R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 395

Martin Luther King, Jr. at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

On April 19, 1961, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the Julius B. Gay Lecture at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. As historian Gregory A. Wills explains:

On April 19, 1961, Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed the seminary community in a packed chapel. The faculty invited King to give his address as the seminary’s Julius Brown Gay Lecturer. King challenged the seminarian that the church had a central role to play in ending segregation. The church should teach the equality of all races and the destructive character of racial segregation. It should counter the racists’ inflammatory rhetoric and assure white society that the “basic aim of the Negro is to be the white man’s brother and not his brother-in-law.” As true followers of Jesus Christ, they should be “maladjusted” to the “evils of segregation and discrimination” and lead their churches to “move out into the realm of social reform.” It was King’s familiar message, but no one missed the significance of its being given at the oldest seminary in the largely segregated Southern Baptist Convention.

On the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington, listening to King’s words at Southern Seminary brings a new sense of historical importance.

Listen to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Julius B. Gay Lecture at Southern Seminar here, and listen to his lecture to a Christian Ethics class here.

Photographs: Martin Luther King, Jr. in Alumni Chapel, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, April 19, 1961. Photographer unknown.

Source: Gregory A. Wills, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1859-2009 (New York, Oxford University Press, 2009) at 415.

The Content of Our Character—Fifty Years Later Many Challenges Remain

“I have a dream,” declared Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as he addressed a crowd of several hundred thousand gathered on the Mall around the Washington Monument. The date was August 28, 1963, and America was a cauldron of social unrest.

Civil rights leaders had called for the March on Washington in order to force the nation to deal with the so-called “race problem.” As the event drew to a close, all eyes were on the final speaker. The crowd standing in Washington’s sweltering heat waited for the man they knew would be the “closer” of the event.

Most Americans recognized the name, face, and voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. He had appeared on the nation’s front pages and news broadcasts, having led major protests and movements in Montgomery, Birmingham, and in other cities. And yet, King was an enigma to many white Americans. What would he say?

Interestingly, the most famous words of his speech were not included in his manuscript. King had arrived in Washington the day before and had prepared his speech in a room at the famous Willard Hotel. In The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Speech that Inspired a Nation, author Drew D. Hansen provides parallel texts of Dr. King’s manuscript and of his actual words. When he reached the pinnacle of his oratory, King simply departed from his prepared text and launched his speech into history.

“I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”

Dr. King spoke of a dream “that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.” And he spoke personally: “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”

In the midst of a nation torn by racial strife and social unrest, Dr. King painted an indelible picture of America as it could be and should be. His oratory was soaring, his imagery was vivid, and his cause was right. His cadences, inflections, and biblical allusions gave the speech its memorable structure. His powerful argument gave the speech its moral weight. The speech is as much a part of our national memory as Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Speaking to a generation poised to reject the American dream as a lie, Dr. King challenged them to make it their own. He rejected claims that America could never be reformed or called to its moral senses.

We do well to look back to 1963 and remember the reality. In the South, Jim Crow laws enforced segregation. Separate motels, restaurants, schools, and water fountains marked the moral landscape. In the North, the absence of Jim Crow laws did not mean that the races were integrated. North and South, black and white Americans inhabited different worlds. African-Americans were routinely denied access to accommodations, higher education, and the voting booth.

Those standing on the nation’s Mall that day could not have known that years of struggle, frustration, violence, and tragedy lay ahead. Observing America in 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “I do not imagine that the white and black race will ever live in any country upon an equal footing. But I believe the difficulty to be still greater in the United States than elsewhere.” His words proved an understatement.

Obstructionists attempted to block racial progress at every turn. Some white Americans just could not abide the idea of racial equality and full integration. On the other hand, Stanford University professor Shelby Steele has traced how many of the civil rights leaders traded moral consciousness for racial consciousness and abandoned the vision of racial equality for identity politics.

Still, America is a very different nation now. Racial discrimination is prohibited by law. Statements of prejudice are now socially unthinkable and politically incorrect. Black America can now claim the nation’s Secretary of State and the world’s leading golfer. Poverty still holds many in its grip, but the majority of African-Americans are in the middle class. Nevertheless, much ground remains to be recovered.

