King, the Anti-Trinity, and the Church

A Note for Your Day

Every year on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, churches throughout the US celebrate how King stood in the biblical prophetic tradition to fight against the anti-trinity of racism, classism, and militarism scourging this nation. The Atlanta pastor is often likened to Amos, who, like King, was a prophet from the South (Judah) who called the Northern kingdom of Israel to reform their ways during the 8th century BCE. In fact, in the “I Have a Dream” speech on the National Mall, King quotes Amos, challenging the US to shift their ways so that “justice (would) roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).

I am thankful that today is a day to think about systemic sin at the national level, but Christians should use today principally to contend with the presence of this anti-trinity within the church itself. To be sure, King was justified in quoting Amos in his address to the nation; the church should seek the welfare of the greater community in which she lives. However, the original context of the passage was related to biblical Israel, who had a covenantal relationship with God that America the nation patently does not share. The tightest parallel between antiquity and now is actually between biblical Israel and the church because that’s what Jesus inaugurated in his person and work: a new relationship of God, Jew and Gentile. God didn’t make a covenant relationship with the US, but with the church.

In other words, to properly steward the legacy of King and Amos is to first scrutinize the presence of racism, classism and militarism within the church. In an age of occasional upward social mobility for some non-White folk, many churches leave unquestioned the Whiteness resident in much Protestant, Pentecostal, and Roman Catholic theology. (I am not familiar enough with Orthodox churches to comment intelligibly.) In this era of increased socioeconomic segregation, many middle-class churches are far too comfortable worshipping in classist ways. And in an age where foreign war is distanced from much of the citizenry, the church is far too comfortable forgetting about the worldwide reaches of the US military complex and just how much we still rely on violence and the specter of violence to ensure this country’s gilded peace.

May we the Church receive today as an opportunity to question how race, class, and militarism work together to obscure the grace of God embodied for us all in Christ, the great prophet who inaugurated the beloved community MLK sought to build. Then as we deal with the log in our own eye, we can move to the speck in the country’s. This is the way of humility, to show the nation what this Reverend was all about by first looking at ourselves.