MLK: Have Faith, Be Fair

Unpublished writings of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., are released today by Stanford professor Clayborne Carson. According to Carson, they reveal King's faith as the basis of his social justice agenda.

Known as a civil rights leader, King noted that people often forgot he was a Baptist preacher. His sermons faulted a religion that allowed Christians to perpetuate slavery and segregation. "Too often has the church talked about a future good 'over yonder,' totally forgetting the present evil over here," he wrote in 1952.

An article profiling these writings appears in today's San Francisco Chronicle. Excerpts:

"Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and not concerned about the city government that damns the soul, the economic conditions that corrupt the soul, the slum conditions, the social evils that cripple the soul, is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion in need of new blood," King preached in 1962 to his congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

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"King's idea was that by acting nonviolently and by resisting peacefully, one is re-enacting Jesus' way on Earth," (Duke Divinity School Professor Richard) Lischer said. "King's followers didn't carry guns. They didn't kill people. They instead took a beating."

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Jim Wallis, an evangelical speaker and author popular with the political left, believes King's faith grew beyond the liberal theology of his youth and deepened as the civil rights struggle intensified.

"His theological liberalism was not an adequate foundation for what he would face later," Wallis said in an interview. "I would argue that the more deeply one moves in the struggle for social justice ... personal faith becomes more important."