Southern conservatives bear a special burden, especially Christians. I was not yet four years old on August 28, 1963. I have no memory of hearing Dr. King deliver his famous address. A white boy raised in the South, I had not seen any black persons up close. I had seen black workers, field hands, and children, but all at a distance. I had no black friends, no black neighbors, and saw no black faces at school or at church. To the best of my knowledge, I attended segregated schools until the fifth grade.

Later, living in a major metropolitan area, I attended integrated middle high schools with hundreds of black students. I came to know black teenagers at school, work, Boy Scouts, and other activities. I considered several of them as friends, but I never really entered their lives. It now dawns on me that I have no idea where they may be living, or what they may be doing.

Now I know many African-Americans as cherished friends and treasured colleagues. I cannot imagine a world in which this is not normal, nor can our children. But honesty compels me to admit that this is more because my black friends have entered my world than because I have entered theirs.

Christians must begin with the affirmation that all human beings are equally created in the image of God. But we also realize that we are sinners, and sin is the fundamental problem on the issue of race. Sin is so interwoven in our lives and institutional structures that we often cannot see it. The only real remedy for the problem of racial prejudice is the transforming power of the Lord Jesus Christ. His atonement for sin is the only cure, and the only real picture of true racial reconciliation is that found in Revelation 7:9-12. There we read of the redeemed people of God as “a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the Lamb.” The Lamb will make us one.

There is much work to do; we struggle in a fallen world until Jesus comes. By God’s grace, we know that real progress is possible and that we are accountable. The church must show the world that the new community of Jesus is called to demonstrate His glory in calling us together.

The Christian doctrine of humanity revealed in the Bible is the only adequate foundation for dealing with racism. Ultimately, we really do believe that every single human being is made in the image of God and reflects God’s glory by his or her very existence. Either we believe that God delights in the racial and ethnic diversity of those made in his image, or we simply refuse to believe what the Bible so clearly teaches us.

Photo: Martin Luther King, Jr. talks with Southern Seminary Professor of Christian Ethics Henlee Barnette on April 19, 1961, the day King spoke in Southern Seminary’s chapel. Photographer unknown.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

The Briefing 08-28-13

1) On 50th anniversary of “I Have a Dream” we remember every human is made in image of God

The March on Wahsington, 50 Years Later, The Washington Times (Vance Garnett)

50 Years Later, Thousands Retrace March on Washington, USA Today (Alan Gomez and Eliza Collins)

2) In Syria there are no good options – but doing nothing is the worst

The moral case for intervention in Syria, Financial Times (Editorial)

US Ready to Launch Syria Strike, BBC News (Assaf Aboud)

Prime Minister Cameron: “I Won’t Stand by” on Syria, BBC News (Clive Coleman)

Why the US won’t declare war on Syria, McClatchy Washington Bureau (Michael Doyle)

3) Manic determination of culture of death to provide abortion for any reason 

Bill Would Let Non-Physicians Perform Abortions, Associated Press

Raising money to ensure women have access to abortions, Los Angeles Times (Marina Villeneuve)

4) 50 yrs after “I Have a Dream,” popular songs reflect dramatic cultural shift

Songs of the Summer of 1963 . . . and 2013, Wall Street Journal (Juan Williams)

The Briefing 08-27-13

1. Chemical weapons in Syria prove to be “uncivilized, barbarian, rogue”  

Secretary Kerry’s remarks on Syria, Washington Post

Syria’s Gas Attack on Civilization, Wall Street Journal (Andrew Roberts)

2. Compromising personal morality now the “price of citizenship”

“It is the Price of Citizenship”? — An Elegy for Religious Liberty in America, AlbertMohler.com (Albert Mohler)

Refusal to photograph New Mexico same–sex couple ruled illegal, Reuters (Edith Honan)

3. Rabbi Kushner: It doesn’t have to be true to be “meaningful”

Religion and Doubt, New York Times (Rabbi Harold Kushner)

Some Mormons Search the Web and Find Doubt, New York Times (Laurie Goodstein)

The Briefing 08-26-13

1. Syrian regime crosses Obama’s “red line,” by using chemical weapons against own people

William Hague: choice between military strikes on Syria or allowing tyrants to use chemical weapons, The Telegraph (Tim Ross)

A step too far, The Economist (Editorial)

A Sharp Shift in Tone on Syria From the White House, New York Times (Scott Shane and Ben Hubbard)

