SERMON: Pilgrimage To Nonviolence by Martin Luther King, Jr.

In my senior year in theological seminary, I engaged in the exciting reading of various theological theories.  Having been raised in a rather strict fundamentalist tradition, I was occasionally shocked when my intellectual journey carried me through new and sometimes complex doctrinal lands, but the pilgrimage was always stimulating, gave me a new appreciation for objective appraisal and critical analysis, and knocked me out of my dogmatic slumber.

Liberalism provide me with an intellectual satisfaction that I had never found in fundamentalism.  I became so enamored of the insights of liberalism that I almost fell into the trap of accepting uncritically everything it encompassed.  I was absolutely convinced of the natural goodness of man and the natural power of human reason.

I

A basic change in my thinking came when I began to question some of the theories that had been associated with so-called liberal theology.  Of course, there are aspects of liberalism that I hope to cherish always: its devotion to the search for truth, its insistence on an open and analytical mind, and its refusal to abandon the best lights of reason.  The contribution of liberalism to the philological-historical criticism of Biblical literature has been of immeasurable value and should be defended with religious and scientific passion.

But I began to question the liberal doctrine of man.  The more I observed the tragedies of history and man’s shameful inclination to choose the low road, the more I came to see the depths and strength of sin.  My reading of the works of Reinhold Niebuhr made me aware of the complexity of human motives and the reality of sin on every level of man’s existence.  Moreover, I came to recognize the complexity of man’s social involvement and the glaring reality of collective evil.  I realized that liberalism had been all too sentimental concerning human nature and that it leaned toward a false idealism.

I also came to see that the superficial optimism of liberalism concerning human nature overlooked the fact that reason is darkened by sin.  The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin encourages us to rationalize our actions.  Liberalism failed to show that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man’s defensive ways of thinking.  Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.

Although I rejected some aspects of liberalism, I never came to an all-out acceptance of neo-orthodoxy.  While I saw neo-orthodoxy as a helpful corrective for a sentimental liberalism, I felt that it did not provide an adequate answer to basic questions.  If liberalism was too optimistic concerning human nature, neo-orthodoxy was too pessimistic.  Not only on the question of man, but also on other vital issues, the revolt of neo-orthodoxy went too far.  In its attempt to preserve the transcendence of God, which had been neglected by an overstress of his immanence in liberalism, neo-orthodoxy went to the extreme of stressing a God who was hidden, unknown, and “wholly other.”  In its revolt against overemphasis on the power of reason in liberalism, neo-orthodoxy fell into a mood of anti-rationalism and semi-fundamentalism, stressing a narrow uncritical Biblicism.  This approach, I felt, was inadequate both for the church and for personal life.

So although liberalism left me unsatisfied on the question of the nature of man, I found no refuge in neo-orthodoxy.  I am now convinced that the truth about man is found neither in liberalism nor neo-orthodoxy.  Each represents a partial truth.  A large segment of Protestant liberalism defined man only in terms of his essential nature, his capacity for good; neo-orthodoxy tended to define man only in terms of his existential nature, his capacity for evil.  An adequate understanding of man is found neither in the thesis of liberalism nor in the antithesis of neo-orthodoxy, but in a synthesis which reconciles the truths of both.

During the intervening years I have gained a new appreciation for the philosophy of existentialism.  My first contact with this philosophy came through my reading of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.  Later I returned to a study of Jaspers, Heidegger, and Sartre.  These thinkers stimulated my thinking; while questioning each, I nevertheless learned a great deal through a study of them.  When I finally engaged in a serious study of the writings of Paul Tillich, I became convinced that existentialism, in spite of the fact that it had become all too fashionable, had grasped certain basic truths about man and his condition that could not be permanently overlooked.

An understanding of the “finite freedom” of man is one of the permanent contributions of existentialism, and its perception of the anxiety and conflict produced in man’s personal and social life by the perilous and ambiguous structure of existence is especially meaningful for our time.  A common denominator in atheistic or theistic existentialism is that man’s existential situation is estranged from his essential nature.  In their revolt against Hegel’s essentialism, all existentialists contend that the world is fragmented.  History is a series of unreconciled conflicts, and man’s existence is filled with anxiety and threatened with meaninglessness.  While the ultimate Christian answer is not found in any of these existential assertions, there is much here by which the theologian may describe the true state of man’s existence.

