Easter reflection: Can Dr. King’s ‘Commitment Card’ heal our divided nation?
Sadly, as we prepare to celebrate Easter (Resurrection Day), we once again confront a fractured, divided culture that all too often sets Americans against Americans. Millions of Americans lament this situation, but are at a loss as to how to help address the divisions.
We are observing this weekend the 58th anniversary of the tragic assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a man who employed his Christian faith to bring Americans together to confront the original sin in our American DNA, symbolized by racism and Jim Crow segregation.
As a Baptist minister and devout Christian, he brought his Christian faith to bear against the evil of segregation and racism in our country.
Dr. King called upon all of America to live up to the promises of its founding documents. In his eloquent “I Have a Dream” Speech, on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. King proclaimed:
I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
Then, turning to the personal and familial, he proclaimed,
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
He was indeed calling on all Americans to live up to the standard of our founding documents concerning individual human freedom and dignity.
In all his activities, Dr. King remained committed to nonviolence, in spite of extreme persecution from the Klan, White Citizens Councils and even state agencies. On what became “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965, as Civil Rights marchers under the auspices of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference prepared to march from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery, they were confronted by a blockade of state troopers and local police commanded by the notorious Sheriff Jim Clark and Major John Cloud.
When the crowd refused to disperse, Cloud ordered his men to advance as they were cheered on by white bystanders. The police, some of them mounted on horseback, viciously attacked the marchers with clubs and tear gas. These sickening and violent scenes were flashed on TV screens across America (ironically interrupting the showing of the film "Judgment at Nuremberg.")
This “police-riot” against nonviolent protesters led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. (Dr. King was not present for this particular march because he was fulfilling his pastoral responsibilities in his church in Atlanta.) Later, on the steps of the state capitol in Montgomery, Dr. King said, “The end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.”
Several years ago, I had the privilege of participating in the annual celebration and reenactment of the Selma march. In taking part in the celebration, I had the further privilege of walking with Taylor Branch and benefitting from his encyclopedic knowledge of the whole movement. (Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer-Prize winning historian, has written the definitive history of Dr. King and the Civil Rights movement in three volumes: 1) Parting the Waters, America in the King Years1954-1963; 2) Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65; and 3) At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years(2006).
As we look to Dr. King for inspiration in seeking to bind up the nation’s wounds, we should remember that there were those who advocated violence, and some of them were from overseas. My dear friend Mark Tooley has brought to my attention that the Soviet KGB actively targeted Dr. King and tried to discredit him both internationally and at home because of his commitment to American religious and democratic ideals. They desperately wanted to supplant Dr. King with black leaders more sympathetic to their views, like Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) and H. Rap Brown (Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin), who declared that “violence is as American as cherry pie.”
The key to Dr. King’s staying power and his ultimate triumph of nonviolent change, I believe, can be found in the “commitment card” his followers were asked to sign. It reads as follows:
I hereby pledge myself – my person and body – to the nonviolent movement. Therefore I will keep the following ten commandments:
1. Meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus.
2. Remember always that the nonviolent movement seeks justice and reconciliation – not victory.
3. Walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love.
4. Pray daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free.
5. Sacrifice personal wishes in order that all men might be free.
6. Observe with both friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy.
7. Seek to perform regular service for others and for the world.
8. Refrain from the violence of fist, tongue, or heart.
9. Strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health.
10. Follow the directions of the movement and of the captain on a demonstration.I sign this pledge, having seriously considered what I do and with the determination and will to persevere.
All 10 commitments are weighted toward reconciliation. Then it asks for name, address, phone, nearest relative and address. Why? Because people were actually killing marchers. That is how serious it was.
All of us should aspire to live our lives as Christians in such a reconciling posture. Would it make a difference? Absolutely!
Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.
Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.