2. Hasan and Bales: Similar crimes but very different trials

Nidal Hasan convicted of Fort Hood killings, Washington Post (Billy Kenber)

Villagers unsatisfied by life sentence for Bales, Associated Press (Gene Johnson)

3. Would you save your pet’s life before a human life? Popular answer may surprise you. 

Mind & Matter: Our unique obsession with Rover and Fluffy, Wall Street Journal (Robert Sapolsky)

 

“It is the Price of Citizenship”?—An Elegy for Religious Liberty in America

Anyone who still doubts that the normalization of homosexuality and the legalization of same-sex marriage will represent a seismic shift in the culture at large needs only to look to New Mexico to see that nothing less than religious liberty is now under threat—and in a big way.

Jonathan and Elaine Huguenin are the owners of Elane Photography, a firm that operates as a commercial photographic studio. Elaine is the lead photographer and the Huguenins together run the business. In 2006, the couple refused to photograph a same-sex couple’s commitment ceremony and were sued. Last week the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that the Huguenins had violated the human rights of the same-sex couple and that the First Amendment does not allow Elane Photography to refuse to photograph same-sex unions.

The court’s decision was unanimous, upholding a 2012 decision by an appeals court. The court’s decision declared that the Huguenins had acted unlawfully in refusing to photograph the same-sex commitment, even when Elaine Huguenin had argued that to force her to photograph the celebration of a same-sex ceremony was to force her to function as a celebrant and thereby to violate her own conscience. That last part of the Huguenin’s argument has to do with the fact that photography is “expressive” as an art form. There is no way that photographing a same-sex ceremony would not require the professional photographer to arrange and construct photographs in order to artistically celebrate the same-sex union.

The court concluded: “When Elane Photography refused to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony, it violated the NMHRA [New Mexico Human Rights Act] in the same way as if it had refused to photograph a wedding between people of different races.” The court then further concluded: “Even if the services it offers are creative or expressive, Elane Photography must offer its services to customers without regard for the customers’ race, sex, sexual orientation, or other protected classification.”

Jonathan and Elaine Huguenin are Christians who believe that marriage is exclusively the union of a man and a woman. They further believe that they are responsible and faithful only if they avoid any explicit or implied endorsement of same-sex marriage. They insisted that they do not discriminate on the basis of the sexual orientation of the potential client, but only on the basis of the ceremony they are asked to photograph.

The New Mexico Supreme Court dismissed all of the arguments presented on behalf of the Huguenins—arguments that have a very clear precedent in decisions by other courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision in this case by this court is both stark and strident, rejecting the reality that its holding forces a wedding photographer to make an artistic statement against a religious sentiment by supporting certain celebrations that the photographer in fact does not support.

The court’s ruling sets a very dangerous precedent: “If a commercial photography business believes that the [New Mexico Human Rights Act] stifles its creativity, it can remain in business, but it can cease to offer its services to the public at large. Elane Photography’s choice to offer its services to the public is a business decision, not a decision about its freedom of speech.”

A business decision, but not a decision about freedom of speech? The New Mexico Supreme Court’s ruling points to the comprehensive scope of the moral and legal realignment likely required by same-sex marriage—and eagerly demanded by its proponents. The addition of sexual orientation as a denominator of a protected class was sufficient to drag the Huguenins before a court in a state that itself does not legally recognize same-sex marriage.

The most amazing language found in the decision of the New Mexico court is not in the main opinion but in the “specially concurring” opinion of Justice Richard C. Bosson.

Although Justice Bosson concurred with the decision against them, he seemed to understand the plight of the Huguenins:

As devout, practicing Christians, they believe, as a matter of faith, that certain commands of the Bible are not left open to secular interpretation; they are meant to be obeyed. Among these commands, according to the Huguenins, is an injunction against same-sex marriage. On the record before us, no one has questioned the Huguenin’s [sic] devoutness or their sincerity; their religious convictions deserve our respect. In the words of their legal counsel, the Huguenins “believed that creating photographs telling the story of that event [a same-sex wedding] would express a message contrary to their sincerely held beliefs, and that doing so would disobey God.” If honoring same-sex marriage would so conflict with their fundamental religious tenets . . . how then, they ask, can the State of New Mexico compel them to “disobey God” in this case? How indeed?