Although most of my formal study has been in systematic theology and philosophy, I have become more and more interested in social ethics.  During my early teens I was deeply concerned by the problem of racial injustice.  I considered segregation both rationally inexplicable and morally unjustifiable.  I could never accept my having to sit in the back of a bus or in the segregated section of a train.  The first time that I was seated behind a curtain in a dining-car I felt as though the curtain had been dropped on my selfhood.  I also learned that the inseparable twin of racial injustice is economic injustice.  I saw how the systems of segregation exploited both the Negro and the poor whites.  These early experiences made me deeply conscious of the varieties of injustice in our society.

II

Not until I entered theological seminary, however, did I begin a serious intellectual quest for a method that would eliminate social evil.  I was immediately influenced by the social gospel.  In the early 1950s I read Walter Rauschenbusch’s Christianity and the Social Crisis, a book which left an indelible imprint on my thinking.  Of course, there were points at which I differed with Rauschenbusch.  I felt that he was a victim of the nineteenth-century “cult of inevitable progress,” which led him to an unwarranted optimism concerning human nature.  Moreover, he came perilously close to identifying the Kingdom of God with a particular social and economic system, a temptation to which  the church must never surrender.  But in spite of these shortcomings, Rauschenbusch gave to American Protestantism a sense of social responsibility that it should never lose.  The gospel at its best deals with the whole man, not only his soul but also his body, not only his spiritual well-being but also his material well-being.  A religion that professes a concern for the souls of men and is not equally concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a spiritually moribund religion.

After reading Rauschenbusch, I turned to a serious study of the social and ethical theories of the great philosophers.  During this period I had almost despaired of the power of love to solve social problems.  The turn-the-other-cheek and the love-your-enemies philosophies are valid, I felt, only when individuals are in conflict with other individuals; when racial groups and nations are in conflict, a more realistic approach is necessary.

Then I was introduced to the life and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.  As I read his works I became deeply fascinated by his campaigns of nonviolent resistance.  The whole Gandhian concept of satyagraha (satya is truth which equals love and graha is force; satyagraha thus means truth-force or love-force) was profoundly significant to me.  As I delved deeper into the philosophy of Gandhi, my sceptiscism concerning the power of love gradually diminished, and I came to see for the first time that the Christian doctrine of love, operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence, is one of the most potent weapons available to an oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.  At that time, however, I acquired only an intellectual understanding and appreciation of the position, and I had no firm determination to organize it in a socially effective situation.

When I was in Montgomery, Alabama, as a pastor in 1954, I had not the slightest idea that I would later become involved in a crisis in which nonviolent resistance would be applicable.  After I had lived in the community about a year, the bus boycott began.  The Negro people of Montgomery, exhausted by the humiliating experiences that they had constantly faced on the buses, expressed in a massive act of noncooperation their determination to be free.  They came to see that it was ultimately more honorable to walk the streets in dignity than to ride the buses in humiliation.  At the beginning of the protest, the people called on me to serve as their spokesman.  In accepting this responsibility, my mind, consciously or unconsciously, was driven back to the Sermon on the Mount and the Gandhian method of nonviolent resistance.  This principle became the guiding light of our movement.  Christ furnished the spirit and motivation and Gandhi furnished the method.

The experience in Montgomery did more to clarify my thinking in regard to the question of nonviolence than all of the books that I had read.  As the days unfolded, I became more and more convinced of the power of nonviolence.  Nonviolence became more than a method to which I gave intellectual assent; it became a commitment to a way of life.  Many issues I had not cleared up intellectually concerning nonviolence were not resolved within the sphere of practical action.

My privilege of traveling to India had a great impact on me personally, for it was invigorating to see firsthand the amazing results of a nonviolent struggle to achieve independence.  The aftermath of hatred and bitterness that usually follows a violent campaign was found nowhere in India, and a mutual friendship, based on complete equality, existed between the Indian and British people within the Commonwealth.

I would not wish to give the impression that nonviolence will accomplish miracles overnight.  Men are not easily moved from their mental ruts or purged of their prejudiced and irrational feelings.  When the underprivileged demand freedom, the privileged at first react with bitterness and resistance.  Even when the demands are couched in nonviolent terms, the initial response is substantially the same.  I am sure that many of our white brothers in Montgomery and throughout the South are still bitter toward the Negro leaders, even though these leaders have sought to follow a way of love and nonviolence.  But the nonviolent approach does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it.  It gives them new self-respect.  It calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had.  Finally, it so stirs the conscience of the opponent that reconciliation becomes a reality.

