Martin Luther King and Agape

IN HONOR OF MARTIN LUTHER KING’S BIRTHDAY

For many years I’ve taken time on the week of Martin Luther King’s birthday to re-read a portion of his writings. So it’s appropriate to start this blog by reflecting on his book of sermons, Strength to Love.

Dr. King truly understood the power of agape. He let it draw him into action. He knew what agape power could do when it worked in a person’s life and in a group, a nation, and the world. Rev. King saw first hand how agape power poured through the Holy Spirit into people to give them courage and strength to endure all things and to stand up against terrible oppression against them. In the chapter of Strength to Love entitled “Loving Your Enemies,” he said, “When Jesus bids us to love our enemies, he is speaking neither of eros nor philia; he is speaking of agape, understanding and creative, redemptive goodwill for all.” (pg. 44)

He went on to say that only by following this way of agape are we able to be children of God. He deeply believed and put into action, as he mobilized masses of suffering people, that “returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.” By following the prodding of the Spirit, Rev. King led growing numbers of people to gain the justice they were being denied under a corrupt system of laws; and he did it with the power of non-violence, because as he said, “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” He witnessed that “Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence … in a descending spiral of destruction.”

By seeing agape power in action and feeling it surge through an enormously long line of marching people across a bridge near Selma to face down snarling dogs and club-wielding police, Rev. King witnessed what agape power could do. He was able to ask, “Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies -- or else?” He proclaimed, “The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”

That is exactly why it is so important to recover the meaning of agape for our period of post-modern history.  As Dr. King wrote:

    “An overflowing love which seeks nothing in return, agape is the love of God operating in the human heart. At this level, we love men not because we like them, nor because their ways appeal to us, nor even because they possess some type of divine spark; we love every man because God loves him.”

In other chapter, “Love in Action,” that is mainly about the strength of forgiveness, he wrote,

    “Jesus also admonished his followers to love their enemies and to pray for them that despitefully used them. This teaching fell upon the ears of many of his hearers like a strange music from a foreign land. Their ears were not attuned to the tonal qualities of such amazing love. … Yet Jesus taught them that only through a creative love for their enemies could they be children of their Father in heaven and also that love and forgiveness were absolute necessities for spiritual maturity.” (p. 32)

Of course, Dr. King was reflecting on his own experience. When his house was bombed, thus threatening his wife and children, he stood on the rubble of his front porch, surrounded by a huge mob of supporters who were ready to destroy the whole town at his command. In that instant of monumental decision, he preached the need for love and forgiveness that he had learned from those teachings of Jesus, and at first his words fell on deaf ears because the mob was not attuned to the tonal qualities of such amazing love. But he went on from there to use non-violence to start overthrowing the whole system of Segregation that had oppressed people for generations.

Dorothee Soelle wrote in her pages on Dr. King, in her book about the history of the connection between mysticism and social resistance entitled The Silent Cry, that he followed Gandhi in talking about ‘soul force.’ Dr. King made the profound connection between agape and soul force. She quoted him as saying,

“We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. … Throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us up, and we will still love you."    (A Testament of Hope, pp. 256-257)

Of course, he wasn’t talking about what we normally mean by the English word “love.” Instead, he was working with a meaning more in line with what St. Paul meant with his new, unusual use of the Greek noun “agape.” Rev. King proved to the modern world what St. Paul was prophesying could be accomplished through working with the agape power of God.

And so we continue to honor Martin Luther King’s memory every year, and those of us who believed so deeply in what he was doing, continue to pray that his teachings will influence more and more people -- before it is too late.