Martin Luther King the Christian

No human can fully fathom the presence of God in another. In the case of Martin Luther King, all we can do is gather the information we have at hand and paint a picture of how his faith might have influenced his time on Earth.

It's no secret that MLK was a pastor and the son of a pastor. Jesus was not a stranger in the the household of King's childhood, nor in his adulthood. Living generations have relatively few first hand, concrete accounts of Dr. King's faith. We can assume he believed in personal salvation. We can assume he read the Bible front to back, and we can assume he prayed before every meal. But those tenets of mainstream Christianity didn't propel MLK's work. Instead, it was the life of Jesus that sparked MLK's passion. Mainstream Christianity teaches love because Jesus lived it, and MLK sought to do the same.


Love for MLK, like the rest of us, took many forms in his life. He loved his wife. He loved his children. He loved justice, willing to put his needs aside in order to assert it whenever possible. In MLK's writings, "love" and "justice" pop up frequently, as in an excerpt from his 1963 "Letter from Birmingham Jail":

"But as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love? ...  So the question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?"

Martin Luther King lived a very public life in adulthood as he eventually became known around the world. He preached renowned sermons that still echo today. Despite what we could call his famous faith, his faith was actually rooted very deeply and privately. A religious studies professor at Vanderbilt University told the Houston Chronicle that prayer was essential to MLK's fight for racial justice amid threats and challanges.

"He writes that 'prayer was King's secret weapon in the civil rights movement,' a key to its success as people found the strength to continue despite arrests and killings."

It seems King grew his faith inwardly until his body could no longer hold its potential, and he had to express to the world what he felt and what God sent him to do. He expressed it at segregated lunch counters, at the Lincoln Memorial, on the streets of Montgomery, and in the pulpit.

So, where has your faith been, and where has mine been? Mine's been to eastern Europe and a couple U.S. states. Maybe your faith is still humming inside you, growing and budding silently. Martin Luther King's faith left its mark wherever he went. Maybe you don't consider yourself a so-called person of faith--do you make a place more englightened by being there, or a person more englightened by having a conversation with them? MLK didn't bust out the philosophical big guns to inspire. He used small words with big implications. Like "love."

MLK in deep thought while in the Birmingham jail.

Sources: Martin Luther King, "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and Adelle M. Banks, "Behind a mighty civil rights icon, a public and private prayer life"

Martin Luther King the father

Typical images of the American dad: learning how to play catch, cringing at the first diaper change, the awkward Christmas sweater. But what if your dad was the leader of a national movement and a celebrity of history? Your family photos might look a bit different.

Research about Martin Luther King yields little information about his marriage and family, other than that he and Coretta married quickly and eventually had four children. When their father fell to a sniper in 1968 the children were between the ages of 5 and 13, all old enough to have memories of their dad and to feel the sudden and wrenching void. 

Black and white photos of the King family, some more on the cute side and some more poignant, dot the Internet and history books among the myriad photos of protests and speeches. Despite the King children being underrepresented in history, however, any even half-decent father would tell you that his family was the foundation of his life. Coretta was there before the marches and speeches, and their children were a result of one of the purposes she and Martin felt for their life together.

In 1957 when their oldest child Yolanda was just two years old and Martin Luther King III was just two months old, Dr. King traveled more than 700,000 miles and spoke 208 times. The following year King published his first book, "Stride Toward Freedom," all while pastoring in Atlanta and then at his father's church in Birmingham. He was a busy man to say the least, not unlike many dads today. 

We don't see many photos of MLK in his home, but I doubt he remained in a suit, preaching to his children. He changed into jeans, asked his children about their day at school, discussed the checking account with Coretta, and changed the channel when news of the latest civil rights violence broke. He was a dad and a man like any other, just with a purpose different from most.

The children grew up well loved by all accounts, but amid threats to the family (some actualized), civic turmoil immediately around them, and with a dad whose heart was in two places-- on the streets of America fighting for equality, and on the sofa of the King family home reading bed time stories and giving hugs. No parent wants to have to choose between anything and their family, but MLK understood the implications of his work and trusted that the faith that brought him to "the mountain top" would also bring his family through any pain they felt in his absence, before or after death.

The lesson of MLK's fatherhood isn't that every man can be a civil rights hero and successfully raise four children. The lesson isn't in the life he lived but in the sacrifices he (and Coretta, equally as much) made for the King family. He gave up memories with his children, a steady pay check, and seeing is wife every day because he knew it was the right time to fight for his dreams and the dreams he held for the rest of America. Should you push your family aside to pursue the goals you've made for yourself? No, but fulfilling your purpose is why you're here, and you shouldn't let anything get in your way.

Information source: The Seattle Times, "Timeline: Martin Luther King, Jr."