Martin Luther King Day: Duane W.H. Arnold PhD
On this Martin Luther King Day, an extract from his ‘Letter From a Birmingham Jail’.
“… Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.
There was a time when the church was very powerful–in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are.
But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust…”
The words still ring true.
I would surmise, most of the church, and almost all in the US has lost its authenticity, and is becoming an increasingly irrelevant social club for MAGA cultist rallies. And this loss of influence, respect, relevancy has made the American church even more militant and rabid in its allegiance and efforts for political and temporal power. But at some point, people will grow tired of this bullshit and get rid of the their political gods (by force or otherwise) and if they stand in the way, they will suffer the same fate as the Kool-Aid drinkers in Guyana or the 1st century Jews at the hands of the Roman Empire. And it serves them right. I for one, will not mourn their passing nor their destruction. Consider me a Roman soldier in the Legio X Fretensis. And afterwards, one the ash heap of the American church, another Arch of Titus can built.
Duane
I have moved beyond disgust to outright contempt, hatred, malevolence, and Schadenfreude for these so-called Christians. It may be wicked and nasty I at least I am not a hypocrite, and do not hide those feeling behind a veneer of piety and spiritualism. And if God wants to damn me for it, then so be it. I would rather spend my time in hell, that follow a God who has followers like these and who doesn’t do jack shit about it.
My friend,
I will not tell you that your anger is misplaced. There are moments when the behavior of those who claim the name of Christ presses so sharply against the conscience that indignation feels not only understandable but necessary. The hypocrisy on display in parts of American Christianity is real, and it has done profound harm. Your recoil is not irrational.
However, I would offer this. When contempt takes root—when we begin to speak of “these Christians” as if they were beyond the reach of grace—we risk surrendering something of ourselves. Augustine reminded us that sin is a disorder of love, a turning inward that narrows the soul. Hatred, even when born of honesty, can become precisely that. It constricts our vision until we see only the offense and lose sight of the possibility, however faint, of redemption.
The God you fear might damn you is not revealed in those who weaponize piety. The God encountered in Scripture is the One who hears the cry of the oppressed, judges false righteousness, and still works—often frustratingly slowly—toward reconciliation. That slowness tests faith, but it remains the ground of Christian hope.
Your anger may clarify, but it cannot be where you build. Contempt corrodes discernment and leaves us diminished. The Church has failed before—repeatedly—and yet renewal has come, not through rage, but through truth-telling, repentance, and the costly discipline of living differently.
Do not let the worst examples determine the shape of your faith. You need not excuse them, nor pretend things are fine. Yet you also need not surrender the Gospel to those who misuse it. Hell is not the fate of those who feel too deeply the pain of the world; it is what takes hold when we abandon the hope that God might yet make all things new.
Be angry. Be truthful. Name what is false. However, guard your heart against the contempt that slowly unravels the soul. There is still a Church worth contending for, and a God who has not abandoned His people—even when His people have abandoned Him.
Duane,
I do not fear God for damning me or really at all, because to be honest, I do not think he exists, cares, or is frankly too impotent and puny to be bothered with. Every time I see Christians (especially the vast majority of American Christians) invoke the name of God, I immediately think of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31ZjnrHR8EA
Maybe if he _actually_ drops the hammer and “for judgement to begin the House of the Lord” as he said would happen, then maybe I will actually to begin to reconsider my position. Maybe once all the posers are dealt with personally by him, then I will actually believe him.
I appreciate the clarity of what you are saying, even if I cannot finally agree with your conclusion. There is a long and honorable tradition—biblical and otherwise—of refusing to offer God the courtesy of belief when the world looks nothing like justice. The psalms are full of precisely this protest. Job builds an entire case on it. Scripture does not silence that voice; it preserves it.
However, I would push back on one assumption beneath what you have said. The absence of visible judgment is not evidence of divine impotence so much as evidence of divine patience—patience that is, admittedly, exasperating and often morally offensive to us. Judgment “beginning with the household of God” was never promised as spectacle or immediate catharsis. Historically, it has come slowly, unevenly, and usually through exposure, collapse, and the stripping away of false authority rather than thunderbolts.
Moreover, if God were to “drop the hammer” in the way you describe, it would almost certainly not look like the clean sorting of villains and innocents that we imagine. That fantasy presumes a clarity Scripture itself refuses. Judgment, in the biblical witness, is as uncomfortable for the righteous as it is devastating for the corrupt. Which is precisely why people so often invoke it rhetorically while quietly hoping it never actually arrives.
