Beeson Podcast, Episode #115
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Jan. 8, 2013

>>Announcer: 


Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University, in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George. 


>>Timothy George:


Well, Happy New Year! This is 2013 and we’re beginning a whole new year on the Beeson Podcast. Thank all of you who listen faithfully week after week and tell others about it. It’s been a wonderful outreach of our school and we’re always glad to hear from you with your comments. 

Now, this year is a really special year in the life of Beeson Divinity School. It’s the 25th anniversary of our school. We were established in 1988. So, we’re going to be remembering that and taking some lessons from that throughout the year. We’ll have other podcasts related to that. But 2013 is another very important year in the history of our nation, because it marks the 50th anniversary of the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church here in Birmingham, Alabama. 

It’s a time to focus on racial reconciliation. That’s one of the strategic initiatives of Beeson. Also to think about the wider meaning of this whole question in our culture and society today, particularly as believers in Jesus Christ. And to kind of launch us into this series of thinking about racial reconciliation, we have a historic lecture by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It was delivered in 1961 on April the 19th at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Now, ten years prior to Dr. King’s visit to the seminary, the trustees of that school had voted to end the policy of segregation, which had of course long prevailed in that school and throughout our culture. And already there had been one African American student, Dr. Garland Offutt, who had received a PhD from Southern Seminary back in the late 1940s. So, this was not the beginning of thinking about the importance of race, but it was a crucial time in our country. 

Dr. King, in 1961, the Great March on Washington would be two years later, and we know his own life would end up in tragedy in 1968. So, we’re going back now in time a little bit and listen to this remarkable talk given to a packed crowd in Alumni Chapel at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on April the 19th, 1061. I think you’ll find this to be a remarkable moment in time. Of course it’s dated, but listen to the nuance of what is being said here, and the context in which it is spoken. I want to give thanks and appreciation to Dr. Al Moeller and all of our friends at Southern Seminary for giving us permission to play for you on the Beeson Podcast this talk by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “The Church on the Frontier of Racial Tension.” Let’s listen.


>>Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:


Dr. Harrington, members of the faculty, members of the student body of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, ladies and gentlemen. I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be on the campus of this great institution of learning and to be a part of this chapel period. I have looked forward to this experience with great anticipation. This isn’t my first time in this chapel, so I am happy to return to the chapel again. 

I said to Dr. Graves, coming over, that when the National Baptist Convention met here some few years ago the women met on this campus. They met in this chapel. And my mother happens to be the organist of the Women’s Convention, the Women’s Auxiliary of the Baptist Convention. So, I came over with her on two or three occasions to attend meetings right here in this chapel. So, I am very happy to be back on this campus again and to see each of you today.

I always consider it a very satisfying experience to have the opportunity to discuss some of the vital issues of our day with seminary students, with college and university students all over the nation. And so it is a real pleasure to have this opportunity today. 

I would like to have you think with me from the subject, “The Church on the Frontier of Racial Tension.” Those of us who live in the 20th century are privileged to live in one of the most momentous periods of human history. Indeed, we have the privilege of standing between two ages. The dying old and the emerging new. An old order is passing away and a new order is coming into being. 

Now we are all familiar with this old order that is passing away because we have lived with it. And we have seen it in all of its dimensions. We have seen the old order in Asia and Africa, in the form of colonialism and imperialism. There are approximately two billion, eight hundred million people in this world and as you know the vast majority of these people live in Asia and Africa. For years they have been dominated politically, exploited economically, segregated, and humiliated by foreign powers. But as Prime Minister Macmillan said a few months ago, “The wind of change began to blow. And what a mighty wind it is.”

We think of the fact that just 15 years ago the British empire had under its domination more than 640 million people in Asia and Africa. And today that number has been reduced to less than 60 million. Just 30 years ago there were only three independent countries in the whole of Africa. The Union of South Africa, Ethiopia, and Liberia. Mrs. King and I attended the independence celebration of Ghana back in 1957. There were only seven independent countries in Africa. But today that number has been increased to 27 independent countries. 

So, something is happening. A change has taken place. The old order of colonialism is passing away. The new order of freedom and human dignity is coming into being. But not only have we seen the old order on the international horizon, we’ve seen the old order in our own nation - in the form of segregation and in the form of discrimination. We all know the long history of the old order in the United States. It had its beginning in 1619 when the first slaves landed on the shores of this nation. 

