Martin Luther King, Jr., -- Christ Figure

“And men will recognize that out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout ‘White Power!’ - when nobody will shout ‘Black Power!’ - but everybody will talk about God’s power and human power.” -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


Whether from my high school English teacher or the Cliffs Notes I held surreptitiously close to me, I first learned some variant of the term “Christ-like figure” while studying the novel and its protagonist, Herman Melville’s Billy Budd. While the Christ-like figure of Billy Budd rests mostly on form -- symbols and allusions -- it did start me thinking about a more substantive definition, not unlike Aristotle’s famous four-part formulation of the “tragic hero.”

The four traits I arrived at for the substantive “Christ-like figure” (none of which really describes Billy Budd) are:

1. leader of an oppressed minority group who eventually triumphs over (converts) the oppressive and misguided majority;
2. aims not only to rescue or save the oppressed minority, but also to save the oppressive majority from its own evil;
3. uses nonviolence and teaches love to achieve his aims; and
4. sacrifices his own life to achieve those aims, which further empowers the movement.

I can think of no one who fits this description of "Christ-like" better than Martin Luther King, Jr.

I won’t waste your time with an obvious point-by-point comparison of the two men. You’re way ahead of me by now and have already done the comparison yourself. Rather, the relationship between the second and third traits interests me most.

King, like Jesus (or Gandhi or, for the fictionally disposed, Luke Skywalker), adhered to a philosophy, or "strategy," of nonviolence, not merely to defeat evil, but to convert it to good, in essence to “save” it from itself. (By the way, I love tossing in fictional references given the role iconic fiction plays in improving societal norms – think Gina Davis and Dennis Haysbert. Sorry for the digression.) As one commentator observed of King:

King clung to nonviolence because he profoundly believed that only a movement based on love could keep the oppressed from becoming a mirror image of their oppressors. He wanted to change the hearts of the white people, yes, but in a way that did not in the process harden the hearts of the blacks he was leading toward freedom. Nonviolence, he believed, "will save the Negro from seeking to substitute one tyranny for another." . . . Their real goal, King said, was not to defeat the white man but "to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense of superiority. . . . The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community."

And King himself stated:

Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy, and God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race and in the creation of a society where all men can live together as brothers, where every man will respect the dignity and the worth of human personality.

King sought to save all sides from the harms of racism and understood that the best way to achieve this was through nonviolence. This meant rising above the human instinct to return a punch with a punch, and instead meet a slap by turning the other cheek. And largely, imperfectly, all too slowly, his way has been triumphant; violence would have had disastrous consequences.

His message, of course, had a proven track record: the triumph of Christianity over its oppressors. And yet implementing its creed at critical moments is more the exception than the rule. Why?

One theory is that it is like dieting and exercise and smoking. We know how we should live, but we are too weak to do what is right, so we do what comes instinctively, reach for another french fry or slap back. But to live and live well, we must overcome our instincts. Another theory is that we just don’t know any better, the “shallow understanding” theory.

In any case, Mr. King would not have been pleased by many of the events of 2006. Nearly all the major killing sprees in 2006 were the result of interracial violence:

1. In the Sudan (Darfur), an insurrection by Africans (a minority) against Arabs (the majority) was met by murderous Arab militias along with indiscriminate bombing of villages, leaving 10,000s, perhaps 100,000s of civilians killed, and others permanently maimed or injured. Commentators suggest a sense of Arab superiority and oppression of the African minority led to the rebel uprising and resulting reprisals. Imagine this in the United States -- oppressed minorities rise up with arms and the government responds with wholesale bombing of minority neighborhoods (my own included) while white militias roam the streets killing, raping and plundering.
2. In Lebanon, the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah triggered a massive military invasion of Lebanon. The invasion did not lead to the release of the two soldiers, but did leave more than 1,000 (mostly civilians) dead with many more injured, displaced almost a million Lebanese and 300,000 Israelis, and left thousands of unexploded cluster bombs for children to happen upon for years to come, and the list of harms go on. Hey, that worked out well! Hezbollah stated it kidnapped the two soldiers to secure the release of detainees held in Israeli prisons. Each side feels its claims are superior: the Israelis to live free of terrorism, and the Palestinians to live free. In the end, both sides are losers. Hezbollah shot itself in the foot given the harm that came to the very people it purports to help, and Israel left its enemy rearmed, better adapted to Israeli military tactics, and more vengeful (think embittered orphans, the next generation). More violence to come . . . .
3. In Iraq, the U.S. displaced the ruling Sunnis (a minority) and put the Shiites (the majority) in power (well, they won an “election,” but they are the majority), and now Shiite militias are exacting violent revenge on Sunnis, and the Shiite government won’t act because they need Shiite votes (after all, this is a “democracy”). Every week, 100s of Sunni bodies turn up with signs of torture (ironically, “torture” is now a euphemism for what really happens, that Sunni men and young boys are hogtied and drilled with holes using electric power tools). The execution of Saddam Hussein (Sunni, minority) became a farce when his executioners (Shiite, majority) taunted him with Shiite chants. Although Saddam was not the nicest of guys, the behavior of his executioners was about as dignified (and helpful to the cause of racial relations) as letting the KKK carry out the execution of a black man to chants of "David Duke." By all appearances, we’ve done in Iraq what Dr. King sought to avoid here: substituted one tyranny for another.

Although we should know well the lessons of Jesus or King or Gandhi or history itself, that violence begets more violence and typically fails to achieve anything good, we cannot overcome our instinct to do violence. How many Christians supported the invasion of Iraq because Saddam was a bad man? Can anyone seriously argue that Jesus would have supported the invasion? How many Jews supported the invasion of Lebanon to rescue two Israelis and disarm Hezbollah (neither successful)? Can anyone seriously argue that this was in the best interest of innocent civilians on both sides of the border and will lead to lasting peace? In the last half of the last century, how many on both sides of our own racial divide supported militant power, or sat idly by while others did? The answer is: too many, given none of the above acts of violence actually accomplished anything good. We can be grateful to Dr. King that we did not live through our own Darfur or Lebanon.

Dr. King's mode of thinking included the question: What can we do to protect and improve the lives of all people, not just our favored group? It is also the question Jesus before him lived by, and time has proven both men to be correct and successful.

If I am too optimistic that we have “learned” the lessons of these great men, but are just too weak to act, then I apologize. Perhaps it’s not a matter of overcoming our instincts and actualizing our knowledge, but rather a poor understanding of what really works, what really brings peace. To those so afflicted, the words of Dr, King best express my frustration: “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”