I would also say this: disbelief born of moral outrage is not the same thing as indifference. You are not describing apathy; you are describing disappointment sharpened into protest. That posture is closer to faith than you might be willing to admit, even if you reject the metaphysical claims attached to it. The real opposite of faith is not anger but resignation.
You may be right that much of what parades as Christianity deserves to be dismantled. History suggests it usually is—eventually—though rarely in the way anyone expects. Institutions rot. Masks fall. Power collapses under its own weight.
If you ever reconsider belief, it will not be because God finally performed on demand. It will be because you glimpsed something—however briefly—that was not reducible to hypocrisy, coercion, or power. Until then, your refusal to pretend is at least more honest than the piety you are rightly rejecting.
I will not ask you to believe. I will only say this: do not mistake God’s silence for absence, or delay for impotence. History has a way of judging the Church long before God ever needs to.
BTW, MLK, Jr. had to wait to witness anything approaching judgment, and even then he did not see it..
“History has a way of judging the Church long before God ever needs to.”
Just thought that was worth repeating.
Could it also be said that the judgment of history is the judgment of God?
CK
A good question… I don’t think that II would collapse one into the other. The judgment of history is a shadow of the real thing—an anticipatory echo, not the final word. God’s judgment does not simply expose; it also heals. It does not merely condemn; it restores. History lacks that capacity.
What we can say is this: when the Church is unmasked by history, the moment is not outside the providence or work of God.
I’m not a Mennonite, but I worked with an organization that had some and I learned very quickly that they showed up and got to work with whoever needed help. They didn’t follow unjust rules and when racial prejudice against blacks was still strong in Colombia in the mid-80s to early 90s, they worked diligently to open up more educational opportunities for them. I decided to be more Mennonite when I worked with people.
Duane and Michael,
Be safe boys.
https://youtu.be/8lrwOBEXQ5w?si=BedS66eRbcnGG0dZ
Flash,
So where are you and where is your post when ICE agents storm a church trying to apprehend people, trying to bully people and churches into entering non-public areas without a judicial warrant? Where are you when ICE agents try to intimidate, threaten, and try to arrest churches, pastors, and churchgoers who ask them to leave? Or are you busy too busy licking boots to notice?
There were only perhaps a few individuals as great as MLK Jr. in this country’s history, and none surpassed him in greatness. His legacy of extending civil rights and resistance to oppression in America is priceless beyond reckoning for a country that has yet to find a sure moral footing. He shines like a star in the firmament of greatness; may his like increase amongst us.
Flash,
What has your comment to do with honoring one of the greatest Americans who ever lived, or heeding his cautionary words to the church?
Ghul,
I don’t play whataboutisms.
You’re projecting motives instead of making an argument.
Warrantless entry and intimidation violate constitutional protections regardless of which agency is involved. Churches aren’t exempt from the Constitution—and neither is the government.
If you want a serious discussion, try starting one without the insults.
Robert,
Are you the moderator now, LMAO.
The last time we interacted I slapped the cyber shit out of you. Don’t make me do it again LMAO.
Phil,
I was right the first time — you really are a bully, and a troll too.
We all know who King would’ve stood with in Minneapolis — don’t be envious.
Robert,
You’re swinging at something I didn’t post.
The video was of Lemon disrupting a church service. Duane and Michael are pastors. My comment was wishing them safety, period.
You don’t get to rewrite that into some fantasy about what I support, then lecture me using MLK as a prop. That’s not an argument — it’s projection.
If you want to talk facts and principles, I’m game. If you want to keep throwing labels and playing victim, I’m done here.
phil,
So be done already.
I am. Take care.
Duane,
King knew that he would be persecuted politically, because he was in fact promoting a politics– the politics of the Kingdom of God. I see men and women out there in Minneapolis following in his footsteps as they witness to the atrocities of ICE agents by taking video, and then in turn are brutalized by the same ICE agents without lifting a finger to defend themselves. They stand in the same tradition of nonviolent resistance as King, and Gandhi. I must say that I don’t much care if they’re christian or not; they are doing the Kingdom’s work.
