the disapproval of Dr. King

I read today that in 1966, a Gallup Poll measured Martin Luther King, Jr’s favorability at 33%, while 63% of those polled disapproved of him.   This was over 10 years after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which launched King to prominence and focused the momentum of the Civil Rights Movement.  This was 3 years after King delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech on the Washington Mall, unifying the call for freedom and the need for jobs with his singular voice.  This was 1 year after the successful march from Selma to Montgomery, a march that was attempted 3 times, where white and black civilians linked arms, allowing their conviction and hope to propel them to walk across a bridge and a state, some sacrificing their wellbeing or very lives as civilians and policeman brutally, openly, attacked them.  The violence broadcast in the month of the march woke the conscience of a nation, encouraging the Congress of the United States to support the Voting Rights Bill.  Dr. King was the face of a movement that not only lifted up the spirits of his fellow African American brothers and sisters; he also required the gaze of a country to confront the indignities they suffered by observing the sacrifices they made.

“Compassion is the radical form of criticism, for it announces that hurt is to be taken seriously, that hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness.”

— Walter Brueggemann

Dr. King and the SCLC forced the country to observe their status quo.  Their bravery was remarkable, but it was effective because it created a setting in which African Americans and their white allies were vilified and attacked for doing every day life: for sitting on a bus on the way to work, for walking across a bridge, or for ordering coffee at a lunch counter.  These acts of resistance were brilliant because they were mundane.  Everyone knows what it is like to order a drink expecting to receive one.  Although not many white folks knew what it was like to be black, they could certainly understand what it meant to be refused service just for existing.  To be beaten just for walking in your Sunday best. 

“Dr. King was the face of a movement that not only lifted up the spirits of his fellow African American brothers and sisters; he also required the gaze of a country to confront the indignities they suffered by observing the sacrifices they made.”

Dr. King and the SCLC reminded the country of visceral, instinctive compassion.  The images captured and scenes witnessed were so uncivil that they “announced that hurt is to be taken seriously, that hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness” (Brueggemann).  Those living in the white majority would most likely have argued that society could not be characterized as full of hate; rather, they were full of civility and kindness and would remain so as long as African Americans stayed in their lane.  This type of delusional break from reality is only possible when compassion and empathy are dead.  This is how the antebellum South could be remembered as a place known for genteel manners, kind hospitality and gorgeous vistas in settings in which bodies were chained, whipped and forced to work in the glare of said gorgeous vista.  We cannot hold onto both ideas at once, so we ignore the ugly and mythologize the good.  Dr. King was both wildly unpopular and most effective because he exposed the average citizen to the flaws in their own mythologies.  Truth tellers are often avoided (Cassandra, anyone?), and Dr. King kept showing the country the truth of the everyday, mundane trauma African Americans experienced, dispelling the delusions that America was a land of respected and kind free people who rewarded hard work.

In 1966, the actions of Dr. King disrupted the status quo in violent ways.  The actions of those in the movement forced people to realize there is a vast difference in order and in peace.  Those “more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity”…people “who prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice” would not and could not find Dr. King ‘favorable’ (King).  Dr. King’s actions boldly broke the beloved mythology of ‘separate but equal’, a centuries-long commitment of society to silence dissent to such a degree that, according to King, “we have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated.”  The demonstrations of the Civil Rights Movement proclaimed that the status quo of society destroys the inner lives of African Americans.  They explained that waiting “for more than 340 years for [their] God-given and constitutional rights” leads a person to be “plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodyness’” (King), your own humanity cries out to simply do mundane tasks—like taking a bus, taking a walk, or taking a sip of coffee at a counter—with dignity.  Dr. King’s actions made him unpopular in the moment because he demonstrated the injustice and unsustainability of the status quo so cherished by white people with power.  His actions, and the violent reactions to them captured on film, forced society to engage compassion as they realized everyday, mundane hurt is “an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness” (Brueggemann).  63% of Americans didn’t favor him because his actions destroyed their delusions.

“The demonstrations of the Civil Rights Movement proclaimed that the status quo of society-protected and nourished by powerful white people-destroys the inner lives of African Americans. ”

Dr. King’s words also made him unfavorable with a very powerful group of people in the South: White Christians and their churches.  Dr. King, always willing to collaborate with those who followed Christ in the work of doing justice and making things right for their neighbors, forcefully outed those in the church who chose power over sacrifice, acting as the “arch supporter of the status quo” (King).  Indeed, his words claimed that—especially for Christians—the measure of peace cannot be the absence of trouble, but must instead be the flourishing of all people in great and mundane tasks.  He wrote, “somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied to a single garment of destiny….I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.”  For a Church committed to theologies of victory and favor, committed to a status quo maintains power for their glory, such words of interdependence wound deeply, demonstrating why he was unpopular.

