Merely A Preaching Activist?

By

Robert A. Jackson, Jr.

As I look around and see how people celebrate the life of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It seems like the American society has reduced him to just being an activist and a preacher. This is very unfortunate because he was more. He was an HBCU graduate and a trained theologian, who received his B.Div from Crozier Theological seminary and his PhD in systematic theology from Boston University.

I mention his education for a reason. He was a Morehouse Man, immersed into the culture of what it means to seek Black Excellence. His training at Crozier Theological Seminary, and Boston University helped him to construct his theology around how to best help his community. He was not flawless. But if we are going to truly celebrate the legacy of this man, then his education is a vital piece of helping us to fully understand who he was as a person.

Theologians have been vital to the church and to society for centuries. Theologians are important to the pulpit because they should challenge the minds and the efforts of church leaders and the people in the pews. They are important to society because they should push for actions and policies that will better the living experiences for the disinherited of society. They are often misunderstood by the church and by society because they do not always conform to the orthodoxy of how both institutions have operated since ancient times. Because of that, they become targets, and are labeled as non-Christian, heretics, enemies of the state, and other political adjectives that seek to destroy their character and their intent. Essentially they challenge those in power to critically think and rethink what they thought they knew.

This is part of the reason why Dr. King was met with so much resistance by the church (including evangelicals and some black church leaders) and the government. There have been too many examples over the years of church leaders, seeking to have control over their congregations because of money and popularity. However, they believe they are doing the work of God. Dr. King’s message challenged the orthodoxy of the evangelical teachings of obeying your masters and the famous text that likes to be used from the book of Romans of obeying authority. Remember that it was orthodox evangelical hermeneutics that protected and reinforced Jim & Jane Crow Laws during his lifetime. There have been some Black Church Leaders over the years, who are nervous about doing anything that looks to be against what orthodox evangelical theology has taught them as being Bible. Dr. King did not fit the mold. His message disrupted the power structure that have been created. And just like what we seen throughout history, if we’ve paid attention to history, anyone who is perceived to be a nuisance to the power structure has to be eliminated.

Why would an entity of power who eliminated the life of its perceived enemies want to tell the full story of that perceived enemy? I submit that this is the reason why we do not hear about the HBCU educated theologian, who sought to make a change in America. I believe this is the real reason why he has been reduced to just an activist and a preacher. It is a sanitized whitewashed way of accepting the face of a movement of people who sought to do the will of God, for not only them, but for those who came behind them. His theology did not align with the traditional teachings of evangelicalism. The gospel of the Jesus of the Bible has been so distorted over the years that some believe that the gospel is to be used to keep people in power. When, in actuality, it is to be used to liberate people to give them the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God will then guide them to be liberated from whatever is oppressing them. I believe the Diverse Unity of the Text is the true Spirit behind Dr. King’s Dream. It was not simply tolerance or uniformity. It was seeking a change in the physical that had spiritual implications.