Unlike the pilgrim fathers who landed at Plymouth a year later, they were brought here against their wills. Throughout slavery the Negro was treated as a thing to be used rather than a person to be respected. With the growth of slavery it became necessary to give some justification for it. It seems to be a fact of life that human beings cannot continue to do wrong without eventually reaching out for some thin rationalization to clothe an obvious wrong in the beautiful garments of righteousness. 

The philosopher psychologist, William James, used to talk a great deal about the stream of consciousness. And he says is one of the interesting things about human nature, one of the unique points of human nature, is that man can temporarily block the stream of consciousness and place anything in it that he wants to. And so we can end up seeking to make the wrong right. This is exactly what happened. Even the Bible and religion were used to give slavery moral justification. And so many argued that the Negro was inferior by nature because of Noah’s curse upon the children of Ham. 

The Apostle Paul’s [dictum 00:10:18] became a [watch word 00:10:19], “servants be obedient to your master.” Then one of the brethren had probably read the logic of Aristotle and he put his argument in the framework of an Aristotelian syllogism. He could say all men are made in the image of God. This was the major premise. Then came the minor premise. God, as everybody knows, is not a Negro. Then came the conclusion. Therefore the Negro is not a man. He could put his argument in a logical framework. 

So, living with the conditions of slavery and then later segregation many Negroes lost faith in themselves. Many came to feel that perhaps they were less than human. Perhaps they were inferior. But then something happened to the Negro. The circumstances made it possible and necessary for him to travel more. The coming of the automobile, the upheavals of two world wars, the Great Depression. So, his rural plantation background gave way to urban industrial life. His economic life was gradually rising through the growth of industry and the influence of organized labor and other agencies. Even his cultural life was rising through the steady decline of crippling illiteracy. 

All of these forces conjoined to cause the Negro to take a new look at himself. Negro [masses 00:12:06] all over began to re-evaluate themselves. The Negro came to feel that he was somebody. His religion revealed to him that God loves all of his children and that all men are made in his image, and that the basic thing about a man is not his specificity but his fundamentum. Not the texture of his hair or the color of his skin, but his eternal significance and worth to God. And so the Negro could now unconsciously cry out with the [inaudible 00:12:41] that, “fleecy locks and black complexion cannot forfeit nature’s claims. Skin may differ but affection dwells in black and white the same. And were I so tall as to reach the pole or to grasp the ocean at a span, I must be measured by my soul. The mind is the standard of the man.”

Along with this, something else happened. In 1954, May 17th, the Supreme Court of the nation rendered a decision. In 1857 the Supreme Court of the nation had rendered the Dred Scott decision, which said in substance that the Negro was not a citizen of the United States, he was merely property subject to the dictates of his owner. In 1896 the Supreme Court had rendered the Plessy versus Ferguson decision, which established the doctrine of separate but equal as the law of the land. In 1954 the Supreme Court came out with another decision, which said in substance the old Plessy doctrine must go, that separate facilities are inherently unequal and that to segregate a child on the basis of his race is to deny that child equal protection of the law. As a result of this decision we stand on the threshold of one of the most creative and constructive periods in the history of our nation in the area of race relations. 

To put it figuratively in biblical language we’ve broken loose from the Egypt of slavery, and we moved through the wilderness of segregation, and now we stand on the border of the promised land of integration. The old order of segregation is passing away and the new order of freedom and equality is coming into being. 

But all people do not welcome this emerging new order. This emerging new order is not coming into being without opposition. There are some people who are very unhappy about the emerging new order. They are determined to oppose it with all of the strength and power that they can muster. This is true in other countries. It is true in our own nation. So, we see resistance in, let us say, Johannesburg, South Africa, in northern and southern Rhodesia, in Nairobi, Kenya, and all over other sections of Africa. In countries that have not received independence. We see this resistance in our own nation. 

At times, this resistance has risen to ominous proportions. We see it in the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. We see it in the birth of white citizen’s council. We hear of the legislative halls of some states ringing loud with such words as “interposition and nullification.” All of these forces have combined to make for massive resistance. And so this is something of the prices that we face in race relations, because of this resistance.

