Will we be extremists for love? Or extremists for hate?
Well. This past couple weeks has certainly been interesting, hasn't it? In the matter of about ten days, we saw an entire stunt of political theatre open and shut around the popular video streaming app, TikTok—one that set up Trump, the creator of the buzz around banning TikTok who even signed an executive order to ban it himself in 2020, to suddenly appear as a hero for "saving" it. We saw millions of people panic about losing their communities, their businesses, their revenue, everything... all for it to have been what appears to be little more than a big stunt to get Trump some brownie points (and a whole lot of money) for bringing TikTok back.
And while that may not sound like a big deal for people who think TikTok isn't a big deal (despite the clear economic impact it would make on, again, millions of people in an already tumultuous economy), the fact is that this is, actually, not normal. It's not something that's supposed to be happening: our government wholly ignoring the will of half the country, and then profiting off of the legislation they've passed (just look at how many folks in Congress bought shares in Meta, the main competitor of TikTok who lobbied millions on issues of "homeland security" and "data security"—the very things TikTok is accused of putting at risk—and also paid for smear campaigns against TikTok in the past). It's not normal for our government to be so obviously bought and paid for, and to be so clearly corrupt.
"But it is normal—!" But it shouldn't be.
"But it's been happening—!" But it shouldn't be.
"But all governments do it—!" But they shouldn't be.
Because it is injust. It is unrighteous. It is false, and very plainly, it is wrong.
"Hey," you might be saying at this point. "Isn't this an article about MLK Jr.? What's all this nonsense about TikTok and government corruption got to do with it?"
Excellent question. Perhaps still, despite the obvious dots we can connect between the banning (and un-banning) of TikTok and the political charlatans profiting off of it all, what I'm about to say may seem ridiculous—and certainly it would be to folks who still think all this mess is about "just a silly dancing app"—but let me remind you that Martin Luther King Jr. was also spending his life fighting against the government being injust, unrighteous, and flat out wrong.
Yes, it was in an entirely different and very noble direction he took his activism. Yes, MLK Jr. was fighting against the blatant disregard our government had for anyone who is not white. Yes, the Civil Rights movement was, and still is, so very important, and the cause for social justice and equity between all people of all races is so incredibly heavy and severe. So much so that it seems anything else pales in comparison. And yes, it seems so silly to connect all of that, all of that history and weight and important historical record to what may seem to be "just an app"—but it isn't, is it?
Because that "silly dancing app" has becoe the cornerstone of Trump trying to save his image and, again, rake in a bunch of cash for himself and his rich friends. And worse, today, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we swear in that very same Donald J. Trump—a known racist, a criminal, and a demagogue gladly stoking fear and poising himself as the savior in the midst of it all, just like some other unsavory leaders have done in the past—into the highest office in the land. If that isn't a slap in the face to everything King stood for, then I don't know what is.
However! Insult to King's legacy or not, that didn't stop something pretty nice from happening at my church this week. I came to church expecting a pretty normal sermon, with the standard Old Testament reading, Epistle reading, and Gospel reading, but I was pleasantly surprised to look inside the sermon read-along pamphlet to see there in the spot the Epistle would've gone in: An Excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail.
The excerpt, which I'll show you later, was powerful. And the sermon that went with it—one about standing up for justice, about the fear and threats that come with doing the right thing, about King's experiences and how he had to lean on faith to keep fighting the good fight—was so very needed. It was a reminder that while the rest of the world might look like it's going off the rails, we still have a duty to ourselves and each other to fight the good fight. Even when all seems lost, we have to trust that God will take us through what the priest described as that "narrow place"—that space where it's hard to move, hard to breathe, and hard to see ahead—and work with Him to come out okay on the other side.
"But Letter from Birmingham Jail isn't Scripture, so why did your priest read that during church?" So might some folks ask. However, that does take us directly to our bigger point today, doesn't it?
The Foolishness of Gatekeeping What Counts as Scripture
So often, the more Bible-focused types insist that the only way we can know anything God says, wants, or thinks can be found nowhere else but in Scripture—and of course, by Scripture, they really just mean the Bible. All the words of the Saints? Don't matter. All the writings of theologians? Unnecessary. All the visions and direct encounters with God on part of the mystics? Probably just demons, but even if it's not, it's not the Bible, so it doesn't matter anyway.
Even though, you know, the entire writings of the Bible was illuminated through people's visions and direct experiences with God.
