Letter from a Birmingham Jail

"Letter from a Birmingham Jail" was an open letter written by Martin Luther King, Jr. to his fellow clergymen while he was in a Birmingham jail cell. King had been imprisoned there because of his nonviolence protests against segregation in Alabama. In his letter, King responds to criticism he has received because of his law-breaking. He makes very clear his belief that laws should only be upheld if they are just in accordance with the law of God. King asserts that laws demanding segregation can never be just because they are used by a majority to harm and oppress a minority that has no power to change the laws. King also expresses deep disappointment in the White moderate: any White citizen who claims to support the Blacks ideologically, but fails to do anything to actually help them. He states that the greatest danger to justice is not evil men doing evil things, but rather good men doing nothing. This disappointment is also extended to churches in the south, particularly "do nothing" White clergymen. King expected to be supported in his pacifistic fight for freedom by his Christian brothers, regardless of race, but he was sorely disappointed. King even goes on to admonish organized Christian religion for its promotion of the status quo, regardless of whether or not present conditions are just or unjust. He expresses this disapproving sentiment in my favorite quote from the work: "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." The "those days" he is referring to is the time when the Christian church was much stronger and had a great deal more influence on the actions and principles of the communities in and around it. Unfortunately, according to Dr. King, the Church has lost this noble position of a moral beacon, and instead sunk to go with the flow of the world.

--Wald der Gebildet