King on a Knock at Midnight
by Thomas Allen
In “A Knock at Midnight,” Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1963, 2010), pages 53–64, Martin Luther King, Jr. discusses various devastations facing mankind with an emphasis on the decline of moral standards, the church, and race. The following is a critical review of King’s essay.
King begins by discussing the potential for a third world war and its devastation. Then, he mentions some of the devastation from which science has saved mankind. Unfortunately, science cannot save mankind from the destructive forces that he now possesses — nuclear weapons.
Such a bleak future causes many people to have emotional and psychological problems. Fear, anxiety, and depression paralyze many.
Next, King discusses the moral crisis. “Moral principles have lost their distinctiveness.” (P. 55.) For many people, absolute right and wrong become what the majority accepts. “Right and wrong are relative to likes and dislikes and the customs of a particular community.” (P. 55.)
Continuing, King remarks that the cardinal sin has become “Thou shalt not be caught.” Consequently, “the cardinal virtue is to get by.” (P. 55.) He writes, “The Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest has been substituted by a philosophy of the survival of the slickest.” (P. 55.)
Then, King comments on the church. Church membership has grown, yet moral standards, i.e., not only sexual morality but also honesty, integrity, etc., have declined. (The church has continued to fail to achieve one of its important missions: instill high moral standards. Today, moral standards continue to decline along with church membership. Not only is sexual immorality rising, but so are lying, stealing, etc.)
King blames the rise of immorality on a loss of faith. “[M]en have lost faith in God, faith in man, and faith in the future.” (P. 57.) For many people, life is meaningless. Yet, without hope, a person cannot really live.
Next, King writes, “Everybody wishes to love and to be loved. He who feels that he is not loved feels that he does not count.” (P. 58.) (A person wants people whom he knows to love him — especially the people whom he loves. He seeks love in the concrete instead of in the abstract. King implies that people desire to be loved in the abstract. Abstract love is the type of love that abolitionists gave the slaves. Once the slaves were free, most abolitionists offered them no personal love or assistance. On the other hand, most slave owners loved their slaves, and most slave owners cared about their slaves when they were freed, and many tried to help them.)
Then, King discusses the plight of the Negro. Patiently, the Negro has knocked on the door of the Christian church begging for social justice. He chastises the church for not condemning racial segregation and failing to promote integration. (Today, King would praise the church. With rare exceptions, all churches condemn racial segregation and promote integration. The few who question integration are mostly mute. A strong correlation seems to exist between the church promoting integration and social justice and the decline of the relevance of the church and the rise of immortality [stealing, lying, sexual perversion, etc.]. Has the church’s replacement of the gospel of Jesus with the gospel of King made the country better?)
Continuing, King states, “What more pathetically reveals the irrelevancy of the church in present-day world affairs than its witness regarding war?” (P. 59.) (If King means to bring about peaceful solutions, he is right. If he means supporting bellicosity, he is wrong. Today, most churches seem to prefer war to peace — especially when Israel is involved.) He notes that during World War II, churches endorsed and supported the warmongers.
Next, King condemns the church for not siding with the poor over the rich. (That is, the church does not promote forced wealth distribution, the welfare states, a guaranteed income, etc. that King advocated as the solution to what he considered economic injustice. Most churches today advocate King’s economic policies. Nevertheless, such promotion has hastened rather than slowed the church’s decline into irrelevance.) King condemns the Russian Orthodox Church because it “became so inextricably bound to the despotic czarist regime that it became impossible to be rid of the corrupt political and social system without being rid of the church. Such is the fate of every ecclesiastical organization that allies itself with things-as-they-are.” (P. 59.) (Today, most likely, King would praise these churches that have allied with the federal government in implementing most of King’s social and economic recommendations. Does this explain the decline of the church into irrelevancy? These churches have to be abolished before people can free themselves from King’s crippling policies.)
Then, King remarks that the church is “the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state and never its tool.” (P. 59.) (Throughout the Civil Rights Era, the church has been a poor conscience. It has been more of a tool than a guide or critic.) According to King, if the church does not actively advance the struggle for peace, economic justice (the welfare state), and racial justice (integration, quotas, etc.), it will atrophy into an irrelevant social club. (Although the church has failed as a peacemaker, it has ardently advanced King’s economic and social justice. Still, it has atrophied into an irrelevant social club.)
King condemns the notion of a Negro church and a White church. The church should be fully integrated. (Apparently, King prefers a mongrel church and wants to destroy an important part of the Negro culture: the Negro church. Contrary to what King believes, Whites did not initiate racially separate churches; Negroes did — at least in the South. In the South, Negroes used to attend the same churches that Whites attended. However, they wanted their independence, so they established their own churches.)
Continuing, King describes two types of Negro churches. “One burns with emotionalism, and the other freezes with classism.” (P. 60.) The emotional church reduces “worship to entertainment, places more emphasis on volume than on content and confuses spirituality with muscularity.” (P. 60.) The class church “has developed a class system and boasts of its dignity, its membership of professional people, and its exclusiveness.” (P. 60.) Its “worship service is cold and meaningless, the music dull and uninspiring, and the sermon little more than a homily on current events.” (P. 60.) (King’s objection to both types of churches seems to be that they did not fervently preach King’s economic and social justice.)
King writes, “The church today is challenged to proclaim God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to be the hope of men in all of their complex personal and social problems. Many will continue to come in quest of answers to life’s problems.” (P. 61). (Many churches are failing this challenge because they preach the gospel of King and his disciples.)
In closing, King comments on the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama.
Like many people, King is good at identifying problems but poor at providing solutions. Although King does not offer specific solutions for most of the problems that he discusses, he implies that implementing what he advocates will solve them. However, his solutions only exacerbate the problems rather than alleviate them. One of his problems is believing that the Bible teaches integration and amalgamation. On the contrary, it teaches segregation and separation.
Copyright © 2024 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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