Still, for a lot of folks, Scripture starts and ends with the Bible: a text whose Canon was painstakingly established via several councils of theologians and Saints and other learned members of the Church. These folks sifted through document after document, debating and discussing whether what they held was truly an authentic letter or account of the Gospel—and then debating and discussing whether it was truly inspired. For instance: Revelation, the very last book of the Bible, was pretty controversial and not something many of these folks wanted to include in the Canon for a long time.
However, what people don't realize a lot of times is that the Canon as people know today isn't the only one. Other versions of the Bible, like the Ethiopian Bible, have works in it that don't appear in other Bibles, like the Book of Enoch. And then the Protestant Bible takes yet more works out of the Canon than, say, the Catholic Bible! And then Hal Taussig's A New New Testament adds even more relevant and historically important works that were taken out of the Canon, yet still heavily influenced the theology of early Christians! What the hell, right? Scripture is Scripture! You can't change that! Can't add or take away!
...Except apparently, you can. Because the debate about what counts as Scripture and what is just more gobbledygook has apparently been raging for far longer than people realize. And while of course, we can't just start pointing to anything that sounds nice and seems to be in the general spirit of Jesus as Scripture (or can we?), and while it is important to thoroughly read through, vet, and agree upon what should actually be parts of the Word of God, the fact of the matter is that when you limit the concept of Scripture to only the writings of the Bible, something terrible happens.
We cut ourselves off from how God continues to speak and reveal Himself in every era.
Like, think about it. The last book of the Bible was written a little before the end of the first century CE, attributed to Apostle John of Patmos. It is now 2025. Are you really going to tell me that God inspired one last letter, then outright disappeared and never spoke to anyone directly ever again for another 1,900 years? That we have no choice but to cobble together His thoughts, feelings, and ideas about the modern world and all its problems based on a book written by a distant people from an empire that no longer exists? That even though the Word became flesh (Jesus), we still need to rely on that very written word rather than hear directly from Jesus Himself?
And even if that were true, then still—what do we do with the dozens of Saints and mystics and theologians over time, like St. Hildegard von Bingen or St. Julian of Norwich, who did have visions and direct experiences with God, just like any of the prophets in the Bible? I've had people ask me: "how do we know their visions came from God?" and all I can do is turn that question back on them: how do we know any of these visions in any of these writings, Canon or not, came from God?
We just have to vet these things, don't we? We have to hold up each and every one, just like the many Church Fathers did at these ecclesiatic councils, to the main teachings of Christ and the very character of God we discover in the established writings and Scriptures, and judge for ourselves whether a revelation in the modern era is truly "inspired" and "of God" or not. To do this, of course, requires us to have sound knowledge of the Canon, and to know God well enough to recognize Him in things that appear outside that famous Holy Bible—but the very point is that we do need to try recognizing God outside the Bible, lest we fall into the very real trap so many people fall into of turning the actual, physical Bible itself into an idol.
I do not idolize the Bible. I do not constrain God to a book, nor do I have any illusion that the words written in that book are the only ones God has ever said, or ever will say. God is eternal, and therefore so is His Word; it cannot be contained in any number of books. There is no Canon big enough hold it all. As a new member of the Episcopal church, too, I found that they understand the same thing that I do: that God is always showing new pieces of Himself in every era, and that we don't yet have all there is to know about Him. In fact, we may never have it all. We likely won't, actually, because God is so infinite. Therefore, to ignore the nearly two millenia of tradition between Revelation and today is just... senseless. It ignores the prophets that still come in every age; it makes obsolete the Word that continues to be illuminated to us.
And to go to church and see Martin Luther King Jr. actually recognized as a prophet of God? To see such homage given to him, and to read this excerpt with the church during service? It really just hammered all of that home. Let's take a look at that excerpt, and maybe you'll see what I'm talking about when I say we have to hold up different writings against the backdrop of the Canon, and what we know about God and His Spirit an His Son and His commandments, to judge for ourselves whether something is inspired.
Recognizing Scripture in the Words of Martin Luther King Jr.
It's fitting that this took the place of an Epistle this week. Epistles are the letter portion of the New Testament—all of Paul's letters and Peter's letters, between them and the many budding churches in the beginning of Christian history. To briefly harp one more time on the Canon itself: it is funny to me that no one thinks it's strange that letters Paul was sending to specific churches, not to Christendom as a whole, should count as Scripture at all. A common thing you'll hear people say is: "are the e-mails a priest sends to his congregations Scripture? Or are they e-mails to specific people about specific issues?"
(Normally, one would say they're just e-mails. But somehow, Paul as a late Apostle got all his letters decided as Scripture. Even though he was actively answering questions of specific communities and addressing their specific problems. Weird. But alright.)
