zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — early seeds of MLK’s social orientation in a paper he wrote on eschatology ]
.

.
As on many other days, I was thinking about eschatology yesterday. Also yesterday, I was thinking a bit about Martin Luther King. So it occurred to me to see what I could find out about King’s eschatology. It’s not something I’ve really looked into before, I don’t have access to the intriguing-looking dissertation whose cover is illustrated above — and what I was able to discover via the web somewhat surprised me…

*

The main documentary evidence available to me was King’s own very early essay, The Christian Pertinence of Eschatological Hope. In this essay, King makes it clear that he does not question the modern scientific worldview with respect to scientific fact, and thus finds that Christian beliefs from two millennia ago must be reinterpreted in light of recent discoveries and understandings. Specifically, this leads him to reconsider eschatology:

Among the beliefs which many modern Christians find difficult to accept are those dealing with eschatological hopes, particularly the second coming of Christ, the day of judgment, and the resurrection of the body.

He regrets that the clash between scientific and scriptural narratives regarding (eg) heaven and hell has had the effect of distancing many of his contemporaries from religion:

In an attempt to solve this difficult problem many modern Christians have jettisoned these beliefs altogether, failing to see that there is a profundity of spiritual meaning in these beliefs which goes beyond the shackles of literalism.

and formulates his view of scriptural inspiration which could accommodate both scientific and scriptural modes of knowledge:

Inspiration did not magically remove the limitations of the writers. It heightened their power, but did not remove their distortions. Therefore it is our job as Christians to seek the spiritual pertinence of these beliefs, which taken literally are quite absurd.

This is not exactly a novel position, but King expresses it pretty forcefully, dealing in turn with the four great doctrines of the end times — in each case viewing the present moment as our aperture on eternity, and eventually doing so in a way which confers immediacy on the need for social justice.

He does this under four heads:

1. The Second Coming of Christ

It is obvious that most twentieth century Christians must frankly and flatly reject any view of a physical return of Christ. To hold such a view would mean denying a Copernican universe, for there can be no physical return unless there is a physical place from which to return.

At this point, he quotes George Hedley, The Symbol of the Faith:

The second coming of the Christ is not an event in space-time, but an experience which transcends all physical categories. It belongs not to the sky, but to the human heart; not to the future, but to whatever present we are willing to assign to it.

King continues, here making our choices at each moment the criteria for Christ’s presence in our lives:

Actually we are celebrating the Second Advent every time we open our hearts to Jesus, every time we turn our backs to the low road and accept the high road, every time we say no to self that we may say yes to Jesus Christ, every time a man or women turns from ugliness to beauty and is able to forgive even their enemies. Jesus stands at the door of our hearts if we are willing to admit him. He is far away if with ugliness and evil we crowd him out. The final doctrine of the second coming is that whenever we turn our lives to the highest and best there for us is the Christ. This is what the early Christians were trying to say.

2. The Day of Judgment

If our choices at each moment determine whether we “admit” Christ to our hearts or “crowd him out”, King suggests, it follows that each moment is “the judgment”.

When we set aside the spectacular paraphernalia of the judgment scene and the literal throne we come to the real meaning of the doctrine. The highest court of justice is in the heart of man after the light of Christ has illumined his motive and all his inner life. … In this sense Christ has already come to judge the world. Already and here he is judging every one of us. This is the ultimate meaning of the Christian doctrine. Dare we judge ourselves by the Christ?

3. Immortality

King’s view on immortality here is quite surprising: he argues that “God is a conserver of values” — that’s an idea I’d like to investigate — and then makes what is essentially an apophatic case for our inability to envision what immortal life entails:

For us immortality will mean a spiritual existence. All of the details of what this existence will be like are somewhat beyond our intelligence. But with faith in God we may rest assure that death will not be a period that will end this great sentence of life, but it will be a comma punctuating it to more loftier significance.

Compare, for example, St Cyril of Jerusalem: “For we explain not what God is but candidly confess that we have not exact knowledge concerning Him. For in what concerns God to confess our ignorance is the best knowledge”

4. The Kingdom of God

If the meaning of “spiritual existence” beyond death is ineffable and necessarily unclear to us, King can turn at last to locate “the Kingdom” in the here and now, perceived in terms of social imperative:

The eschatological thinking of the Christian religion is not without its social emphasis. Throughout nineteen hundred years Christian thinking has centered on the kingdom of God. Some have seen this kingdom in political terms in which there would be established a theocratic kingdom on earth which would triumph over all rival and satanically inspired regimes. Others have seen the kingdom of God coming to realization by means of the increasing influence of the church ultimately destined to dominate the world. Others have seen it as the day when Jesus shall return on the clouds bringing about a cataclysmic end of history and establishing God’s eternal purpose. … Whether it come soon or late, by sudden crisis of through slow development, the kingdom of God will be a society in which all men and women will be controlled by the eternal love of God. When we see social relationships controlled everywhere by the principles which Jesus illustrated in his life–trust, love, mercy, and altruism–then we shall know that the kingdom of God is here. To say what this society will be like in exact detail is quite hard for us to picture, for it runs so counter to the practices of our present social life. But we can rest assure that it will be a society governed by the law of love.

And there we have the kernel of the quest for social justice, in the name of Christ and of the God who is love, that was to be King’s mission in life.

As Robert James “Be” Scofield put it in a recent article in Tikkun:

The purpose of the church for King is not to create dogma, theology, or creeds but rather “to produce living witnesses and testimonies to the power of God in human experience,” and to commit to action.

*

I’d love to know more about how King’s eschatology matured and developed across the years, and would appreciate any pointers others may have — particularly and personally because my own mentor, Father Trevor Huddleston [link goes to video], was similarly faced with the issue of a Christian response to racism [link to key quote in a previous ZP post] during his time in S. Africa.

It is to be regretted that Scott Savaiano‘s interesting-looking dissertation, King among the Eschatologists: The political eschatologies of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, security state violence and the Civil Rights movement — cover illustrated at the top of this post — should be priced clear out of the reach of interested students of civil rights, non-violence and matters of security and the state.

Not to mention students of eschatology : )

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Apocalyptic, Charles Cameron, christianity, history, MLK, scriptures, society, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.