Robert F
I agree that King understood perfectly well the political cost of his witness. He was under no illusions. The “politics of the Kingdom” is not a quiet spirituality; it is a public confrontation with the powers, and he knew it would draw the state’s wrath. Moreover, the men and women in Minneapolis who stand unarmed before ICE agents, who record what others would prefer remain unseen, are taking up that same costly posture. Whether they claim any allegiance to Christ is almost beside the point. They are embodying a truth the Church has far too often abandoned.
However, what strikes me most is that their actions expose the gap between those who speak of the Kingdom and those who actually inhabit its logic. King did not invent nonviolence; he inherited it—from Jesus, from Gandhi, from the early martyrs who met imperial brutality with steadfast refusal to return harm for harm. When people in our own time stand in that tradition, even unknowingly, they are doing a work the Church should have been leading rather than trailing behind.
Moreover, when the Church loses its nerve, God has a way of raising up witnesses from unexpected quarters—people who demonstrate, often at great cost, what courage and neighbor-love look like in the daylight. That is not a threat to Christianity; it is a judgment upon our failure to live what we profess.
I would say this without hesitation: wherever the vulnerable are defended, wherever human dignity is upheld at personal risk, wherever violence is met with steadfast nonviolence, the work being done is recognizably Kingdom work. The Church does not have a monopoly on it. Yet the Church ought to have been its first practitioner.
What you are naming is not simply activism. It is a sign that the moral imagination King championed has not vanished. It has moved into the hands of those willing to bear the cost.
Looks like Flash ran away like brave Sir Robin.
As for David Eastwood, he deserves to be in prison, much less in any leadership capacity at a church. But what do expect, the church Flash referenced is a spawn of John Piper’s church. So I am sure tough guy David Eastwood is all for abusing, pepper spraying,and shooting uppity women, especially considering that Piper did not women to work and have any roles for leadership in church. David Eastwood is a lying, deceitful sack of shit, probably hand-picked picked by the ICE Barbie b*tch herself.
I know Michael and Duane want to have a place where people can share their thoughts and issues, but when comments like this happen, “sack of shit… CE Barbie b*tch,” it crosses the line of civility.
I watched the reporting of the church invasion by the protestors and the comments about Freedom of Speech and the 1st Amendment by the “Reporter.” Since the 1st Amendment is about the Government censorship and applies to public places I wonder about his actual knowledge of the subject (not that I am at all knowledgeable).
what I do know is as the locations move towards private places Freedom of Speech also becomes less limited. It does not protect people from “defamation, incitement, obscenity, and fighting words,” all of which appear in the videos of this church.
My point or rhetoric question is this, did the protestors have the right to invade a church service and then yell profanities, defame the religion and individuals, and reference them in derogatory political and historical terms?
My first response is, no they do not under the 1st Amendment, nor the more recent FACE Act
However, no one will prosecute this because of the current toxic environment.
And yes I would write the same things if it were a Mosque, Synagogue or even a private abortion clinic.
Too much drama for the morning.
I’m finishing my coffee.
PS. Since this is a private site in a public world I assume PP has the right to allow or censor what ever speech and language they choose. I have always respected that right.
I took a break from here and most media for a couple of day for the sake of my soul and sanity.
I will start enforcing language rules, especially for those who have been repeatedly warned.
I understand that for some of us everything this administration does is an obscenity, but I will demand better here.
TH
The First Amendment protects speech, including offensive or profane speech, but it does not give protesters the right to disrupt a religious service. Courts have consistently held that houses of worship engaged in active religious observance are protected spaces. The government may impose reasonable restrictions on time, place, and manner, and can prohibit conduct that substantially interferes with religious exercise.
Duane
Thanks.
Michael
Thanks you. And calling actions and policies an “obscenity” are different than all the obscene speech.
Like Jefferson, when I reflect that God is just, I fear for my nation.
Are there no men of courage in both houses of Congress who will stand up to the Naziism of ICE?
They (ICE) are like the GESTAPO of Germany in the 1930(s).
Michael,
Understood.
Of course the protestors can protest all they want on a public sidewalk outside the church, just as long as access is not blocked. It will be interesting to see if protestors proceed to protest on public sidewalk outside the church every Sunday morning as is their right under the 1st Amendment. I wonder if Mr. Eastwood is so thin-skinned that he would call his ICE minions to break up such a protest, especially if such protests call into question his character, his qualifications, or his parentage. Probably.