In our decade, Gallup found that Dr. King has a 94% favorability rating: He is celebrated, loved and quoted by many.  Next week I will explore the roots of this ‘favorability’, and discuss what honoring his legacy must mean for us. For now, let’s allow the words and actions of Dr. King to expose our delusions about our status quo.  Are we facing the mundane trauma of the marginalized or do we discredit and ignore their hurt?  Do our words and actions honor or destroy his legacy?

resolving with others in mind

The ringing in of the New Year traditionally brings with it a natural time to reflect on the year behind and to think about how to approach the year ahead.  While this can be a time for excessive navel gazing, I think it also offers us a chance to think about the way we interact with each other.  As 2018 begins, we would do well to think beyond how each of us can personally resolve to improve our physical, spiritual or mental health; I am challenging us to also think about our collective health as communities.

“What could be possible if we, as a people, moved from postures against, to advocacy for?”

The weeks surrounding the New Year are fascinating to me because we acknowledge for a moment that our intentions and resolutions are worth paying attention to.  We understand that these lives we live are fleeting, and that we can do better.  That the way we treat ourselves, our families, and our communities powerfully influences the meaning we make in this life.  Changing that number on the calendar causes almost all of us to recognize that time is moving on, that each of us are aging, changing, surviving, one year at a time.  The loss of control we feel at the relentless progression of time creates a moment where we think about the things we feel we can control.  Thus, we resolve.  We resolve to care more, to create space, to be courageous, to be patient, to be present.  We resolve to actively produce good in ourselves and in our environments. 

“The way we treat ourselves, our families, and our communities powerfully influences the meaning we make in this life. ”

As we resolve to advocate for ourselves and our families in our thinking and practices, I want to suggest we take advantage of this same moment to observe the way we take stances for or against the people and policies in our greater communities.   In this season of obsessive reflecting and resolving, why not also think about the way we think about our place in society?  Do you have issues you care about?  Is the stance you take primarily negative or positive?  The New Year provides us with a built-in opportunity to resolve to be people who “advocate for” rather than people who “rail against” or, even worse, than people who roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders about the lives of others.

While many of us are committed to advocating for ourselves in our pursuits of emotional, physical and spiritual health, our default perspective in the public sphere is primarily negative.  When I reflect on the year behind, I observe that in small conversations and large interactions, many people approach others primarily through a stance-taking rubric.  I am against X.  The problem with my school/neighborhood/legislative body is the presence of Y.  These negative stances are the result of a paradigm of lack, of fear, and of blame, and they prevent possibilities of collaboration, destroying chances to improve through advocacy and cooperation. 

Many of us engage in the public sphere by being passively against things we don’t like, rather than being engagingly for things we find life-giving and good.  Allow me to be practical for a moment.  If you identify as a pro-life person, do you actually take action to advocate for life or do you demonstrate your stance FOR life mostly by being AGAINST abortion?  A person who resolves to be pro-life could advocate for life by educating themselves about rates of childhood poverty and food insecurity in their city, and then joining with the best non-profits to help lower those numbers.  They could find the best agencies in town who support and care for women navigating unplanned pregnancies, and walk with them as they try to care for their children after they are born and for the years that follow.  They could educate themselves about access to birth control, and work to make sure every woman capable of bearing children can prevent unwanted pregnancy.  They could educate themselves about the best organizations and government programs helping with early intervention and education for babies and young kids whose lives and opportunities are being slowly aborted with each benchmark they miss.  They could evaluate the other stances they take, and commit to align all of them with a perspective that values and affirms the dignity of every created being.  They could decide to be actively, productively, effectively for life.

“The New Year provides us with a built-in opportunity to resolve to be people who “advocate for” rather than people who “rail against” or, even worse, than people who roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders about the lives of others.”

In these days of the New Year, what if we began to notice the way we resolve to improve the health of the communities in which we live?  Are our resolutions focused on advocating for ourselves alone?  Do we primarily engage with our greater communities through rejection and negative stance-taking?  As 2018 dawns, I want to listen to the way I think about myself, my family, and my city.  It is worth knowing if the ways we think about others is negative and critical.  Those thoughts are not only toxic for our own psyches, they are eventually destructive to the people around us.

