An interesting reflexion by Martin Luther King on communism and Christianity

@ElentirENG ES 1·20·2024 · 2:10 0

Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the leading intellectuals of the 20th century, especially in the United States, for his fight for the civil rights of black people.

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Today, Martin Luther King remains a figure respected by many people of different ideologies. What some may not know is that he was a firm anti-communist, as he stated in a speech given on August 9, 1953. You can read a part of that speech here:

"I hope that all of you will listen to me very attentively this afternoon as I humbly attempt to speak to you about one of the most important issues of our day. There are at least two reasons why I as a Christian Minister feel obligated to talk to you about Communism.

The first has to do wth the wide spread influence of Communism. It is believed in by more than 200,000,000 people covering one fifth of the earth's surface. Multitudes have embraced it as the most coherent philosophy and the greatest single emotional drive they know.

A second reason why the Christina minister should speak about it is that Communism is the only serious rival to Christianity. Other historic world religons such as Judaism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Hinduism, may be listed as possible alternatives to Christianity, but for Christianity's greatest rival we must look elsewhere. Certainly no one in touch with the realities of the contemporary situation can deny that in the crisis confronting civilization Christianity's most formidable competitor and only serious rival is communism.

Let us begin by stating that communism and Christianity are at the bottom incompatible. One cannot be a true Christian and a true Communist simultaneously. How then is Communism irreconcilable with Christianity.

In the first place it leaves out God and Christ. It is avowedly secularistic and materialistic. It regards religion phychologically as mere wishfull thinking, intellectually as the product of fear and ignorance, and historically as serving the ends of exploiters. Because of public opinion authorities have had to modify some of their anti-religous doctrines, but the official policy of the communist party is still atheistic.

In the second place the methods of communism are diametrically opposed to Christianity. Since for the Communist there is no Divine government, no absolute moral order, there are no fixed, immutalbe principles. Force, violence, murder, and lying are all justifiable means to the millennial end. Said Lenin, "we must be ready to employ tricking, deceit, and lawbreaking, withholding and concealing truth." That the followers of Lenin have been willing to act upon his instructions is a matter of history.

In the third place, the end of communism is the state. I shall qualify this by saying that the state in Communist theory is a tempory reality which is to be eliminated when the classless society emergies. But it is true that the state is the end while it lasts. Man becomes only a means to that end. And if any man's so called rights or liberties stand in the way of that end, they are simply swept aside. His liberties of press or pulpit expression, his freedom to vote, his freedom to listen to what news he likes or to choose his books and even his friendships are all restricted. Man has to be a servant, dutiful and submissive, of the State, and the state is omnipotent and supreme.

Now there can be no doubt that all of this is the negation not only of the Christian belief in God and the moral order that he has established, but also of the Christian estimate of man. I am cognizant of the fact that the record of the Christian Church has been smeared in the past by infamous persecutions and the irremovable strain of the inquisition, but even so Christianity at its best has never let go the ideal that man is an end because he is a child of God, and that the end of all life is the glory of God. The Christian ethic would affirm that destructive means can never justify constructive ends, because in the final analysis the end is pre-existant in the mean.

So let us not fool ourselves these two systems of thought are too contradictory to be reconciled. They represent diametrically opposed ways of looking at the world. and transforming the world. We must try to understand Communism, but never can we accept it and be true Christians."

Source: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Stanford University.