flouted 

the king's laws, told the king when he was unjust, called for 

repentance from the king as well as all of Israel, and urged for the 

institution of just laws in conjunction with their just application.  

Without good leadership, good laws are worthless.  King called for 

"strong and aggressive leadership from the federal government" (Rising 

Tide), challenging them that "injustice anywhere is a threat to 

justice everywhere" (ibid).  What may have distressed King move than 

anything was the lukewarm leadership of white church leaders, or 

sometimes downright opposition.  He accused them of staying safe 

behind their stained glass windows (Birmingham Jail).  He urged them, 

as God's prophets often urged the king's prophets, to be true to their 

faith and their God and accept the call to repentance.



	King called on all of us to confront evil by the power of love 

(Land of Gandhi), saying it was better to receive violence than to 

inflict it.  He claimed that nonviolent, direct action was a better 

and more successful method than violence.  Any prophet of old could 

have told him that.  Like Jeremiah in the pit, he called on us to go 

to jail to help make America righteous (Time for Freedom Has Come, 

1961).  He pointed out that unearned suffering is redemptive (I Have a 

Dream), and that "right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil 

triumphant" (Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 1964).  He called on us, 

like the New Testament prophets, to love instead of hate, since "he 

who hates does not know God" and "love is the key to ultimate reality" 

(1 John).  "Seek the highest good."  Like the New Testament prophets, 

he called on us to rejoice whenever we found ourselves suffering in 

the cause of righteousness.



	In "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence," King reveals how he became a 

prophet.  He came to believe in a personal God, to believe that God is 

a "living reality validated in experiences of everyday life."  His 

suffering, he found, drew him closer to God, helping him to achieve an 

inner calm and strength only God can give.  God, he realized, is the 

ruler of the universe and in our struggle for righteousness, we have 

cosmic companionship.  In "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," he likens 

himself to the 8th century prophets who left their little villages and 

carried their "thus saith the Lord"s far beyond the boundaries of 

their hometowns.  He compares himself to the Apostle Paul, who "left 

his little village of Tarsus and carried the Gospel of Jesus Christ to 

every hamlet and city."  King himself carried the Gospel of Freedom to 

the people of his nation, black and white, Jew and Gentile.  Like 

Paul, he constantly responded to the Macedonian call for aid.  Like a 

prophet, he condemns his people out of love, and urges their 

repentance for the sake of his love for them.  He asks, "Who is their 

God?  Where were they when God called for justice?"  King wept over 

the Church as the prophets wept over Israel, because of love.  He 

said, "We've belemished and scarred the Body through social neglect 

and fear of being nonconformists" (Birmingham Jail).  God-intoxicated, 

King suffered for his faith, and proclaimed that the judgment of God 

was upon the Church as never before.  Right defeated, he often 

claimed, is greater than evil triumphant (Eulogy for the Martyred 

Children, 1963).  King not only called upon us to do right, but to do 

right for the right reason -- right kavvanah.  There is no greater 

treason, he claimed, that to do the right deed for the wrong reason.





	King condemned America, as the prophets condemned Israel, for 

defaulting on their promise to blacks, "that all men are created 

equal."  He called on his nation to "make justice a reality for all 

God's children" (I Have a Dream), but not to slake our thirst for 

justice with the cup of bitterness and hatred, but with dignity and 

the discipline of nonviolence.  He urged us not to wallow in the 

valley of despair, but to march for justice, and to have the courage 

to vote and send to Washington "men who will not fear to do justice, 

love mercy, and walk humbly with their God" (ibid, quoting Micah).  He 

called on America to be born again (Where Do We Go From Here?, 1967).  

