They that forsake the law praise the wicked: but such as keep the law contend with them. Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the LORD understand all things.

Dear Praying Friends,

Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday became a national holiday in 1983, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. Were he not assassinated at age 39 in 1968; King would have turned 83 this month. In his classic 1963 "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," King wrote America's clergymen. He defended and advocated for peaceful Christian protest and civil disobedience in response to systematic unrighteousness and injustice. Some excerpts:

Just as the eighth century prophets... carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns; and just as the Apostle Paul left... Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Graeco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom...I must ...respond to the Macedonian call... Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere...
We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights... I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers...and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity [King listed many egregious acts of injustice, hate, murder and abuse to which American blacks were subjected, even still]...
There are just and...unjust laws. "An unjust law is no law at all" [Augustine]... A just law... squares with the moral law...the law of God. An unjust law is...out of harmony with the moral law. [King wrote of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, Christians who faced the lions rather than submit to unjust Roman laws, resistance against Hitler and harboring of Jews, "illegal" acts of the Hungarian freedom fighters. He urged Christians in communist lands to disobey laws against religion]...
I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis...would be some of our strongest allies... all too many... have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of the stained-glass windows... adjusted to the status quo, standing as a tail-light... rather than a headlight leading men to higher levels of justice.
I have looked... at beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward... "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices...?" ...I have wept over the laxity of the church... [once] very powerful... early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed... [T]hey had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment ... They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.
The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound... often the arch supporter of the status quo... the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are...But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. I am meeting young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust (read the entire letter HERE).

Though gone, King is still changing history. His words speak to believers everywhere, calling us to arise and stand, against racism and every evil and injustice in our day. May we take heed and through aggressive prayer, stir our churches to nation changing, world changing action!