[Message from our Executive Director, Daniel Wasserman-Soler]
Dear friends,
Today, our country remembers Martin Luther King, Jr. On April 19, 1963, King wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” addressed to fellow clergymen who criticized his activities as “unwise and untimely.” Toward the end of the letter, King offered a reflection about the place of the Church within society:
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.”
King challenged his fellow clergymen — and he challenges us today — to rejoice “at being deemed worthy to suffer” for Christian beliefs. This kind of Church would not simply follow “popular opinion,” but rather would transform “the mores of society.” I pray that Christians today may “press on” and be a thermostat that transforms our society.
You can read more of King’s letter here. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Yours in Christ,
Daniel Wasserman-Soler
Executive Director
Lumen Christi Institute