{"id":709,"date":"2011-01-17T15:25:26","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T22:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=709"},"modified":"2011-01-17T15:37:32","modified_gmt":"2011-01-17T22:37:32","slug":"the-reverend-martin-luther-king-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=709","title":{"rendered":"The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a post about being a Christian.<\/p>\n

Today there are a lot of people writing a lot of posts and articles about the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.<\/p>\n

And well they should.\u00a0 He was a great man whose vision, oratory, writings and tireless work inspired a nation to turn away – albeit slightly – from bigotry, racism and hatred.<\/p>\n

And it is his social and political accomplishments that you’ll likely read most about today and tomorrow.\u00a0 His speeches.\u00a0 His marches.\u00a0 Lunch counters. Protests.\u00a0 Non violence.<\/p>\n

But I want to remind others – as I remind myself – that Dr. King was a Reverend.\u00a0 A preacher.\u00a0 A man of faith.\u00a0 A Christian.<\/p>\n

Funny how most of us gloss over that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I bought my wife one of Dr. King’s books for Christmas.\u00a0 It sits on the coffee table.\u00a0 The title of the book is Strength to Love<\/a><\/strong>. According to Dr. King’s wife:<\/p>\n

“If there is one book Martin Luther King, Jr. has written that people consistently tell me has changed their lives, it is Strength to Love.\u00a0 I believe it is because this book best explains the central element of Martin Luther King, Jr.’ s philosophy of nonviolence: His belief in a divine, loving presence that binds all life. … By reaching into and beyond ourselves and tapping the transcendent moral ethic of love, we shall overcome these evils.”<\/p>\n

Read the book.\u00a0 If only a chapter or two.<\/p>\n

And if you do I challenge you to try and divorce Dr. King’s vision of a world where ‘a man would be judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin’ from his Christian faith.<\/p>\n

His understanding of racism and bigotry was an understanding of how profoundly sinful we all are.\u00a0 And his belief in non-violence and sacrifice was tightly linked to his meditations on Jesus and the cross<\/p>\n

Read Dr. King.\u00a0 And be reminded of the real meaning and spirit of the Christian faith.<\/p>\n

You might find it very different from the Christian faith you see in popular culture or hear in political dialogue.<\/p>\n

Jesus said that if we have the faith of a mustard seed we can move mountains.\u00a0 Dr. King’s faith moved an entire generation.<\/p>\n

Read Dr. King.\u00a0\u00a0 And pray that more will be inspired to, like Dr. King, recapture the revolutionary loving spirit of the Christian faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a post about being a Christian. Today there are a lot of people writing a lot of posts and articles about the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. And well they should.\u00a0 He was a great man whose vision, oratory, writings and tireless work inspired a nation to turn away – albeit slightly –…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,1],"tags":[101,155,100,81,156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":717,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions\/717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}