A belated reflection on MLK, Jr Day, or Why We Cannot Wait

As I sit here reading the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, I am brought to tears by the painful urgency of the cause. I feel the tightness in my chest, the pain in my heart, not because of its beautiful rhetoric... but because of the radical call to all Christians in particular to stop the injustice occurring against their own brothers and sisters. King is writing this letter in response to other faith leaders who called on him to slow down, to be patient for change. King responds, in part, by saying:

"But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."

King does not separate out African-Americans suffering under the oppression of racial injustice in this statement--instead, he calls out for us to recognize our own interconnectedness. To feel the pain of our brothers and sisters suffering. To act in recognition of that constant burden on those we love through loving and direct nonviolent action.

I am struck tonight by that call in light of current events. The church is being split apart by debates over homosexuality and its role in the church. It is the elephant in the room during many discussions over Christian doctrine, whether in the national media, seminaries, churches, etc.

King further writes:

"My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood."

This tension that philosophers from the time of antiquity have recognized as integral to growth is present now. We need not look back with bleary eyed nostalgia at the time when the nation rose up against oppression and wonder where it went.

It is right here, and right now. Tension is the feeling that means one is learning and growing. I firmly believe that tension is a positive and absolutely essential part of the modern church. We are tense with discomfort over Scripture that says many things. We are filled with tension as we look people in the face and tell them that they can't honestly answer questions about their very soul, their God given soul, when they go through the ordination process. That they must wait, that they must hide in the shadows until the time when people will be ready.

Again, to cite Dr. King:

"For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never.'"

So what does it mean when we in the church tell the LGBTQI community to wait? That the issue is too hot to pursue right now, that we must wait until that slow grinding change can occur on its own time?

"Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals." [MLK, Jr.]

We as Christians are going to end up on the side of the oppressor in the history books if we don't stop waiting and start acting in solidarity with our brothers and sisters, hands clasped firmly with God's wonderful and perfect creation in the struggle for justice.

For those who say we must wait, please visit this website: http://www.itgetsbetter.org/

Folks had to build an organization and a website to give hope to our dying children, dying because they see no light in their future. It breaks my heart to think of our beloved community being torn asunder by the violence of hate. Because this is a real issue, not to relegated to the pages of academia. People are dying from the weight of oppression, right now.

Take the story of Sean Kennedy, a teen who was brutally murdered in 2007 in Greenville, South Carolina for being gay. His mother, Elke Kennedy (along with other supporters), now travels across the country telling his story in the hopes that the laws that allowed her son's killer to serve little time in jail will be amended. I worked with their organization a bit while at Wofford and they came and spoke on our campus. Her words haunt me, how she told of her pain at knowing that the last word her son heard was "faggot."[http://www.facebook.com/seanslastwish?sk=info] Sean was born a few months after me; we were the same age. He was someone's child, too.

So how can we ask for patience, how can we tell people to slow down?

Another quote that I thought summed up the urgency of the call:

"The issue comes from the conversation remaining just that: a dialogue that often fails to boldly move beyond, into the gift of concrete claims about what a homosexual orientation means for one’s future. For straight people, this ambiguous conversational space doesn’t have to be resolved. They can marvel at the apparent complexity, enjoy the throes of challenging discourse, and go home to their spouses and families, nestled snugly—and ideologically safely—in bed. For LGBT people, however, for people like me, leaving the conversation unresolved relegates us to a life of ecclesiological and personal limbo. By living my life, however, by my going home to a husband, by my rearing children, by my holding the hand of a person of the same sex as I walk down the street, by kissing him goodbye at the airport, I make a definitive statement, rendering long-term ambiguity untenable." [http://toddandrewclayton.com/2011/12/02/kissing-without-fear/]

Dialogue is needed now within the walls of our churches. We need to discuss the difficult passages in the Bible. We need to preach it and we need to walk it.

To be very clear, I desire deeply for engagement with the tension and not agreement with me. I, as a fallible human, do not have many answers. Instead, I want us to talk to one another honestly and openly.

Thus, I want to use my blog as a space to discuss some of the more controversial passages in the Bible, particularly as they relate to sexuality. I am going to try to do a lot of research, talk to my friends/colleagues who are much smarter and better versed in this topic than me, incorporate numerous perspectives, and leave many citations. Right now, I have more questions and more tension than anything else and want to explore that in the public sphere in the hopes that one of you out there is struggling with a similar question.

But most importantly, I want to start a conversation.

"When we see love as the will to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth, revealed through acts of care, respect, knowing, and assuming responsibility, the foundation of all love in our life is the same. There is no special love exclusively reserved for romantic partners. Genuine love is the foundation of our engagement with ourselves, with family, with friends, with partners, with everyone we choose to love. While we will necessarily behave differently depending on the nature of a relationship, or have varying degrees of commitment, the values that inform our behavior, when rooted in a love ethic, are always the same for any interaction."
[bell hooks, All About Love]

[Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr's Letter from a Birmingham Jail are from http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html]