Honoring a Great Pastor
January 15, 2007, 08:00 AM | Peace and Justice
MLK
Our nation's holidays give tribute to important leaders and events, but only one holidays is set aside for our nation to remember a pastor whose ministry cost him his life. Forty-one years later, I can remember vividly listening to the television coverage of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech on the footsteps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. It still stirs something deep within me.

My father referred to him as "Reverend King" and would occasionally point out that he was a pastor first - defined by his call and theology - and that his civil rights leadership was simply an ordained outgrowth of his ministry. More than once I heard King referred to as a "man of God" and understood that his world view and approach to justice was shaped by the Bible. I know a man from our Ephrata Church of the Brethren who was part of a group of young white men from Lancaster County who were present at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963 when King gave his famous speech. Some in our youth Sunday School class even read "Letters from a Birmingham Jail." At least a number of white Pennsylvania Anabaptists were outraged at our nation's indifference to the plight of our citizens of color. I couldn't reconcile our biblical precepts with the conditions in our country and so we joined the civil protest against the injustices and inequalities in our "God-fearing" nation.

I recent survey of high school students in the United States found that many didn't even know who Martin Luther King, Jr. was or thought he was fighting against slavery. Our local school district gives two days off for deer hunting but doesn't observe Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Few parents attempt to pass on a sense of history to their children. That's really, really too bad.

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

- Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength to Love, 1963.

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