Tomorrow I’m doing my Martin Luther King talk. The series is on Christians in History. So I picked MLK. I’m not sure why. Maybe because the auto-tuned video of I Have A Dream is pretty great.
I’ve spent a lot of time researching King. He was pretty inspiring. Not actually that interesting, but quite inspiring. I say not interesting because except for some FBI files which suggest he may have been a womaniser, he always seems to do the right thing, which makes him pretty predictable. I listened to Steve Jobs biography recently and he was fascinating because he was so unpleasant, but such a genius. King seems to be a genius, able to make good choices, say wise things, and stand up for justice all the time. My main source of info about King however has been an “autobiography” which a Time editor put together of things King had written and said about himself and his life. So it’s not as if he’s going to reveal all his most horrid things, especially seeing as he wasn’t that kinda preacher or writer.
All that said, he is inspiring. As a preacher I get excited by his sermons and speeches. He’s pretty good. Very smart and with great imagery and turns of phrase. He’s obviously a black preacher, but he’s accessible to those not brought up in black churches. But more inspiring than his preaching and speeching is his activism. He challenges me to be someone who stands up for justice and against oppression. I don’t want to be one of those good people who do nothing, but I often worry that I am. I worry that were I in the US during the civil rights movement I’d be one of the white folk urging the black folk to calm down and stop doing crazy stuff like marches, sit-ins and boycotts. I hope not, but I could be.
I guess the question is, what is today’s equivalent injustice and what do I need to be doing about it.