Professor Sorokin of Harvard University wrote a book some years ago entitled, “The Crisis of Our Age.” His basic thesis was that a crisis develops in a society when an old idea exhausts itself and society seeks to re-orientate itself around a new idea. And this is what we see today. The old idea of paternalism. The old idea that segregation has exhausted itself. American society is seeking to re-orient itself around the new idea of integration of person to person relations. This is something of the crisis that we see. 

Now whenever a crisis emerges in society the Church has a significant role to play. Certainly the Church has a significant role to play in this period because this issue is not merely a political issue. It is a moral issue. Since the Church has a moral responsibility of being the moral guardian of society then it cannot evade its responsibility in this very tense period of transition. 

So, I would like to suggest some of the things that the Church can do in the area of human relations. Some of the things that the Church can do in this tense period of transition in order to make it possible for us to move from the old order into the new order. 

First, the Church must urge its worshippers to develop a world perspective. Whenever men develop a world outlook they rise above the shackles of racial prejudice and racial hatred. Whenever we find individuals caught in these shackles of racial prejudices they are the victims of narrow provincialism and sectionalism. So, the Church must urge its worshippers to rise above the narrow confines of their individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. 

So, you see the world in which we live today is a world that is geographically one. And in order to solve the problems in the days ahead we must make it spiritually one. Now, it is true that the geographical oneness of this age has come into being through a great extent through man’s scientific ingenuity. Man, through his scientific genius has been able to dwarf distance and place time in chains. Yes, we’ve been able to carve highways through the stratosphere and our jet planes have compressed into minutes distances that once took days and months. I think Bob Hope has adequately described this new jet age in which we live and certainly it isn’t the usual and common thing for a Christian preacher to be quoting Bob Hope, but he has so adequately described the jet age that I have to mention it. He said it’s an age in which it is possible to take a nonstop flight from Los Angeles to New York City and if on taking off in Los Angeles you develop hiccups you will “hic” in Los Angeles and “cup” in New York City. 

(laughter)

That’s really moving pretty fast. You know it is true because of the time difference to take a nonstop from Tokyo, Japan and arrive in Seattle, Washington – taking the flight from Tokyo on Sunday morning and you will arrive in Seattle, Washington on the preceding Saturday night. When your friends meet you at the airport and ask, “When did you leave Tokyo?” You will have to say, “I left tomorrow.” That’s the kind of age in which we live.

Now, this is a bit humorous, but I’m trying to laugh a basic fact into all of us. It is simply this, that the world in which we live is geographically one. Through our scientific and technological genius we have made of this world a neighborhood. It is trident, but urgently true, that now we are challenged through our spiritual and moral commitment to make of this world a brotherhood. In a real sense we must all learn to live together as brothers. Or we will all perish together as fools. We must see this sense of dependence, this sense of interdependence. No individual can live alone. No nation can live alone. We are made to live together. 

A few months ago Mrs. King and I journeyed over to that great country known as India. I never will forget the experience. It was a rich and rewarding experience. I had the opportunity of talking with the great leaders of the nation, to talk with the people, and to visit with them in the cities and in the villages. This experience will remain meaningful to me as long as the chords of memory shall lengthen. 

This morning I say to you that there are those depressing moments, but how can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes millions of people going to bed hungry tonight? How can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes millions of people sleeping on the sidewalks at night? More than a million people sleep on the sidewalks of Calcutta every night. More than 600,000 people sleep on the sidewalks of Bombay every night. How can one avoid being depressed when he discovers that out of India’s population of 400 million people more than 370 million make an annual income of less than $60 a year? Most of these people have never seen a doctor or a dentist. 

As I observe these conditions something within me cried out, “Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?” Then an answer came, “Oh no. The destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India and other nations.” And i started thinking about the fact that in our country we spend more than a million dollars a day to store surplus food. And I found myself saying, “I know where we can store that food, free of charge. In the wrinkled stomachs of the hundreds and millions of people who go to bed hungry tonight.” 

And maybe we have spent far too much of our national budget establishing military bases around the world rather than establishing bases of genuine concern and understanding. All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. As long as there is extreme poverty in the world no man can be totally rich, even if he has a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people cannot expect to live more than 30 or 32 years no man can be totally healthy, even if he just got a clean bill of health from the finest clinic in the country. Strangely enough I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. 

John Donne called it, years ago, and traced it in graphic terms, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Then he goes on toward the end to say, “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. Therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.” The Church must get this over in every community, in every section of this nation, and in every country of this world. 

