Pondering Martin Luther King A Year after Trump’s Inauguration
One evening after a particularly stressful and conflict-ridden day, Martin Luther King retired for the night. On the verge of falling asleep, he received an angry phone call, threatening his life and the lives of his wife and children. Unable to sleep, King went downstairs to fix a pot of coffee. King describes an unexpected encounter with God, during his spiritual crisis:
I was ready to give up. I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing to be a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage was almost gone, I determined to take my problem to God. My head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud…. “I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength or courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.”
As members of twelve-step movements and people in crisis often assert, when you hit rock-bottom, you may discover that you are standing on solid rock! And that’s what King found out!
At that moment I experienced the presence of the divine as I had never experienced him. It seems as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice, saying, “Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth, God will be at your side forever.
Following his experience of God’s still small voice, King affirms, “the outer situation remained the same, but God had given me inner calm.” Three days later, King’s home was bombed. But King remained rooted in God’s faithfulness. His encounter with God in the midnight hour gave him strength and faith to face whatever storms would lie ahead not only in the Montgomery Bus Boycott but over the next decade as King championed civil rights of African Americans and called America to seek justice and peace at home and abroad. Longevity is good, as King said the night before his death. But more than that is our vision of the Promised Land, and our quest for justice.
Many of us shared Martin Luther King’s fears for the America of his time Donald Trump was inaugurated a year ago. A year later, most of our greatest fears have been realized as our nation has entered a national nightmare in which virtually every social and human rights gains have been put at risk, masked paramilitary troops roam the streets harassing and killing citizens and non-citizens alike, the US has pulled out of climate change agreements and turned its back on future generations, threatened invade allies, alienated NATO partners, and bullied allies through tariffs.
Under Trump’s yearlong presidency, there has been no pretense that the US is a moral or good nation, or an example for others to follow or that we privilege democracy over dictatorship. Any thread of decency or commitment to world order has been eclipsed by the belief that might makes right and power is the only moral value.
Trump has gone so far as to eliminate Martin Luther King’s birthday as a free access day at national parks, while instituting his birthday, the rather minor Flag Day, June 14, as a free access day. A year after Trump’s inauguration, the contrast of Martin Luther King and Trump is breathtaking. Trump makes no pretense of unifying the nation: he punishes any state that steps out of line, withholds disaster relief and social welfare funds from Democrat controlled states, and vows retribution upon anyone who opposes him. With no resistance from a Republican leadership that lacks conscience, moral compass, and backbone, Trump is bound and determined to undermine virtually every democratic and human rights institution in the United States.
What is more troubling is that the majority of US self-described conservative, traditional, and evangelical Christians have been his most vocal cheerleaders for violence, bullying, and exclusion, drunk on the dream of a Christian America, despite the fact Trumpism makes Christianity and its message of salvation unpalatable for the majority of Americans today, who see greater compassion and moral concern among atheists and agnostics than the noisy and vitriolic conservative Christian community.
While I don’t wish to malign all traditional Christians, the fact that 70% of conservative Christians polled still stand stalwartly behind Trump, despite his violence, incivility, vitriol, and violence, shows how far the average conservative Christian has drifted from the way of Jesus, preferring the love of power over the power of love.
Frederick Douglass noted that the most violent slaveholders were typically the most ardent Christians, and King knew that in his bones and soul. King grew up and began his ministry in Jim Crow America, in which African Americans faced retribution, physical harm, jail, and death for everyday behaviors and aspirations. Some who claimed a close relationship to Jesus’ Cross were the first to turn to the cross into a lynching tree to keep African Americans in line and promote white supremacy. King, in the words of mystic-activist Howard Thurman, knew what it meant to have his back against the wall and so do millions of Americans today – undocumented workers, economically vulnerable, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and persons of color. Those of us who have enjoyed the benefits of privilege, power, and prosperity best not give up the quest, or all is lost for Beloved Community in this troubled time, or all hope will be lost for healing the soul of our nation.
When we begin to feel hopeless, we would do well to remember King’s words, spoken just two months prior to his assassination, “We accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.” We must recognize our fear, anxiety, and hopelessness as we observe with Harry Emerson Fosdick, spoken to his own privileged yet powerful congregation:
Lo, the hosts of evil round us
scorn the Christ, assail his ways.