He called upon us to be "dissatisfied until the governor does justly, 

loves mercy, and walks humbly with God" so that justice will "roll 

down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream" (ibid, quoting 

Amos).  "God is not mocked," he told us.  "Ye reap what ye sow" 

(ibid).  "God did not call America to Vietnam," he warned us (The Drum 

Major Instinct, 1968), condemning America's involvement in the Vietnam 

War much as the prophets condemned Israel's wars that were not 

ordained by God.  Preachers must say with Jesus, "The Spirit of the 

Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to deal with the problems 

of the poor" (I See the Promised Land, 1968).  As Jesus was a prophet 

to the poor and the oppressed and the outcaste, so King was a prophet 

to the poor, oppressed, and outcaste Negro people.  King claims that 

God said to the Hebrews, "Don't play with me, Israel.  Don't play with 

me, Babylon.  Be still and know that I am God.  And if you don't stop 

your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your 

power" (Drum Major Instinct), which is, of course, exactly what God 

did, acting through the prophet King, when he broke the back of Jim 

Crow.  "God sent us," King announced, "...to say to you that you're 

not treating his children right."  King then promised God's punishment 

on behalf of God's children until righteousness prevailed.



	Martin Luther King Jr. was a great prophet who urged all of 

us to be prophets of God, to proclaim a righteous Kingdom under 

Heaven, and he showed us the way.  He told us to "blot out the hate 

and injustice of the old age, and bring in the love and justice of the 

new age" (Facing the Challenge of a New Age, 1957).  The end of the 

struggle, he said, is reconciliation, redemption, and the creation of 

a beloved community.  In this new age, the universe is on the side of 

justice.  We must "protest injustice to bring in the new age" and the 

"blood of martyrs will be the seed of the tabernacle of freedom" 

(ibid).  "The old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing 

away, and the new systems of justice and equality are being born" 

(Pilgrimage).  If we follow his prophecy, King claimed that we would 

"emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to 

man into the bright and glowing daybreak of freedom and justice for 

all God's children" (Rising Tide).  Then "the heat of injustice will 

be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice" (Dream), and 

"every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain made low, the 

rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places shall be made 

straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh 

shall see it together" (ibid, A Time to Break Silence, 1967, quoting 

Isaiah).  Then our land will be "a better land because people were 

willing to suffer for righteousness' sake" (ibid).





	Thus, King was a prophet who called us to repentance, called 

us to imitate the prophets, called on us to imitate the prophet Jesus, 

the prophet Paul, and the prophets of the Old Testament.  He called on 

the leadership of our nation to do justice with courage, he called on 

us to obey the just laws of God, and to disobey the unjust laws of 

Satan.  He called on us to be nonviolent as the prophets were 

nonviolent and were thrown into the pit for their faith and their 

demonstrations by word and deed of their faith.  He condemned our 

sins, called us to repentance, and prayed for America's soul, helping 

to bring about our salvation -- which is still continuing to this day. 

King, as a prophet, guided his oppressed people, but also guided the 

oppressors, that they might see their sin and repent of their wicked 

ways.  He knew better than anyone that America, like Israel, is a 

chosen nation whose image abroad reflects our behavior at home (The 

Time for Freedom Has Come, 1961) and, while privileged groups seldom 

give up their privileges voluntarily, he helped us to do just that, 

taking away our reproach from among the nations.


In Jesus Son of Mary,

Cindy Smith
cms@dragon.com

Rely not on your wealth;
   say not:  "I have the power."
Rely not on your strength
   in following the desires of your heart.
Say not:  "Who can prevail against me?"
   for the LORD will exact the punishment.
Say not:  "I have sinned, yet what has befallen me?"
   for the LORD bides his time.
Of forgiveness be not overconfident,
   adding sin upon sin.
Say not:  "Great is his mercy;
   my many sins he will forgive."
For mercy and anger are alike with him;
   upon the wicked alights his wrath.
Delay not your conversion to the LORD,
   put it not off from day to day;
For suddenly his wrath flames forth;
   at the time of vengeance, you will be destroyed.
Rely not upon deceitful wealth,
   for it will be no help on the day of wrath.

Ecclesiasticus/Ben Sira 5:1-10
Xref: sparky soc.culture.african:7451 alt.current-events.somalia:795 alt.activism:20208