News and Views

By: Rev. C. Anthony Hunt, Senior Pastor
Epworth Chapel United Methodist Church, Baltimore

This year marks the 97th anniversary of the birth of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a drum major for justice during his lifetime, and a model for justice and peacemaking today. Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, amidst the persistent, pernicious, and vitriolic racial turmoil that was epidemic across America at that time, King committed his life and ministry to employing nonviolent methods to address racial and economic injustice.

Today, nearly 58 years after King’s death, America remains deeply divided along racial, economic, and political lines. In many ways, Christian churches in America mirror this division.

Often missing when reflecting on King’s life is the fact that in as much as he was a civil rights leader, King was a Christian servant of God and a person of prayer. As pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama for six years, and then copastor, with his father, at his home church, Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia for eight years until his assassination in 1968, King’s life and work were deeply rooted in prayer.

In his book titled Never to Leave Us Alone: The Prayer Life of Martin Luther King, Jr., Lewis V. Baldwin reminds us of how prayer undergirded all that King did. Every sermon, speech, and protest march was grounded in prayer.

So, we are left to wonder, if he were alive today, what King might write to America about the importance of prayer. Here is some of what King might write:

Beloved Sisters and Brothers –

I greet you in the name of Christ, who came to earth to demonstrate God’s grace toward all humanity. I prayerfully write to you after another year where you have experienced deep division as a nation and world. The division that America experiences today is like the racial, economic, and political division that we encountered at the height of the American Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 60s.

I remind you that, as was the case during the time that I lived, challenging times like those you are experiencing call God’s people to prayer. Regarding prayer, I remind you of two places in scripture where a call to prayer was evident. In 2 Chronicles 7:14, God spoke through Solomon and shared, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” And in Luke 11:1, Christ’s disciples requested that he teach them how to pray. The mystic-prophet Howard Thurman pointed out that prayer is the only thing the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to do.

Regarding the importance and power of prayer, I further remind you of three of my prayers, and invite you to consider what you might glean from these prayers to strengthen you for the days that are ahead of you. First, in 1949, at the age of 20, I prayed -

Eternal God out of whose mind is the great cosmic universe, we bless thee. Help us to seek that which is high, noble and good. Help us in the moment of difficult decision. Help us to work with renewed vigor for a warless world, a better distribution of wealth, and a brotherhood (and sisterhood) that transcends race or color.

These days bid you to consider how you will need God to help navigate the difficulties you face. Amidst the difficulties of the Civil Rights movement and the difficult decisions we had to make, it was important, at every turn and juncture, to call on and pray to God.

Second, in 1956 I prayed -

And God grant that we will continue to move on all (persons) of goodwill, and that all those who are confronted with oppression in this world will move on with this method. Not with the method of violence, not with the method of retaliatory violence, not with any method that seeks retaliation, but the method that seeks to redeem.

I remind you that the turbulence of the 1950s and 60s is like that which you see today in cities like Minneapolis, MN; Memphis, TN; NC; Chicago, IL; Washington D.C., and Los Angeles, CA. The global conflict of my days is like what you see in nations like Venezuela, Nigeria, Ukraine, and Iran. Thus, I encourage you to consider how you can practice nonviolence and peacemaking as you continue to seek justice in the nation and world.

Third, I prayed another prayer in 1956 –

Lord, I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter, I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.

Here, I remind you of God’s power in our times of weakness. You might recall that in 1956, I was at a crossroads with my involvement in the Civil Rights movement in Montgomery, AL. I wrestled with my calling and whether I should go on in helping to lead the movement or pack up my family and go back home to Atlanta.

With dozens of phone calls coming into our house every night, threatening my life and my family, I found myself at the kitchen table late one night, wrestling with God about what to do.

As I prayed, God spoke to me and reminded me that God was “with me always even until the end of the age.” I then realized that God was able to keep me and others amid our weakest moments, and that we were never alone.

America, I close by reminding you, likewise, that today, you are not alone. Jesus’ promises are as true today as they were over two thousand years ago. He said to his disciples, “Lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

My prayer for you is that God will bless and keep you, and that God’s abiding presence be with you in the days ahead. 

Your brother Martin