Wwmlkd?

Now face to face with his Maker, I wonder--- if it were possible and he were given the opportunity to return to walk among us other mortals--- would MLK continue the path he pursued later in life, i.e., attempting to alter the course of human events via policy... or would he return to the path of his early life and do the work of a pastor?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Now face to face with his Maker, I wonder--- if it were possible and he were given the opportunity to return to walk among us other mortals--- would MLK continue the path he pursued later in life, i.e., attempting to alter the course of human events via policy... or would he return to the path of his early life and do the work of a pastor?

Who is Wwmlkd?

Originally posted by josephw
Who is Wwmlkd?

The thread was supposed to be a take off on the WWJD fad, supposing instead...
What Would Martin Luther King Do?

A little more oblique than normal; my bad.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
The thread was supposed to be a take off on the WWJD fad, supposing instead...
[b]What Would Martin Luther King Do?

A little more oblique than normal; my bad.[/b]

Yes. I remember. I grew up in the sixties. I thought MLK had a noble cause. Much good resulted from the civil rights movement. I didn't know it at the time, but MLK was a conservative republican. James Earl Ray, and those behind him, were probably democrats.

That should get things going. 😛

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Now face to face with his Maker, I wonder--- if it were possible and he were given the opportunity to return to walk among us other mortals--- would MLK continue the path he pursued later in life, i.e., attempting to alter the course of human events via policy... or would he return to the path of his early life and do the work of a pastor?

I think he would do whatever his Maker called him to do, i.e., lead the civil rights movement. The life of a pastor seems much more cozy than prison cells or standing in the crosshairs.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
I think he would do whatever his Maker called him to do, i.e., lead the civil rights movement. The life of a pastor seems much more cozy than prison cells or standing in the crosshairs.

That almost sounds like you're saying that the right path is the one which leads to the most pain. The question concerns itself more with what God considers important, as contrasted with man considers important.

Namely, has God called us to lead civil movements, to move in the circles of influence of the obvious changes--- or has God called us to be 'invisible heroes?'

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
That almost sounds like you're saying that the right path is the one which leads to the most pain. The question concerns itself more with what God considers important, as contrasted with man considers important.

Namely, has God called us to lead civil movements, to move in the circles of influence of the obvious changes--- or has God called us to be 'invisible heroes?'

I think the right path is the one which leads to greater self-renunciation. What form that might take could be different in everyone's case. For instance, it may have been true for MLK that being a pastor meant abandoning God's will. Perhaps preaching to and ministering to his congregation had become a shelter from the call of God, almost a temptation. Yet to another person being a minister might be a perpetual act of self-renunciation, wherein God calls him out of the comfort of anonymity and solitude. God fashions different crosses for everyone.

Considering the goodness which the civil rights movement achieved, the righteousness of the ideal of equality, the grip of evil upon the mind and heart that was loosened, the going toe to toe with prejudice... I cannot imagine that the civil rights movement was not God's will, since He is the source of all goodness and righteousness.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
I think the right path is the one which leads to greater self-renunciation. What form that might take could be different in everyone's case. For instance, it may have been true for MLK that being a pastor meant abandoning God's will. Perhaps preaching to and ministering to his congregation had become a shelter from the call of God, almost a temptation ...[text shortened]... rights movement was not God's will, since He is the source of all goodness and righteousness.

"The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me."

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
"The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me."

Care to expound?

Originally posted by epiphinehas
Care to expound?

I think he's saying to screw the poor. As long as he's 'saved' why should he care what happens to anyone else?

When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death....

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.


- Martin Luther King, 4 April 1967

Originally posted by epiphinehas
Care to expound?

If curing the devil's world were His aim, this is what He would have left us with. We aren't left behind to make the world a better place. Our first and foremost obligation is the spiritual matters, not physical.

Of course, some situations will require us to improve general conditions, but our highest calling is not feeding people or righting real or perceived wrongs. We have the cure for what really ails man... and it's not 'can't we all just get along?'

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
If curing the devil's world were His aim, this is what He would have left us with. We aren't left behind to make the world a better place. Our first and foremost obligation is the spiritual matters, not physical.

Of course, some situations will require us to improve general conditions, but our highest calling is not feeding people or righting real or ...[text shortened]... We have the cure for what really ails man... and it's not 'can't we all just get along?'

You've never read his speeches or studied his history so you actually know nothing about Martin Luther King. Did you even read the excerpt I posted?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
If curing the devil's world were His aim, this is what He would have left us with. We aren't left behind to make the world a better place. Our first and foremost obligation is the spiritual matters, not physical.

Of course, some situations will require us to improve general conditions, but our highest calling is not feeding people or righting real or ...[text shortened]... We have the cure for what really ails man... and it's not 'can't we all just get along?'

If curing the devil's world were His aim, this is what He would have left us with. We aren't left behind to make the world a better place.

But the aim of God is the establishing of His will on earth, isn't it? "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..." Of course, this means spreading the Good News, but it also means righting wrongs. It is even said of Christ: He went around doing good. If God has no interest in the lives of men in the world, why then did he spend so much time and energy healing people of their ills? Further, God intervening in the affairs of the world in order to improve its conditions is not without precedent. Consider the Israelite bondage in Egypt. God heard their cry for help and stepped in to establish justice. Does God have any less love or concern for the slaves brought here from Africa? Or their descendants? My guess is, since God is love, that he suffers with the travails of all people, and is concerned not only with their eternal salvation, but with their current plight as well. I think it is God's will to destroy the works of the enemy wherever and whenever they are found, and he raises up people, like MLK, to stand for His kingdom on earth. And in some small way all his children ought to likewise stand for justice in this world.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]If curing the devil's world were His aim, this is what He would have left us with. We aren't left behind to make the world a better place.

But the aim of God is the establishing of His will on earth, isn't it? "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..." Of course, this means spreading the Good News, but it also means righting w ...[text shortened]... And in some small way all his children ought to likewise stand for justice in this world.[/b]

In Freaky's interpretation, religion really IS the opiate of the masses. Why should they try to change the world when they can sit around, do nothing, and get 'pie in the sky when they die'? I can't imagine a greater perversion of what Jesus had to say.