Also, the Church must make it palatably clear that segregation is a moral evil, which no Christian can accept. Segregation is still the Negroes burden and America’s shame. The Church must make it clear that if we are to be true witnesses of Jesus Christ we can no longer give our allegiance to a system of segregation. Segregation is wrong because it substitutes an I/It relationship for the I/Thou relationship. 

Segregation is wrong because it relegates persons to the status of things. Segregation is wrong because it does something to the personality; it damages the soul. It often gives a segregator a false sense of superiority, and it gives the segregated a false sense of inferiority. So, the underlying philosophy of segregation is diametrically opposed to the underlying philosophy of Christianity and democracy. And all of the dialectics of the logicians cannot make them lie down together. 

The Church must make this very clear. The Church also has the responsibility of getting to the ideational roots of racial prejudice. Racial prejudice is always derived from or based on fears and suspicions and misunderstandings that are usually groundless. The Church can do a great deal to direct the popular mind at this point and to clear up these misunderstandings and these false ideas. And many of these ideas are disseminated by politicians who merely use the issue to arouse the fears and to perpetuate themselves in office.

The Church can make it clear that these things are not true. The Church can rise up and through its channels of religious education tell the truth on this issue. The Church can say to men everywhere that the idea of an inferior or a superior race is a false idea that has been refuted by the best evidence of the anthropological sciences. They tell us that there are no superior races or no inferior races. There may be superior individuals academically and inferior individuals academically in all races.

The Church can make it clear that the Negro is not inherently criminal. The Church can say that poverty and ignorance breed crime whatever the racial group may be. These things are environmental and not racial. The Church can make it clear that if there are lacking standards within the Negro community they lack because of segregation and discrimination. That it is a torturous logic to use, a tragic result of segregation, as an argument for the continuation of it. Then the Church can reveal to the nation the true intentions of the Negro. The Church can make it clear that the Negro is not seeking to dominate the nation politically, he is not seeking to overthrow anything, he is not seeking to upset the social structure of the nation, but he is merely seeking to create a moral balance within society so that all men can live together as brothers. 

The Church can make it clear that all of the talk about intermarriage and all of the fears that come into being on this subject are groundless fears. Properly speaking, individuals marry and not races. The people in the final analysis in a democracy must have the freedom to marry anybody that they want to marry, and so that no state should have laws prohibiting this. But even in spite of guaranteeing this freedom, the Church can make it clear that the basic aim of the Negro is to be the white man’s brother and not his brother-in-law. This can be made clear.

(laughter)

So, there are many false ideas that are constantly disseminated that the Church can do a great deal to refute. Then the Church can do a great deal to open channels of communication between the races. I am absolutely convinced that the men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other. They don’t know each other because they are separated from each other. No greater tragedy can befall society than the attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue. 

The Church has a responsibility to open the channels of communication. Then also the Church must not only clarify the ideas, but it must move out into the realm of social reform. The Church must develop an action program. Wherever there is injustice in society the Church must take a stand. Let us think of some of these injustices. 

The problem of economic injustice. 43% of the Negro families of America still make less than $2,000 a year, while just 17% of the white families of American make less than $2,000 a year. 21% of the Negro families of America make less than a $1,000 a year, while just 6% of the white families of American make less than $1,000 a year. 88% of the Negro families of America make less than $5,000 a year, while just 60% of the white families of America make less than $5,000 a year. 

Now the Church can take a stand on this issue. The Negro is still the last [inaudible 00:32:48] and the first [inaudible 00:32:49]. In these days of ordination he is the first one to suffer, because he’s been given positions where he’s limited to unskilled and semi skilled labor. He is prevented from going into apprenticeship training where he can develop his skills. So, the Church must make it clear that if we are to solve the problem and to create better conditions in society these economic conditions must be equalized. I could mention many other areas where the Church must go out and take a stand. Where there is segregation in any area the Church must be willing to stand up with an action program. 

One of the best ways that the Church can do this is to remove the yolk of segregation from its own body. Oh, it has been said many times and I’m forced to repeat it. It is tragic indeed that the Church is the most segregated major institution in America. It is tragic indeed that Sunday morning at 11:00 and we stand to sing “In Christ there is no east or west,” we stand in the most segregated hour of [inaudible 00:34:15] in America. 

