Dr. King showed us how to be truly American and truly Christian

No movement in American history more resembled the life and teachings of Jesus Christ than the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

No movement in American history, to achieve its aims, more closely followed the Way of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the most Christian of all Christian teachings is this one:

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect (Gospel of Matthew 5:43-48).

A Christian is someone who loves her enemies. And not from a distance. Not from working up some wishful goodwill in her head, miles away from where her enemy lives.

The Christ said that his Father acts toward his enemies (“causes…to rise” and “sends). His Father greets ("gives his peace, or shalom, to…”) people who are not his own. It is these acts of friendship, generosity, goodwill, kindness, and peace toward his enemies that make the heavenly Father “perfect.” Jesus Christ taught his followers to be perfect like that.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a Christian preacher.

More than that, he was a Christian practitioner.

He was not perfect as we all know, but I’m a Christian preacher myself. I’m the son and grandson of Christian preachers. I can tell you from firsthand experience that no Christian preacher is perfect.

But where Dr. King got close to perfection is where he followed the most Christian of all Christian teachings: He loved his enemies.

People who don’t know much about Dr. King and the movement he led don’t really understand what he was trying to do. To someone who doesn’t know much about Dr. King’s Christ-believing, Christ-following, and Christ-preaching, the American Civil Rights Movement was merely about equal rights for Black Americans. Some, like J. Edgar Hoover, even mistook Dr. King’s movement for a militant movement or an uprising to overturn society by threat of force.

But Dr. King was doing what he did because of, and for, the Prince of Peace. The Prince of Peace who prayed mercy and peace on the very enemies who conspired to crucify him (Gospel of Luke 23:34). Dr. King let a movement to cover an entire nation in the mercy and peace of the Christ.

What I’m saying is that Dr. King didn’t see the Civil Rights movement merely as a movement for Black equality; he saw it as a movement for American health and wholeness. In faith, hope, and love, he was working just as hard for white Americans as he was for Black Americans. He saw that all Americans needed healing and restoration. All Americans needed the shalom of God. He understood that for one group of Americans to try to seize shalom from another group meant that no Americans could truly have peace, security, and well-being.

That is why Dr. King focused on Black equality. As a Christian, he understood that white Americans could never be truly happy, healthy, and whole as long as their Black brethren were held back and held down. With the eyes of the Christ he could see how inequality and injustice were harming all Americans.

The solution could not be to do more harm to each other. It could not be taken by force. Dr. King believed that Jesus Christ taught that what we do to others is what we bring on ourselves (Gospel of Matthew 7:2). Those who live by the sword will die by the sword (Gospel of Matthew 26:52).

The only solution for America’s disease and division could be to follow the Way of Christ, which is the way of mercy and peace. It is the way of enemy love. Active enemy love.

And that is exactly what Dr. King set out to do. It is what he taught those who heard and believed the Gospel he preached, a Gospel they put to practice.

Growing up, I was taught that Dr. King was a Black hero for Black people. I was taught that he organized Blacks to solve a problem they had a long time ago. I was taught that some white people a long time ago were wrong to treat Black people the way they did, but that Dr. King helped correct the problem and now Black people are better off because of his work.

This is a massive misunderstanding of Dr. King and the movement he led.

While Dr. King did set out to correct certain injustices against Black Americans, to think of this as the whole movement is to miss the point.

Dr. King was a Christian preacher proclaiming the Good News that the kingdom of God is here and now if we choose to be part of it. It is indeed a kingdom where enemies become friends, not by force, but by freedom. Dr. King, like his Christ, knew that when people choose to act as enemies toward each other, they are slaves to their own anger, fear, and hatred. Only by choosing love and mercy can people be set free from the power of their enemies. Only by choosing freely to give love and mercy to enemies, can a “beloved community” begin to grow among humanity.

Black Americans have reason to be proud that a Black American, perhaps better and more than any other American, showed all Americans what we can be at our best. Black Americans have many reasons to be proud that a Black American led a movement that, perhaps better and more than any other American movement, showed us what America can be at its best.

But Dr. King, as a follower and preacher of the Way of Jesus Christ, would say that his life and work were so much bigger than the movement for Black equal rights in the 1950s and 1960s.

He was living and working for all Americans so that we could discover and embrace how we are bound up in each other. How life together is the abundant life that the Christ promised. That the “kingdom of God” can truly be among us (Gospel of Luke 17:21) if we choose to see and reach for it in our neighbors, strangers, and especially enemies.

Among all Americans who ever lived, few understood the perils and promises of America better than Dr. King did.

Among all Christians who ever lived in this nation, few understood the calling of the Christ better than Dr. King did.

He gave his life for his country and for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

He gave his life even for those who took it from him.

Do we still have enemies to love as perfectly as our heavenly Father loves them? Do we still have divisions to heal?

The movement that Dr. King led is not done because the love of God is not done calling us away from our anger or apathy. The movement that Dr. King led is not done because we still have enemies to love.

Dr. King followed the Way of the Christ through America.

Let us follow the way Dr. King marked for us.

Grace and peace.