{"id":945,"date":"2014-01-21T09:23:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T09:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/01\/martin-luther-king-jr-how-christian-churches-can-continue-his-legacy.html"},"modified":"2014-01-21T09:23:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T09:23:00","slug":"martin-luther-king-jr-how-christian-churches-can-continue-his-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/01\/martin-luther-king-jr-how-christian-churches-can-continue-his-legacy.html","title":{"rendered":"Martin Luther King, Jr.: How Christian Churches Can Continue His Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>In 1983\u2013the year after I was born\u2013President Ronald Reagan officially designated the third Monday in January as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. But it wasn\u2019t until 2000\u2013the year I graduated from high school\u2013that it was observed by all 50 states for the first time. As the saying goes, \u201cJustice marches slowly on.\u201d\u00a0As we celebrate yet another MLK Day, the occasion warrants asking how the 21st century Christian church can continue Dr. King\u2019s legacy.<\/span><\/div>\nSoong-Chan Rah\u2014a popular speaker and author\u2014is the B. Engebretson Associate Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at\u00a0North Park Theological Seminary<\/a>\u00a0in Chicago, IL and the author of \u201c<\/i>The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity<\/a>\u201c\u00a0and \u201cMany Colors: Cultural Intelligence for a Changing Church<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0Previously, he was the founding senior pastor of the Cambridge Community Fellowship Church, a multi-ethnic, urban ministry-focused church committed to living out the values of racial reconciliation and social justice in the urban context. Here, we discuss how the Christian church can be an instrument of justice and reconciliation in our current era.<\/span><\/div>\nRNS: What message would you want to share with churches that are lukewarm about social justice, or simply not interested in prioritizing justice issues?<\/span><\/b><\/div>\nSCR: God\u2019s heart for justice is a biblical mandate. It is not action arising from political correctness. If we\u2019re lukewarm about social justice, then we are lukewarm about the Scriptures. The Bible calls for \u201cjustice to roll down\u201d and consistently calls for believers to care for the poor and the immigrants among us. We are to be concerned about the orphans and the widows. We are given examples of how the prophets stood up to the powers. If we reject justice, we are performing a form of eisegesis that picks and chooses what we hold to be important from Scripture based upon our experiences, our cultural biases, and our personal preferences.<\/span><\/div>\n