Dr. King & Nonviolence

The Brethren Peace Initiative is the name of the peace education, peace emphasis, and peace action ministry in the Brethren Church. Through this blog we hope to help keep our congregation updated on peace topics and conversations in our denomination by sharing the Peace Initiative's latest email updates in blog form. For more information on the Brethren Peace Initiative and how to join their email list, visit their page on the Brethren National Office website.

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TWO  FAMILY  QUOTES  

With Martin Luther King’s birthday just passed, the following .......

“For through violence, you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder.  Through violence you may murder a liar, but  you can’t establish truth.  Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate.  Darkness cannot put out darkness, only light can do that.”  (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) 

“As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses.  An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation.  Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life.  Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder.”  (Coretta Scott King)

A  REPORT  IN  THE  TAMPA  BAY  TIMES

St. Petersburg, Florida – January 3, 2015

In Smithsonian Magazine, Ron Rosenbaum interviews biographer Taylor Branch on “The Radical Paradox of Martin Luther King’s Devotion to nonviolence” and how contemporary society misunderstands the sheer power of his method.  Here’s an excerpt:

During a meeting of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (in Birmingham in 1962), a man  rose up from the audience, leapt onto the stage and smashed King in the face.  Punched him hard.  And then punched him again. 

After the first punch, Branch recounts, King just dropped his hands and stood there, allowed the assailant (who turned out to be a member of the American Nazi Party) to punch him again.  And when King’s associates tried to step in King stopped them:  “Don’t touch him!” King shouted.  “Don’t touch him.  We have to pray for him.”

It was an important revelation, even for some of those who had been close to him for years.  Even for Rosa Parks, the heroine of King’s first struggle, the Montgomery bus boycott.  “Rosa Parks was quite taken by that,” Branch says, “because she always thought that nonviolence was an abstraction to King.  She told him that she had never really seen it in him until that moment.  And a number of other people did too.”

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TRANSFORMATION
Written by BRIAN MOORE
Willaimsport, Maryland

What had been an Old Brethren family peach grove,
    in a few moments’ time became the infamous Peach Orchard strewn
    with the slain bodies of men far from home.
 
What had been the golden stand of grain for this year’s flour and bread,
    in a few moments’ time became The Wheatfield soaked in blood.
 
What had been D. R. Miller’s stand of green corn,
    became in a few hours The Bloody Cornfield,
    the stalks shredded as though harvested.
 
What had been a sunken farm lane over which passed animals and wagons,
    became a trench for the protection of soldiers and then a trap
    from which they could not escape.  Henceforth known as Bloody Lane.
 
The hand-dug well that provided refreshing water for the Wise family in Fox’s Gap
    on South Mountain became a mausoleum for 60 slain Confederate soldiers.
 
The little Dunker church which provided spiritual care on Sunday
    became a field hospital on Thursday,
    the day after it withstood barrages of gunfire.
 
The lovely old stone bridge over placid Antietam Creek
    became the focal point of extensive carnage, anything but placid.
 

Oh, for the day of the opposite reversal,
when swords become plowshares
and spears become pruning hooks --- and Peace will prevail!

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NEXT TIME ...... we’ll continue with Edition 16 in our “Nonviolent Peacemaking in the Old Testament” Series – plus some of the usual bits of peace-related information and (hopefully) inspiration.  In the meantime, be the most effective peacemaker you can be – and I’ll try to do the same!

BRETHREN PEACE INITIATIVE
Phil Lersch, Facilitator
Plus Rich and Carolyn Hagopian
      Mark and Chantal Logan
      Matt Black ..... Ryan Gilmer