Anyway, when we remember that most of the New Testament is, in fact, just a series of a certain mystic and Apostle's private letters, it makes King's letter fit right in there in substance as a letter to a specific group of people itself. Moreover, it's the nature of the letter that makes it so beautifully Scriptural. Here's the excerpt I'm talking about, just so you can see for yourself what I mean:
So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?
—Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
It's not even a question of whether or not this is written in the spirit of God's continuous messages to humanity, really, and my church drove that home excellently, because directly after that reading was a reading from the Gospel (Luke 6:27-36):
27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
And as I read this piece of King's letter, I found myself genuinely in awe—because so much of it sounded exactly like Paul to me. I've been reading over Paul's letters, and it's given me new appreciation for Paul because of how wonderfully human he is: how he gets irritated and annoyed with charlatans, how he gets hurt at the accusations against him, how he is desperate to prove that he is, in fact, an Apostle worthy of being listened to and that his direct experiences with God are, in fact, authentic. But in it all, we also see how often Paul refers back to Scripture and back to the words of Jesus, too, to make his point—just as we see here in King's words. More, what we see in King's words, like we see in so much of both the Old Testament and the New Testament, is a challenge: will we walk in the spirit of God's commandments and His love? Or will we work against it? Will we be agents of justice and righteousness as God commands, or the enemy of such things?
It is a clear call to anyone who claims to love God to prove it in their actions as much as say it with their tongues. King's words echo Christ's, just as many of Paul's words did—and King's words echo Paul's words, too! To see this letter, and be able to see the holy truths echoed in it, to see its inspiration and its origins, is to see a stream, all dried up from being blocked off by a rock, be suddenly reinvigorated as someone removes that rock and lets the water flow again. Folks who would limit our understanding of God and His revelations to us are the ones who placed that rock, and ones who can see God speaking in everything—from people of all eras and from even the trees and waters and winds and animals—are the ones who have managed to remove that rock from that proverbial stream.
Moreover, later in the sermon, too, as I said, the priest really launched a fantastic follow-up to this excerpt by telling us about those very times that terrified King—like the time he got an angry phone call that told him that he had "three days to get his family and get out" before that caller came and killed them all. My priest then said that in response, King got up, went downstairs, put on a pot of coffee, and prayed.
Prayed for the strength to stay the course.
Prayed for the ability to see this good work of liberating his people through.
Prayed for the courage to not be swayed by these threats and terrors.
It was related to the struggles of Moses, who looked at God and despaired, and of God, who held Moses up with His answer (Exodus 3:11-12):
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you[b] will worship God on this mountain.”
I have a good friend who is an Episcopal priest, and many times, we talk about what is Scripture and what isn't, and how there's a difference between Scripture and the actual written-down religious texts of the Bible. Often, he said to me that if anything outside the Canon could or should be considered Scripture, it was this here letter of MLK Jr., that he wrote from prison. And I can confidently say after seeing it myself, yeah. This is powerful. This is the stuff that chafes against unjust, earthly authority and refuses to bow down to violent pressure to accept what isn't right. This is the stuff that encourages us to choose who we will be, and who we will follow—and makes it clear that those choices are between what we know is what God wants, and what we know is what the corrupt and cruel world wants. It repeats, in modern language, and in a modern context, the same Song God has always been singing to us, the same Lesson He has been trying to teach us, in every era and every lifetime.
It is the writings of a man so deeply in love with God and all He stands for, to the point that he became the very inkwell in which God could write us yet another message about love, justice, peace, and righteousness. It is the stuff that challenges the broken and evil systems of the world that keep good people down and oppress them. It is God-breathed, divinely inspired, holy Scripture. And while the circumstances of this MLK Jr. Day sure are strange and unsettling, it's all the more reason we should look to honor this man, and the many words he spoke, and recognize this truth.
Now, the fight continues, and harder than ever: the fight for social justice and equity across all races, and across genders, sexualities, nationalities, religions, abilities, and more. There is no more room to ask ourselves if we're being extreme when we push for this radical love and acceptance of all people, not at all. In a time where Christian Nationalism is on the rise, where immigrants are targeted and people are stripped of reproductive rights, where white supremacy continues to claw and scratch its way into people's lives at the institutional and personal levels, we need to remember King's questions and ask ourselves the same.
So ask yourselves today: Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?
Which extremists will we be?
Sara Raztresen is a Slovene-American writer, screenwriter, and Christian witch. Her fantasy works draw heavily on the wisdom she gathers from her own personal and spiritual experience, and her spiritual practice borrows much of the whimsy and wonder that modern society has relegated to fairy-and-folktale. Her goal is to help people regain their spiritual footing and discover God through a new (yet old) lens of mysticism.
Commentaires