Dear Members and Friends,
With crowds of people turning him into their poster-child, and many speakers using his legacy to bolster their own position, looking down from his heavenly abode, I wonder what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would say about what everyone has claimed he would say regarding the current situations in our world. In the vernacular of modern media, I wonder what he would think about being "remixed" and used as a "sampled sound-bite", added to the audio-visual palette at the sole discretion of those wishing to put their own production values into the "sound" of the contemporary societal discourse.
Unlike Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in his day, while I might guess that Dr. King would still be an ardent pacifist in response to evil, I am also convinced he would be intensely aware of how his positions might be used by a violent, tyrannical dictator to stay in power. I believe Dr. King would have brought a lot more to the table than, say, Sean Penn.
The problem with replaying "canned prophecy" from the past is that words spoken in a prior context might not articulate a viable position in the present. In other words, similar to a vaccine formulated to combat a specific disease, prophetic utterance that was powerfully accurate in one generation might easily miss the mark in a different framework. This is why those who expected Jesus to rewind the message from a previous milieu could not respond to Him live and in person.
Largely because of a dramatic increase in technological capability, where enormous power to impact millions can be carried in the hand of just one fanatic, the landscape of today's world is far different than that of the 1960's, let alone the 1860's. The incredible challenges of the Civil War and the Cold War seem so much clearer than those that impact our world today.
Quite apart from endlessly repeating phrases from the same speech, I believe Dr. King would have adapted the principles of his dream to a new generation, with fresh concepts and vocabulary to fit our new circumstances. While I would not attempt to articulate his position, I believe he would have tried to come up with original questions and ethical equations fit for people not threatened with fire-hoses and attack dogs, but VX gas and biological poison.
Would Dr. King have remained a pacifist? Perhaps, but knowing about the genocide of thousands and the gross atrocities committed to this day, I doubt if Dr. King would venture to Baghdad and allow himself to be seen as just an "observer". I sincerely doubt that he would have allowed himself to, in effect, become a shill for Saddam Hussein. He had far too much integrity and intelligence for that.
From Reverend William J. Keane,
Senior Minister of First Baptist Church of Branford
|
