King on Love in Action
by Thomas Allen
In “Love in Action,” Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1963, 2010), pages 31–41, Martin Luther King, Jr. discusses Jesus’s crucifixion and the lessons it teaches, such as forgiveness and spiritual blindness, and the need for moral enlightenment. The following is a critical review of King’s essay.
Beginning, King cites Luke 23:34: “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (P. 33) (Once more, King does not practice what he preaches. He never seems to forgive Southerners and segregationists for resisting his agenda.)
Continuing, King praises Jesus for his ability to match his words with action. (King often fails to match his words with action. However, he does imply that he fails to meet the standards set by Jesus.) He chastises people for promoting the principles of Christianity but who practice paganism, who claim that they want peace while preparing for war, or who ardently plea for justice yet pursue injustice.
Next, King discusses Jesus’s teaching about forgiveness. (However, King seldom shows forgiveness for Southerners and never for segregationists.) He notes, “Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.” (P. 33.) (King never acquires this attitude.)
Then, King writes, “Yet Jesus taught them that only through a creative love for their enemies could they be children of their Father in heaven and also that love and forgiveness were absolute necessities for spiritual maturity.” (P. 33.) (Based on his attitude toward Whites in general and Southerners and segregationists in particular, King never achieves spiritual maturity.)
Continuing, King comments, “The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man’s ever-recurring song of retaliation.” (P. 34.) (In a sense, King’s movement is based on retaliation — getting even for wrongs, real or perceived. It is void of the forgiveness that Jesus taught and that King claims that people ought to have.)
Next, King states his opposition to capital punishment. “Capital punishment is society’s final assertion that it will not forgive.” (P. 34.) He seems to imply that criminals should not be punished for their crimes (except segregationists). (Perhaps the reason that he opposes punishing criminals for their crimes is that on a per capita basis, Negroes commit far more crimes than other races. Also, many of his followers are rioters who are arrested for various crimes although most are never tried.)
Then, King remarks that Jesus “did not seek to overcome evil with evil. He overcame evil with good.” (P. 35.) (Once again, King falls short of Jesus’s teachings. His movement has brought far more evil than good.)
Besides forgiveness, King states that Jesus taught about people’s spiritual blindness. The men who urged his crucifixion “were not bad men but rather blind men.” (P. 35.) (Many of the men who advocated the crucifixion of Jesus were bad men, such as the Pharisees, who were disciples of Lucifer.)
According to King, people who consider war as the solution to the problems of the world, are not bad men but are blind. (Contrary to what King claims, many of these men are not blind; they are bad men. They are disciples of Lucifer; they are evil people.)
Correctly, King asserts, “Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete.” (P. 36.) (The way that most political systems are designed, the worst men become rulers. Most rulers are power-hungry, sociopathic, sadistic miscreants. Most of the rest are stupid puppets whom power-hungry, sociopathic, sadistic miscreants manipulate and control. Rarely does a wise statesman rule.)
King is a proponent of disarmament. (King-idolizing conservatives take note: You need to promote disarmament even if it is unilateral.)
Then, King proceeds to comment on slavery. “Slavery in America was perpetuated not merely by human badness but also by human blindness.” (P. 37.) (Whereas King excuses most other evils, including the crucifixion of Jesus, as a result of human blindness, he declares that slavery in America resulted primarily from human badness.) “Men convinced themselves that a system that was so economically profitable must be morally justifiable.” (P. 37.) (No mention is made of Africans enslaving their fellow Negroes and selling Negro slaves for a profit to Europeans and others.) To justify slavery, theories of racial superiority were developed. (Racial supremacy did not disappear with the civil rights movement. It merely shifted from White supremacy to Black supremacy.) Religion, the Bible, philosophy, and science were mobilized to support White supremacy. (Now, religion, the Bible, philosophy, and science are mobilized to prove White inferiority.)
