"You undoubtedly know that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a progressive Christian and champion of civil rights and the social gospel. You may also know that he spoke out against the Vietnam War, harshly criticized U.S. foreign policy, and questioned the capitalist system that produced poverty. But do you know his theology?
Right up until Dr. King's assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had traveled to support striking sanitation workers, the civil right leader worked--not as a secular activist but as a Baptist minister--to awaken the conscience of a nation. What was the meaning of Jesus for Dr. King? Did he see Jesus as divine? How did he interpret the Bible?"
(from the Tikkun article ,"King's God: The Unknown Faith of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.," by Robert James "Be" Scofield)
Transcript for the speech above: A Christmas Sermon on Peace (1967)
Then I got to thinking about Mavis Staples and the Staple Singers' connection with the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King, Jr.:
And Bob Dylan and Santa Claus:
And the Sufi dancers at the end of this video that was released the same year by Bob Dylan:
And Nelson Mandela.
And Chief Seattle:
"Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors - the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people."
And Rosa Parks:
"God has always given me the strength to say what is right ... I had the strength of God and my ancestors with me." (from The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks)
And I remember the words of an elderly Jewish woman who was a friend of mine, "I don't have to be a Christian in order to be moved by the life of Jesus."
I have no religious affiliation, and I am not Buddhist, atheist, agnostic. I am among those who can relate to what an elderly atheist friend of mine said in her last years -- that she didn't believe in a traditional God, but that she did experience, in her heart, Something that had brought peace to her in the last 14 years of her life.
"... And to see you're really only very small / And life flows on within you and without you..."
(George Harrison, from "Within You Without You")
"... the possibility that there might be something significant in the little things around them."
(from A Winter Walk, by Tolbert McCarroll)
"Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible."
(From Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, by Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk)
