MARTIN LUTHER KING, THE CHURCH, AND A VALUE-FUSED UNIVERSE1

In the opening sentence of the conclusion to his famous Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant admonishes us that the more one reflects on them two things fill the mind with ever more admiration and awe: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.2 I too am awed by these phenomena. But there is yet another phenomenon that fills me with even deeper admiration and awe.

Whenever I consider the seemingly infinite ways that we humans choose to disrespect and destroy life-most particularly human life-I am absolutely speechless and awed when I think about this third phenomenon, and indeed I wonder why Kant himself did not include it when he made his famous statement. When I consider the history of Afrikan people in this country, for example, and how they were ripped from the soil of the Afrikan continent, making them not "unwilling immigrants," as Marvin Scott erroneously claimed at the 2004 Republican National Convention, but rather the only group of Americans who came to these shores not by choice but by force, I am awestruck by this third phenomenon. When I consider the near total genocide of the native peoples of this country; when I remember the events leading to and the aftermath of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 that led to the United States' acquisition of approximately one-half of Mexico for a measly $15 million, and then think about this third phenomenon, I am filled with both admiration and awe.

When I think about the tragic phenomenon of black against black violence and murder among young Afrikan American males between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five in Fort Wayne and elsewhere in the United States; when I consider the plight of young Latinos; the verbal, physical, and other kinds of abuse inflicted upon women and children in virtually every city in this nation; when I remember that tens of thousands of children in this country and around the world die of preventable disease, hunger, inadequate housing, and unsafe neighborhoods every year; when I am reminded that various elements in the church and its institutions have added their signature of support to war (murder); when I consider that otherwise racist segments of this society and the church consider themselves to be morally superior to those whose sexual orientation is different from theirs, I must say that I am absolutely awed, and indeed overwhelmed, by this third phenomenon, which is that the God of this great universe, the God of the eighth-century prophets, of Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King Jr., loves you and me-both because of us, and in spite of us.

There was a man whose deepest faith was in this great God of the universe, a man whose steady conviction was that the universe is fused with value, or as he so often declared, the universe "hinges on a moral foundation."3 Or put differently, the universe itself is friendly toward every effort to achieve good, love, and justice in the world. Few have understood the significance of this declaration and faith, and how it served in moments of deepest despair, depression, fear, and uncertainty to propel Martin Luther King forward, enabling him to stay the course and to remain in the margin with those counted among the least.

Martin Luther King was also awed by "the starry heavens above, and the moral law within." But I submit that he was even more awestruck by the Jewish and Christian affirmation that God loves us. So much and so deeply did King believe this that he could not support capital punishment,4 nor could he support the Vietnam War, one of the most controversial conflicts of the twentieth century. For King the biblical commandment "You shall not kill" did not mean to him "You shall not murder," for this would imply that the state, for example, has the right to kill its internal and external enemies by lethal injection or preemptive strike. Rather, for King, "You shall not kill" means "You shall not kill, " which implies that to kill under any circumstances whatsoever, including self-defense or to preserve a state or nation, means that one must ultimately answer to the God of this great universe.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of a few people in history who understood this as well as Martin Luther King. A theologian and minister of the gospel, Bonhoeffer participated in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. When the plot failed, Bonhoeffer and others were discovered, imprisoned, and ultimately hanged. Before he went to the gallows, Bonhoeffer reflected on his involvement in the attempt against Hitler's life. While he clearly wanted the plot to succeed, Bonhoeffer was almost devastated by heaviness of heart. He recognized that notwithstanding Hitler's massive brutality against millions of God's children, Hitler too belonged to that same God and thus was loved by that God. Bonhoeffer believed, like King, that God gives life, and therefore no man, woman, state, or nation has the authority to take life away. Anyone who does so, or even unsuccessfully plots to do so-regardless of the reason-must at least be left with a heaviness of heart and conscience akin to Bonhoeffer's.