In this first week of 2018, as you resolve to create environments where your best self can flourish, join me also in resolving to think about the stances we take in the public sphere.  What could be possible if we, as a people, moved from postures against, to advocacy for? What could be possible if we rejected the idea that being anti-anything creates a positive trajectory? What if we resolved to be people who advocate for the things that engage our compassion and passion?  If we approach society with affirmative perspectives on the resolutions we make, we can move through the world on a foundation of possibility, abundance and hope. 

on advent: me or we?

The month of December means Handel’s Messiah is playing in my house.  My husband grew up in a home where music was life.  His mother sings every chance she gets, and his father can hardly speak when he hears beautiful choral music (St. Olaf’s Christmas reliably ushers him into the throne of heaven itself!).  My people hail from the hills of East Tennessee, and while I also love chorale music, I am most thankful for my family legacy when we are gathered around a piano, singing shape notes with a few guitars, banjos and a mandolin thrown in.  Family “sangins” were serious business in my world; Christmas brings these memories up for me, and remind me that Christmas carols are an important part of the way I experience Advent.

I teach a class on Christ, race and culture at my church, and while I appreciate the opportunity, it usually means I miss the corporate worship time.  This is a chronic tension I feel because I love to sing, but it never stings more deeply than during Advent.  There is something about singing those familiar carols together that reminds me that my understanding of the world is rooted in a God who calls me into the great “us” of humankind, not into my own private pursuit of God or moral goodness. 

Music reminds us we are better together, and this is why it is so pivotal to the way I approach God.  Even when we are very bad at understanding and appreciating each other (as we often, in fact, are), music seems to remind us that we are best when we work together.  I noticed a few years ago that many pop songs on the radio had choruses sung by large groups of people.  They beg us to sing along.  From Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk”  to Phillip Philip’s “Home” to DNCE’s “Cake by the Ocean” to U2’s “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)”, pop hits contain lyrics recorded as sing-alongs.  My life affords me the opportunity to spend large quantities of time with people roughly under 30, and when I hear them sing along to the radio I am reminded that some thing in all of us finds belonging when we sing along with others.

“Advent reminds us that the faith journey, as designed by God and modeled by the life of Christ, is very much a communal affair. ”

This realization matters particularly at Advent because the promise of the Messiah, the One Advent expects and waits for, is very much delighted with the idea of singing along.  So much of western Christianity has rejected the importance of the communal nature of God in favor of a faith locked into the personal pursuit of the Divine.  The experience of a faith journey for many in American Protestantism is wholly about personal devotion to Christ and obedient evangelism.  Advent, however, reminds us that the faith journey, as designed by God and modeled by the life of Christ, is very much a communal affair. 

The prophecy which Handel memorialized in the Messiah, and which Christ quoted in his declaration of public service, is from Isaiah.

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful headdress instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.  They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”

— Isaiah 61:1-4

Advent, and the Christmas moment it looks toward, is about the Messiah coming to make things right for broken people.  A glance at this prophecy, which Christ himself claimed to embody, reminds us that the Messiah did not only come to justify individuals, but also to bring justice and equity to the present world.  Advent looks toward God’s cosmic invitation to humanity to sing along with Him, to join the work of bringing good news to the poor and wounded in every practical way.

This Advent, I would like to suggest that the Messiah came and is coming to bring righteousness.  Not only to justify us and make us righteous, but to invite us into the work of making things right for all our neighbors.  The highest devotion for a follower of Christ is not to live a life devoted only to knowing God personally, but to follow Him in the work of making things right for those around you.  To commit myself not to the flourishing of me, but to the deep right-ness—the peace and Shalom—of the we. 

“Advent looks toward God’s cosmic invitation to humanity to sing along with Him, to join the work of bringing good news to the poor and wounded in every practical way.”

Advent celebrates the fact that God’s fullness was revealed when Jesus sacrificed all His capital for the flourishing of others.  Might we best experience Advent by committing ourselves to the flourishing of the communities around us?  We must preach the good news to our own poor selves, but we cannot stop there.  Because the fullness of the purpose of the Messiah is only realized through sacrificial service to others, we cannot reflect on Advent by only focusing on our own interior lives.

This Advent, think about the reason your heart responds to meals and parties and carols sung together.  Our core selves already know we are looking for good news that works best in community.  We simply cannot understand the peace of Christmas unless we understand the needs and gifts of the communities in which we live.  Sing along. It’s more festive that way.