When it comes to economic social ethics, concepts related to “work” are intrinsically tied to the history of slavery, as economic activity for the most part implies the associated work of human beings. And furthermore, the trends of time have shown that slavery is inherently connected to ethics of race and/or class. This paper will look primarily at the Letter from Birmingham Jail written by Martin Luther King, Jr. with some commentary from the Roman Catholic Vatican II council, which provided another major Christian contribution to ethical standpoints related to these issues.
In April 1963, King led a series of non-violent protests in Birmingham, Alabama. He was ultimately arrested for “parading” without a permit, and spent the next eleven days in solitary confinement. After the protests, eight white clergymen wrote a letter entitled A Call for Unity against the protests—they agreed that there was civil inequality, but they were uncomfortable in the way that King and his supporters were behaving. The clergymen called for blacks to be “patient,” and not to increase the “tension” they were creating through the protests. They also urged them to fight the inequality through the court systems and the legal means that were available to them. The Letter from Birmingham Jail was the response written by King to the clergymen, whom he calls “white moderates”—those who saw the inequality and were sympathetic to the racial struggle but were unwilling to act in order to change it. At one point they state, “Hatred and violence have no sanction in our religious and political tradition. We also point out that such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems.”[1] King’s response would clarify the situation of systemic disparity in Birmingham, reflect on that nature of the non-violent protests, and ultimately establish the foundation for non-violent direct action.
King’s letter is filled with respect and mutuality towards the clergymen. He suggests, in response to being an “outsider” to Birmingham, that like Paul and earlier prophets, he, too, was “compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond [his] particular home town…[to] constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.”[2] He further notes that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” King also states that negotiation through the courts is not enough in a systemically broken and unlawful society. Instead, direct action is necessary through sit-ins and marches as opposed solely to negotiation efforts—the purpose of these is to force the society to confront racial issues head-on, as inconvenient as it may be for whites who preferred to sit on the sidelines and not think about the issue.
In response to “waiting” and “being patient,” King notes that these families of slaves have waited more than 340 years for their God-given freedoms. King states, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action movement that was ‘well timed,’ according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.” He then discusses the difficulty of blacks to even get a cup of coffee, or the effect that segregation has on his six-year-old daughter wanting to go to a “whites only” amusement park. He also discusses the concept that “an unjust law is no law at all,” comparing segregation to Hitler’s “legal” actions in Germany during World War II—something that his father, Martin Luther King, Sr., experienced and condemned firsthand during his travels to Germany in the 1930s.
It is this very protection of “personhood” that King is after, and it is his theological ethic of creation that is most prominent—slavery and civil inequality are thefts of people’s “persons.” King states that outrage towards him and the black community is misdirected blame, as “society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.” King is also disappointed, at first, at being labeled an “extremist” through his non-violent protests. However, he then embraces the term as he compares his acts with those of American heroes like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, as well as those of Jesus Christ himself, noting Christ’s “extreme” and “radical” love in the face of his society.
King then transitions into a description of the church as the body of Christ, and his disappointment over their laxity and inaction. Most have stood on the sidelines. King then states that it is the black demonstrators who should be commended for their courage, comparing them to the great martyrs of the early church who suffered at great lengths and risked their own lives for the gospel.
Like King, the encyclicals of Vatican II (e.g. Gaudium et Spes) introduce an importance to “personhood,” making the human person the “source, the center, and the purpose of economic life,” and noting that “discrimination as regards wages and working conditions must be carefully avoided. All the people, moreover, above all the public authorities, must treat them not as mere tools of production but as persons.”[3] It also connects slavery to economic conditions, referencing that any working environment that is organized and directed to be a detriment to men and women is wrong, inhuman, and a type of slavery in itself. While the Roman Catholic Church had already condemned slavery (in extreme forms, at least) in early encyclicals such as In Plurimis and Catholicae Ecclesiae, it is this connection to both economic life and personhood that make Gaudium et Spes different. Perhaps the 1960s saw a new ethic towards creation, economic responsibility, and social concerns that affected both the new Catholic teachings as well as Martin Luther King, Jr. Gaudium et Spes also specifically challenges Christians to act in love in civil situations that call for it.
Certainly influenced by many dynamics in the twentieth century, King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail shows both Christlike non-violence as well as Christlike radical action. The question of unjust laws, a Christian’s duty to the state, and how these methods address many modern forms of injustice remain under debate, but ultimately King’s concerned, bold, yet friendly and conciliar approach to those who gave him criticism is something to be embodied by all who put on the garments of Christ.
Questions:
- Do you agree or disagree with the eight clergymen’s critique of King not using societal legal methods for changes in injustice?
- Are there any negative effects related to the increased focus on individual “personhood” when it comes to ethics and faith?
- How do we respond to areas of perceived “injustice” in the world that seem to contradict our own views on Christian ethics?
[1] C. C. J. Carpenter, et al., “A Call to Unity: Alabama Clergymen’s Letter to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” The Birmingham News, April 12, 1963.
[2] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” The Birmingham News, April 16, 1963.
[3] Pope Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes: Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Vatican City, December 7, 1965).
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