So often in the Church we’ve had a high [blood pressure of 00:34:20] creeds and then [an anemia 00:34:24] of deeds. But thank God we’re beginning now to shake the lethargy from our souls and we are coming to see that we are to be true followers of Jesus Christ. We must stand up and solve this problem. So, hearing that, Churches are courageously integrating their congregations. Even their ministerial groups are standing up in communities, standing up with conviction and courage, all of this is encouraging. We must admit that these cases, these examples, are far too few. 

We must admit that the noble pronouncement of the major denominations on the question of integration have filtered down all too slowly to the local congregations. Now there is [inaudible 00:35:15] local church, every local congregation, to stand up on this issue because it will be one of the great tragedies of history. Historians in future years will be able to write that at the height of the 20th century the Christian Church proved to be the last bulwark of segregated power. 

That is another thing, final thing, that the Church must do. The Church must urge all men to enter the new age with understanding and creative goodwill in their hearts. This is true for everybody. This is true for those who have been an oppressor in the old order and those who have been on the oppressed end. Those who have been on the oppressor end must go into this new age with a sense of penitence, with a real sense of understanding. They must [inaudible 00:36:27] to be sure that they have removed every vestige of prejudice and bigotry, and that they have moved away from any philosophy of white supremacy. If they fail to do this many tragedies will occur. The new age, which is emerging, will have many problems to solve in future years.

But not only that, I would not limit myself to saying what the white man must do in order to make this new order possible. I have tried to make it clear in the last few years that the Negro himself must go into this new age with understanding, redemptive goodwill in his heart. I have said over and over again that we must work passionately and unrelenting for first class citizenship. We must never use second class methods to gain it. Because I know and you know the temptations which we face. Those of us who have been trampled over so long. Those of us who have been the victims of lynching, or those of us who have seen with our own eyes police brutality. Those of us who have seen so many tragic conditions that tend to destroy our personhood. That is a temptation - that we will enter the new age with bitterness in our hearts. But I am convinced that if this happens the new order, which is emerging, would be nothing but a duplicate of the old order. 

Somebody must have sense in this world. Somebody must have religion in this world. Sense enough to meet physical force with soul force. Sense enough to meet hate with love. This is why I believe so firmly in non violence as a way out. I am convinced that if the Negro succumbs to the temptation of using violence in his struggles with justice unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness. Our chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. 

There is still a voice crying through the [vestige 00:38:58] of time, saying to every potential Peter, “Put up your sword.” History is replete with the [inaudible 00:39:06] bones of nations. History is crowded with the wreckage of communities that fail to follow this command. So, I will say over and over again that our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that it is possible to stand up with courage, to stand up with as much zeal and courage and determination, organizing in mass action to break down the system of segregation, and yet not going to the point of hating and using violence in the process. That is this other way. 

So, as we will follow this way I think we, too, will be able to aid in bringing this new order into being. Now, many people ask me over and over again, “What do you mean when you say ‘love these people who are oppressing you, these people who will burn your home and threaten your children and seek to block all your desires and aspirations for freedom? What do you mean when you say love them.?’” I always have to stop them and try to define the meaning of love in this context. 

Fortunately the Greek language comes to our aid at this point. Do you know there are three words in the Greek language for love? There is the word eros, and eros is a sort of aesthetic love. Plato talks about it a great deal in his dialogues, the yearning of the soul for the realm of the divine. [inaudible 00:40:43] a romantic love and so in a sense we all know about eros, we’ve read about it in the [inaudible 00:40:50] of literature, we’ve experienced it in our own lives. 

Then the Greek language talks about philo, which is another level of love so to speak. This is friendship. This is a sort of reciprocal love. On this level we love because we are loved. It is intimate affection between personal friends. We love those people that we like.

Then the Greek language comes out with another word called agape. Agape is more than aesthetic or romantic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is understanding creative redemptive goodwill to all men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. So, when one rises to love at this point he loves men not because he likes them, not because their ways appeal to him – he loves every man because God loves them. He rises to the point that he is able to love the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. 

I think this is what Jesus meant when he said, “Love your enemies,” and I’m so happy he didn’t say “like your enemies,” because it’s difficult to like some people. It’s difficult to like what some people are doing to us. It’s difficult to like somebody who burns your home or somebody who is threatening your children. It’s difficult to like them, but Jesus says, “Love them.” Love is greater than like. Like is sentimental and affectionate, but love is understanding, creative redemptive goodwill for all men. 