From the fears that long have bound us
free our hearts to faith and praise.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage
for the living of these days,
for the living of these days.
These are dark days in which leaders have lost their reason, and abandoned compassion and morality. A year into Trump’s term in which our worst nightmares have been realized both at home and abroad, and many of our Christian kin have substituted Trump for Jesus as the arbiter of social morality, we must seek courage in “infinite hope,” recognizing that God is God and Trump isn’t. Recognizing that as weak as it seems to be right now, like the weak force of gravity, the arc of the universe is running through history, and it aims toward justice. We must recognize that the mustard seed grows into a great plant and just a little light can pierce the darkness and reveal hate and falsehood for what they are “sound and fury, signifying nothing,” before the God of the Universe, the God of the Ages whose love outlasts every self-proclaimed empire and potentate.
In our anxiety and hopelessness, we need to follow the better angels of our nature. We must seek justice and love mercy with power and perseverance, and resistance and resilience, and take the high road when others descend into the demonic. Protesting and praying, challenging and contemplating. We must examine ourselves, so that without condescension, purify ourselves of evil intent and the violence in our own hearts. We can recognize with author of Psalm 139 that we “hate” those who would turn back the clock on the environment and human rights with a “holy hatred,” and we must also ask God to search us and know us, and keep us on the path of righteousness even as we walk through the valley of national death and destruction. We must ask God to help us love our enemies, even as we confront what we believe to be their evil intent and behavior, for they too are God’s children.
As I noted earlier, those of us with privilege must not give up hope. We need to gain strength and courage from the wise persistence of Howard Thurman, Martin Luther King, James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Mahatma Gandhi, and Henry David Thoreau, to persist in what is right regardless of the consequence. We must recognize that despite the fact we may be experiencing “life after doom,” we can also live with “defiant joy” as Brian McLaren counsels. We can pray for the healing of Donald Trump’s spirit as one of God’s beloved children, and kin to ourselves, and that he will find the joy that comes from seeking justice and loving mercyWe must pray with Harry Emerson Fosdick:
Save us from weak resignation
to the evils we deplore;
let the gift of your salvation
be our glory evermore.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage
serving you whom we adore,
serving you whom we adore.
Then as we face the darkness, remember that the true light enlightens all, that we are the light of the world in all our fear and fallibility, and we can let our light shine. Then with Fannie Lou Hamer we can sing, “This Little Light of Mine.” (This Little Light of Mine)
This little light of mine
I’m gonna let it shine
Oh, this little light of mine
I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine
Hide it under a bushel, no!
I’m gonna let it shine
Hide it under a bushel, no!
I’m gonna let it shine
Oh, hide it under a bushel, no!
I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Everywhere I go,
I’m gonna let it shine,
Everywhere I go,
I’m gonna let it shine,
Everywhere I go,
I’m gonna let it shine,
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
And so let us proclaim, “Glory Hallelujah! God’s truth is marching on!”
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Much of this piece was published in January 2005 and revised for just such a time as now.
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Bruce Epperly is Theologian in Residence at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ, Bethesda, MD (https://www.westmorelanducc.org/) and a professor in theology and spirituality at Wesley Theological Seminary. He is the author of over 90 books including: “Homegrown Mystics: Restoring the Soul of Our Nation through the Healing Wisdom of America’s Mystics” (Amazon.com: Homegrown Mystics: Restoring Our Nation with the Healing Wisdom of America’s Visionaries: 9781625249142: Epperly, Bruce: Books) “Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet “(Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet: Epperly, Bruce: 9781625248732: Amazon.com: Books), Saving Progressive Christianity to Save the Planet”( Saving Progressive Christianity to Save the Planet: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999215: Amazon.com: Books), “God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality and Social Change” (The God of the Growing Edge: Whitehead and Thurman on Theology, Spirituality, and Social Change: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999291: Amazon.com: Books), and “Prophetic Healing Howard Thurman’s Vision of Contemplative Activism (Prophetic Healing: Howard Thurman’s Vision of Contemplative Activism: Epperly, Bruce: 9780944350867: Amazon.com: Books). His latest book is “Just a Little Walk with Jesus: A Lenten Spiritual Saunter with Jesus” (Just a Little Walk with Jesus: A Lenten Spiritual Saunter with Jesus: Epperly, Bruce G: 9781631999642: Amazon.com: Books).
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