III

More recently I have come to see the need for the method of nonviolence in international relations.  Although I was not yet convinced of its efficacy in conflicts between nations, I felt that while war could never be a positive good, it could serve as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force.  War, horrible as it is, might be preferable to surrender to a totalitarian system.  But I now believe that the potential destructiveness of modern weapons totally rules out the possibility of war ever again achieving a negative good.  If we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war and destruction.  In our day of space vehicles and guided ballistic missiles, the choice is either nonviolence or nonexistence.

I am no doctrinaire pacifist, but I have tried to embrace a realistic pacifism which finds the pacifist position as the lesser evil in the circumstances.  I do not claim to be free from the moral dilemmas that the Christian nonpacifist confronts, but I am convinced that the church cannot be silent while mankind faces the threat of nuclear annihilation.  If the church is true to her mission, she must call for an end to the arms race.

Some of my personal sufferings over the last few years have also served to shape my thinking.  I always hesitate to mention these experiences for fear of conveying the wrong impression.  A person who constantly calls attention to his trials and sufferings is in danger of developing a martyr complex and impressing others that he is consciously seeking sympathy.  It is possible for one to be self-centered in his self-sacrifice.  But I feel somewhat justified in mentioning them in this essay because of the influence they have had upon my thought.

Due to my involvement in the struggle for the freedom of my people, I have known very few quiet days in the last few years.  I have been imprisoned in Alabama and Georgia jails twelve times.  My home has been bombed twice.  A day seldom passes that my family and I are not the recipients of threats of death.  I have been the victim of a near-fatal stabbing.  So in a real sense I have been battered by the storms of persecution.  I must admit that at times I have felt that I could no longer bear such a heavy burden, and have been tempted to retreat to a more quiet and serene life.  But every time such a temptation appeared, something came to strengthen and sustain my determination.  I have learned now that the Master’s burden is light precisely when we take his yoke upon us.

My personal trials have also taught me the value of unmerited suffering.  As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation – either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force.  I decided to follow the latter course.  Recognizing the necessity for suffering, I have tried to make of it a virtue.  If only to save myself from bitterness, I have attempted to see my personal ordeals as an opportunity to transfigure myself and heal the people involved in the tragic situation which now obtains.  I have lived these last few years with the conviction that unearned suffering is redemptive.  There are some who still find the cross a stumbling block, others consider it foolishness, but I am more convinced than ever before that it is the power of God unto social and individual salvation.  So like the Apostle Paul I can now humbly, yet proudly, say, “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”

The agonizing moments through which I have passed during the last few years have also drawn me closer to God.  More than ever before I am convinced of the reality of a personal God.  True, I have always believed in the personality of God.  But in the past the idea of a personal God was little more than a metaphysical category that I found theologically and philosophically satisfying.  Now it is a living reality that has been validated in the experiences of everyday life.  God has been profoundly real to me in recent years.  In the midst of outer dangers I have felt an inner calm.  In the midst of lonely days and dreary nights I have heard an inner voice saying, “Lo, I will be with you.”  When the chains of fear and the manacles of frustration have all but stymied my efforts, I have felt the power of God transforming the fatigue of despair into the buoyancy of hope.  I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving purpose, and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship.  Behind the harsh appearances of the world there is a benign power.  To say that this God is personal is not to make him a finite object besides other objects or attribute to him the limitations of human personality; it is to take what is finest and noblest in our consciousness and affirm its perfect existence in him.  It is certainly true that human personality is limited, but personality as such involves no necessary limitations.  It means simply self-consciousness and self-direction.  So in the truest sense of the word, God is a living God.  In him there is feeling and will, responsive to the deepest yearnings of the human heart: this God both evokes and answers prayer.

The past decade has been a most exciting one.  In spite of the tensions and uncertainties of this period something profoundly meaningful is taking place.  Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away; new systems of justice and equality are being born.  In a real sense this is a great time to be alive.  Therefore, I am not yet discouraged about the future.  Granted that the easygoing optimism of yesterday is impossible.  Granted that we face a world crisis which leaves us standing so often amid the surging murmur of life’s restless sea.  But every crisis has both its dangers and its opportunities.  It can spell either salvation or doom.  In a dark, confused world the Kingdom of God may yet reign in the hearts of men.