I believe that this is the type of love that must guide us through this period of transition. With this we will be able to enter the new age with the proper attitude. We will not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage by subverting justice. We will not seek to substitute one tyranny for another. I am firmly convinced that black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men, but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race. The creation of a society where every man will respect the dignity and the worth of human personality. 

So, I believe that this is what we can learn from the Church. This is what the Church has been teaching in an amazing way. And it must continue to get this over in this very important period in our history. If we will but do these things we will be able to move in the great days ahead. Let us realize that the problem will not just work itself out. We have the responsibility of helping to work it out. It will not be solved until men and women all over this nation are willing to stand up with a sort of diving discontent.

You know there are certain technical words in every academic discipline and pretty soon they become a part of the technical nomenclature of that discipline. There is a word that is used in modern psychology. Probably used more than any other word in modern psychology. It is the word maladjusted. It is [inaudible 00:44:41] of modern child psychology: maladjusted. Suddenly I want to live a well adjusted life and I’m sure all of you want to live the well adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and Schizophrenic personalities. 

But if you would allow the preacher in me to come out now, I would like to say to you that there are some things within our social system of which I am proud to be maladjusted, of which I call upon all men of goodwill to be maladjusted. I never intend to become adjusted to the evils of segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism and the self-defeating affects of physical violence. 

I think that all men of goodwill must be maladjusted to all of these things, for it may well be that the salvation of our world lies in the hands of the maladjusted. So, let us be as maladjusted as the prophet Amos, who in the midst of the injustices of his day, that cried out in words that echo across the centuries, “Let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” As maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln, who had the vision to see that this nation could not exist half slave and half free.

As maladjusted as Thomas Jefferson, who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery, cried out in words lifted to cosmic proportions, “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” As maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth who could look into the eyes of the men and women of his generation and say, “Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Pray for them that despitefully use you.” I am convinced that the world is in disparate need of such maladjustment. 

In conclusion, let me say that we must have faith in the future, faith to believe that we can solve this problem. The faith to believe that as we struggle to solve this problem we do not struggle alone, but we have cosmic companionship all before the victory is won. Some people may have to get [inaudible 00:47:33] before the victory for brotherhood is won. Some people like Paul and Peter will have to go to jail before the victory for brotherhood is won. There will be others who will have to be called bad names, who will have to be misunderstood and misrepresented and misquoted. Before the victory is won some will have to lose jobs and suffer and sacrifice. Who will be a part of that created minority that will stand firm on [an issue 00:48:04] that will help us bring into being the Kingdom of God, knowing that in the process God struggled with us. The God that we worship is not some Aristotelian unmoved mover who merely contemplates upon himself. The God that we worship is not merely a self knowing God, but he’s an other loving God, working through history for the salvation of man. So, with this faith we can move on. There is something at the center of our faith which reminds us of this. We celebrated the event a few Sundays ago. Something that reminds us that Good Friday may occupy the throne for a day, but ultimately it must give way to the triumph and beat of the drums of Easter. 

Yes, there is something in our faith that reminds us that even though evil, at times, will [so shape 00:49:02] events, that Caesar will occupy the palace and [inaudible 00:49:06] the cross, one day that same Christ will rise up and split history into AD and BC so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. There is something in this universe which justifies Carlyle in saying, “No lie can live forever.” There is something in this universe which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying, “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.”

There is something in this universe that justifies James Russell Lowell in saying, “Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, yet that scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadows, keeping watch above his own.” So, with this faith we move out into the vast possibilities of the future. If we will go on with this faith and this determination to struggle we will be able to bring into being this society of brotherhood, transforming the jangling discords of our southland into a beautiful symphony of peaceful relationship, and this will be the day, figuratively speaking, the morning stars will sing together and the son’s of God will shout for joy.

May we stand for the benediction? 

And now unto Him who is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before our Father’s throne, to Him be power and authority, majesty and dominion. Now, henceforth, and forevermore. Amen.


>>Announcer:


You’ve been listening to the Beeson Podcast with host, Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson Podcast at our website: www.beesondivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school, training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work. We hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson Podcast.