What Dr. King Can Still Teach Us About Following Jesus in Divided Times
Every January, we pause to remember the legacy of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And every year, I'm struck by how quickly we can reduce his witness to a few inspirational quotes on social media—stripped of the deep, costly faith that animated his entire life.
Before he was a civil rights leader, Dr. King was a Baptist preacher. Before he led marches, he led prayer meetings. Before he gave speeches, he gave sermons. And the more I sit with his writings and his witness, the more I'm convinced that what he offers is a spiritual response to the times we are in.
In a nation that feels more fractured than ever, Dr. King still has something essential to teach us about following Jesus. Not as a way around our divisions, but straight through them.
It's easy to forget that King's doctorate was in systematic theology. His dissertation explored the concept of God's love. He wasn't an activist who happened to be religious—he was a Christian minister whose faith demanded action.
This matters because it reframes everything.
When King spoke about justice, he wasn't borrowing Christian language for political purposes. He was doing theology. He believed, with his whole being, that following Jesus couldn't mean leaving things as they were. And it couldn't mean trying to fix injustice with more injustice. He had to put his hand in the hand of Jesus who calls him, and us, out into the world.
His famous line—"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice"—wasn't optimism. It was faith. Faith that the God revealed in Jesus Christ is at work in history, bending creation toward healing, even when we can't see it. King's vision of the "Beloved Community" gets tossed around a lot these days. But it was never just a nice idea about everyone getting along. It was a deeply theological vision rooted in the New Testament church.
In Acts, Luke describes the early Christians as people who "held all things in common" and "broke bread together with glad and generous hearts." They didn't erase their differences—Jews and Gentiles, enslaved and free, rich and poor all gathered at the same table. But their identity in Christ became more fundamental than any of those categories. That's what King was after. Not a world without difference, but a community where our allegiance to Jesus and his kingdom supersedes every other loyalty. Including—especially—our political ones.
This is where King's witness gets uncomfortable for all of us.
He wasn't interested in Christians aligning with one party or another. He was interested in Christians aligning with the Gospel. And sometimes that meant challenging the right. Sometimes it meant challenging the left. Always it meant challenging the church to be more than a religious version of whatever ideology was popular.
We often think of nonviolence as a strategy—a tactic King used because it worked. And it did work. But for King, nonviolence was first and foremost a spiritual discipline. It grew out of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount: "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." It was shaped by Jesus' own example on the cross, where he refused to meet violence with violence and instead offered forgiveness.
King understood something the Desert Fathers and Mothers knew centuries earlier: the battle isn't primarily "out there" against our opponents. The battle is "in here," against the hatred, fear, and contempt that take root in our own hearts.
One of his core principles was this: nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people. That distinction is everything. It allows us to stand firmly against what is wrong while still honoring the image of God in the person across from us.
In a time when we're tempted to demonize those who vote differently, worship differently, or see the world differently, this is a word we desperately need. King put it plainly: "Hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe." If we want to break the cycle, someone has to absorb the blow without passing it on. Someone has to choose mercy over revenge, forgiveness over resentment. This isn't weakness. It's the way of Jesus. And it requires everything we have.
King also taught that neutrality isn't an option. Not for Christians.
In his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail," he reserved some of his sharpest words for white moderate Christians who agreed with his goals but disagreed with his timing and methods. They wanted order before justice. They wanted comfort before confrontation.
King understood something the prophets knew: sometimes faithfulness looks like disruption. Sometimes following Jesus means speaking when silence would be easier. Sometimes it means stepping into tension rather than around it.
This doesn't mean every Christian is called to march in the streets. But it does mean we can't retreat into a privatized faith that has nothing to say about suffering, injustice, or the common good. The Gospel isn't a ticket to personal peace while the world burns. It's an invitation to join God's work of mending what's broken—starting with ourselves.
Here's what strikes me most about King's life: he didn't just talk about love. He practiced it. Daily. In community. He prayed. He studied Scripture. He gathered with others who were committed to the same costly path. He sat in long meetings where people disagreed. He showed up when he was exhausted. He kept going when he was afraid. This is formation. Not a weekend retreat or a moment of inspiration, but the slow, unglamorous work of becoming the kind of person who can love enemies and bless persecutors.
The Desert Fathers called this askesis—spiritual training. Like athletes who discipline their bodies, Christians discipline their hearts. We practice generosity until it becomes natural. We practice patience until it reshapes our instincts. We practice forgiveness until it costs us less to offer it. King's witness reminds us that there are no shortcuts. The Beloved Community isn't built by agreement alone. It's built by people who have done the inner work, who have faced their own shadows, who have learned to recognize Christ in the face of the stranger and the opponent alike.
So what does all of this mean for us—here, in this moment, in this place?
I think it means we need each other. Not to reinforce what we already believe, but to be formed together into people who can follow Jesus even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard. It means committing to practices that shape us: prayer, study, honest conversation, shared meals, showing up for people who are different from us. It means resisting the temptation to let our politics define our faith, and instead letting our faith critique and reshape our politics. It means being honest about the hatred, fear, and contempt in our own hearts—and bringing those things to Jesus for healing.
And it means trusting that the arc really does bend toward justice, even when we can't see it, because the One who raised Jesus from the dead is still at work in the world.
If any of this resonates with you—if you're hungry for a faith that's deeper than slogans and more demanding than comfort—I want you to know you're welcome here. At St. Francis in-the-Field, we're trying to be a community where this kind of formation can happen. Not perfectly. Not without stumbling. But together.
We have Bible Study groups for people who want to dig into Scripture. We have Sacred Ground study groups for those ready to do the hard work of listening and learning across difference. We have Real Mom Talk and Supper Club for folks who need a place to belong. And we have so much more. You don't have to have it all figured out. You just have to be willing to walk the path with others.
If you're looking for a community where following Jesus matters more than winning arguments, where formation matters more than performance, where we try—imperfectly but earnestly—to love God and neighbor, we'd be honored to walk alongside you.