After asking exactly the right question, Justice Bosson then proceeded to give exactly the wrong answer—and to give it in a way that is both elegiac in tone and tragic in result. Since Elane Photography is a business offering services to the public, it cannot operate on the basis of the Huguenins’ sincerely held Christian principles. According to Bosson, the New Mexico Human Rights Act trumps religious liberty rights when the two come into collision.

Justice Bosson then acknowledged that his reasoning “is little comfort to the Huguenins, who are now compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives. Though the rule of law requires it, the result is sobering. It will no doubt leave a tangible mark on the Huguenins and others of similar views.”

That language is breathtaking. Justice Bosson acknowledges that this decision will compel the Huguenins “to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.” But, he insists, the State of New Mexico will compel them to do just that.

Then comes even more shocking language. Justice Bosson asserts: “At its heart, this case teaches that at some point in our lives all of us must compromise, if only a little, to accommodate the contrasting values of others.” So this is a matter of the justices balancing “contrasting values”?

Compromise, Justice Bosson argues, “is part of the glue that holds us together as a nation, the tolerance that lubricates the moving parts of us as a people.” That compromise, Justice Bosson wrote, is just a fact of American life: “In short, I would say to the Huguenins, with the utmost respect: it is the price of citizenship.”

So the price of citizenship is the denial of religious liberty when the Christian convictions of this couple run into a head-on collision with the “contrasting values” of others. This is a “compromise” that requires the Huguenins to give up their convictions or go out of business. What does the “compromise” require of those who push for the normalization of same-sex relationships and the legalization of same-sex marriage? Nothing.

Some compromise.

The same-sex couple in this case did not contest the fact that there were many other professional photographers available to them. Indeed, they hired another photographer after Elane Photography declined. But they still pressed for the force of law to require all commercial photographers to provide services for same-sex ceremonies. And they got what they demanded.

That is the true nature of the “compromise” that Justice Bosson argues is “the price of citizenship.” His language about the Huguenins and their plight is moving and respectful, almost an elegy. But the decision itself is a denial of religious liberty and the constitutional guarantees of religious expression and free speech.

Justice Bosson asserts that “there is a price, one that we all have to pay somewhere in our civic life.” The New Mexico Supreme Court has now made clear that the price to be paid by many is the forfeiture of their religious liberty.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

Sources: The Supreme Court of the State of New Mexico, Elane Photography, LLC v. Vanessa Willock, August 22, 2013, Docket Number 33,687. http://online.wsj.com/public/resource...

 

Genesis 3:8-15

The Briefing 08-23-13

1) Despite many calling for Mubarak’s execution, he’s been released. What now? 

Egypt’s Ousted Leader Hosni Mubarak Resleased, TIME (Sarah El Deeb)

Popularity of Circumcision Falls in U.S., Especially Out West, NPR (Scott Hensley)

2) Bradley Manning now wants to be Chelsea Manning, not recognizing that is “bigotry”

‘I Am Chelsea’: Read Manning’s Full Statement, Today News (Today News)

Media Willfully Misgender Chelsea Manning, Salon (Katie McDonough)

What Made Chelsea Manning Hide Her True Identity?, The Guardian (Paris Lees)

3) Massive chemical attack in Syria and U.N. “asks permission to investigate”

U.N. Chief Dispatches Top Official to Syria, Seeks Access to Site of Alleged Chemical Attack, The Washington Post (Loveday Morris and Colum Lynch)

France Urges ‘Force’ in Syria if Chemical Attacks are Confirmed, The New York Times (Alissa Rubin and Alan Cowell)

White House Muted on Alleged Syrian Chemical Atrocity, TIME (Jay Newton-Small)

Also Mentioned: 

Keep a Close Watch: When Doctrine and Character Meet in the Mirror, Dr. Mohler

Keep a Close Watch: When Doctrine and Character Meet in the Mirror

The Briefing 08-22-13

1) Baseball player murdered by bored boys “for the fun of it”

‘We Were Bored… So We Decided to Kill Somebody’,The Atlantic (Steve Clemons)

3 Okla. Teens Charged in Death of Australian Baseball Player, Who is Mourned on 2 Continents, Washington Post (Associated Press)

2) Worldview Reveal: More parents allowing teen couples to have “sleepovers” 

Sex in a Teenager’s Room? New York Times (Henry Alford)

As youthful cohabitation rises, parents should accept it and educate their children on sex. USA Today (Amanda Marcotte)