Continuing, King states that the blindness that justified slavery is found in racial segregation. He writes, “Although some men are segregationists merely for reasons of political expediency and economic gain, not all of the resistance to integration is the rear-guard of professional bigots.” (P. 38.) Some seek to preserve segregation because they believe that it “is best for themselves, their children, and their nation.” (P. 38.) (Segregation was less divisive and destructive than integration has been. Integration has been so demoralizing and destructive that today more Negroes are openly segregationists than are Whites.)
Correctly, King comments that segregationists claim that God is the first segregationist. Then, to disprove their argument, he offers the absurd example that some segregationists used: “Red birds and black birds don’t fly together.” (These segregationists failed to use an authentic and appropriate example of God being the first segregationist. God segregated Cain from his family after he killed Able.)
Next, King claims that the segregationist argument that the Negro’s brain is smaller than the brain of the White man is pseudo-science. (The notion that Negroes have smaller brains on average is not pseudo-science. Actual measurements show that the average Negro brain is smaller than the average White brain.)
To support his assertion that the idea of an inferior or superior race is false, King cites several anthropologists, all of whom are left-wing Negrophiles. (If no inferior or superior races exist, why is the White race considered so inferior that it must be exterminated and policies are in place to genocide it? Such policies include miscegenation, unrestricted nonwhite immigration, affirmative action, and never-ending wars involving countries that are predominately White.)
Then, King says that the four primary types of blood are found in all races. (Nevertheless, a person’s race can be identified with a high degree of accuracy from his blood. See “Of One Blood” by Thomas Allen.)
Correctly, King writes, “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” (P. 39.) (The history of the United States for the last 160 years proves this statement. Unfortunately, sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity have been accelerating at an accelerating pace as the years pass. The point has been reached that if the White race becomes any more ignorant and stupid, it will perish. When it perishes, so will Western Civilization and the material advantages that it has given the world.)
Then, King comments that the church is the moral guardian of the community. It must continuously remind people “that they have a moral responsibility to be intelligent.” (P. 39.) However, the church has often failed in this task. (Obviously, King is saying that the church has failed to condemn adequately the sin of segregation and to preach fervently the virtues of integration. Today, the reverse is true: Segregation is ardently condemned, and integration is fervently praised. Is the country, which now is close to splintering, any better off?)
Continuing, King remarks that Christians need to avoid intellectual and moral blindness. (That is, they need to support integration and oppose segregation. Also, they need to support a guaranteed annual income and the welfare states.) Not only must people conquer their sins, they must also conquer their ignorance.
King warns that if Western Civilization continues to degenerate, it will fall hopelessly into a bottomless void. (The programs and policies advocated by King, most of which Western Civilization has adopted, have hastened this deterioration.)
King notes that “intellectual and moral blindness is a dilemma that man inflicts upon himself by his tragic misuse of freedom and his failure to use his mind to its fullest capacity.” (P. 40.) (Unfortunately, King was never able to overcome his intellectual or moral blindness. On the contrary, he seemed to have reveled in them.) Continuing, he writes, “Only through the bringing together of head and heart — intelligence and goodness — shall man rise to a fulfillment of his true nature.” (P. 40.) (Again, King failed. He never succeeded in uniting intelligence and goodness. He was seldom kind toward Southerners and never toward segregationists. Whatever intelligence that he had, he used to destroy them.) He defines intelligence as “a call for open mindedness, sound judgment, and love for truth.” (P. 40.) (Thus, since King was closed-minded, seldom showed sound judgment, and had little love for the truth, he lacked intelligence. To him, segregationists were closed-minded. Segregationists lacked sound judgment, while integrationists had sound judgment. Segregationists hated the truth, but integrationists loved the truth.)
Except in the eyes of King-idolizing conservatives, King, like the rest of us, falls far short of the example that Jesus gives us. He lacks forgiveness. Moreover, he is spiritually blind. Also, he suffers from sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Regrettably, King fails to practice what he preaches, which is a common human trait.
Copyright © 2024 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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