Why Do You Need To Love Your Neighbor?
Last Saturday my beautiful wife and I attended Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial.
8/28 Rally at 10:01 EDT
Although nonjoiners by nature we decided to attend the rally when it was first announced in order to demonstrate our support for and draw strength from the gathering and the message. The message, as we understand it is indirectly political but primarily moral and spiritual. And finally we wanted to prompt open and honest dialogues about the importance of liberty to the moral and spiritual realities of everyday life.
By taking public and tangible action we chose to accept the slings and arrows of being labelled racists, homophobes, hatemongers and idiots. While it is true that there are few who know us who will easily believe that we are any of those things, new acquaintances and passing acquaintances are another matter. We have acted and will continue to act openly, despite the danger of overt hostility and villification, in order to challenge people to examine the validity and the counter productivity of such marginalizing labels and to create the possibility of at least some open dialogue with those who may be willing to give us the benefit of the doubt.
When we decided to attend we did not realize that this would be held on the 47th Anniversary of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech although there was obviously a connection based upon the venue, the Lincoln Memorial. Shortly before the event, complaints were lodged about the fact that the date for the event coincided with that of Dr. King’s speech and there were calls for rally to be rescheduled. What did I think about that? Certainly I meant no disrespect to the memory and legacy of MLK by attending this rally. In fact, I also believe that a group with a message such as ours, peaceful and loving, would have been welcomed by him especially since his niece, Alveda King, a civil rights advocate in her own right, was to join us at the mall. I even went so far as to review the famous “I Have a Dream” speech to see in advance whether what we were doing could be misconstrued. It’s well worth the 17 minutes to watch it.
Apparently the fact that the rally would be held on the “I Have a Dream” anniversary and the fact that Glenn Beck is outspoken in his ideas for reforming the government into a form more like it’s original one caused Al Sharpton to respond with the idea that Beck was attempting to coopt the legacy of King’s speech. He explicitly charged that the Beck ideas of a limited federal government directly contravened MLK’s own views, as stated in his speech, that the federal government was the instrument necessary to protect the rights of blacks. Says Sharpton:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHJqaICiS-U
Of course, as Sharpton contends, there is reference in MLK’s speech to George Wallace’s seeking to invoke the “interposition” and “nullification” concepts of state’s rights, but I challenge you to watch the brilliance of the entire speech and not conclude that the speech was primarily directed at changing the hearts of both blacks and whites. The blacks towards a commitment to non-violence and the whites to a commitment to fair and equal treatment of all people in their day to day lives. Whether at lunch counters or at motels or hotels, what he invoked was the dignity which each person has the right to expect from every other person, regardless of color or any other attribute. King’s language, his “symphony of brotherhood” evokes a magnificent and uplifting idea of humanity. The image of children of former slaves and former slaveowners sitting down together evokes an inspiring idea of a new day. I suppose it is possible that the statement that blacks would not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream” could be understood to mean that he was asking the writing of new laws. He could have been, I suppose, only calling for the creation of causes of action on behalf of blacks to sue for discrimination. He could could have further intended this statement to call only for the empowerment of the justice department to punish racial wrongdoers. However, no one who understands how lawyers use the teeth of the law can very well believe that this action would have satisfied King or the oppressed for whom he was speaking. King’s language, invoking the idea of a symphony and seeking a time when “justice rolls [. . . ] and righteousness flows” was clearly a call upon the entire American people to change, not just the ones who could otherwise be threaten with suit or prosecution. Each molecule of the water he called upon had to act individually but also as a part of larger body of water moving in the same direction toards the same end. It can be interpreted, I truly believe, only as a call to action by us all. A call upon people to banish the unjust ideas held within their own hearts and minds and to act as if they had been bathed in the cleansing power of God.
Dr. Alveda King, a keynote speaker at the event, had this to say beforehand.
As readers of this blog know, I am of the opinion that a clash of worldviews has led us to the point we find ourselves in this country — at knifepoint over everything. Like Alveda King, I believe that we need to have a place to start the discussion. If we continue to refuse to listen to one another, or to villify everyone who disagrees with us in order to stop listening to them, we’ll never reach accommodation. Backlash and counterbacklash ad infinitum will be inevitable. This country simply won’t survive as the land of the free and the home of the brave.
What I heard from the stage on Saturday was a call to return to a God-centered country. Not a theocracy, which is God rule through the men and women on top, but a call to God ruling His people through a liberty-loving, reformed populace. Unlike the progressives (yes, I’m making a political comment here) I believe in allowing people to exercise their God-given right to liberty but that right comes with God-imposed responsibilities. These include treating others everyday with dignity, respect and justice. Can agnostics and atheists and non-Jew non-Christians be accommodated and respected in a country with a citizenry of an overwhelming Judeo Christian focus? I have no doubt. Why? A commitment to the stated values of an unseen but personally experienced God requires this. He requires that in addition to loving Him, that you love your neighbor as yourself. Doesn’t this love require treating everyone as you would have them treat you? Both the New and Old Testaments require this: Matt 22: 37-39; Leviticus 19: 18 and 34; and Deuteronomy 10: 19. Would not then a commitment to honor and truth in our own lives not solve the problems which Al Sharpton points out? Of course it would. Was this God focus not the source of the brotherhood being invoked by Dr. King? Yes and in such a nation, a nation where the people can once again be trusted with the power to run their own lives, we will all be blessed.
If MLK was seeking lawmaking and not soul making when he came to the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963 he certainly chose an imperfect and counterproductive device. Manmade laws cannot replace the obligation of abiding by the God made law of treating one another with dignity and respect. Such laws as man makes for the control of his brother will in many ways be imperfect and at times be used by lawyers and others to inflict great harms. It is the way of such things. After all, in a courtroom it is not the truth but the proof (among other things) which prevails. When Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, was he merely looking to men on the other end of the mall in the capitol building to act or was he looking to everyone to act in brotherhood towards one another? If you watched the MLK speech which I embedded above, I think you know the answer. And, whether he wanted manmade laws or not, Dr. King, the man of God, was certainly calling upon the spirit of God in every man’s (and woman’s of course) heart to reach out to his neighbor and love him. Dr. King reached me again on August 28, 2010. Thanks to Glenn Beck and Alveda King and 500,000 brothers and sisters. Have faith.
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