January 20 is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States. When King was assassinated in 1968, I was 16 years old and did not understand him. Over the decades since, I think I have a better comprehension of who he was and what he was doing. Dr. King wrote a book titled “Strength to Love,” published in 1963. It is a collection of some of his sermons. Here are a few quotes from that book. Page numbers are in parentheses.
“Men have usually pursued two paths to eliminate evil and thereby save the world. The first calls upon man to remove evil through his own power and ingenuity in the strange conviction that by thinking, inventing, and governing, he will at last conquer the nagging forces of evil.. The second idea for removing evil from the world stipulates that if a man waits submissively upon the Lord, in his own good time God alone will redeem the world… Rather, both man and God, made one in a marvelous unity of purpose through an overflowing love as the free gift of himself on the part of God and by perfect obedience and receptivity on the part of man, can transform the old into the new and drive out the deadly cancer of sin… Evil can be cast out, not by man alone nor by a dictatorial God who invades our lives, but when we open the door and invite God through Christ to enter.” (128-133)
“A nation or a civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan.” (17)
“We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.” (18)
“Violence brings only temporary victories; violence, by creating many more social problems than it solves, never brings permanent peace.” (18)
“Everywhere and at all times, the love ethic of Jesus is a radiant light revealing the ugliness of our stale conformity.” (23)
“We need to recapture the gospel glow of the early Christians, who were nonconformists in the truest sense of the word and refused to shape their witness according to the mundane patterns of the world.” (25)
“Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear.” (28)
“He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.” (50)
“Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” (53)
“For modern man, absolute right and absolute wrong are a matter of what the majority is doing.” (60)
“Having no place for God or for eternal ideas, materialism is opposed to both theism and idealism.” (73)
“A healthy religion rises above the idea that God wills evil. Although God permits evil in order to preserve the freedom of man, he does not cause evil… The cross, which was willed by wicked men, was woven by God into the tapestry of world redemption.” (91-92)
“Christianity contends that evil contains the seed of its own destruction.” (109)
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.” (122)
“In a dark, confused world the Kingdom of God may yet reign in the hearts of men.” (154)