After quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr regarding his call for Blacks to forgive those white supremacists who had caused them so much suffering, I ended the previous article by suggesting that there was so much more to be said about the blindness and ignorance of those who oppress people of color. In the very sermon in which MLK called for such forgiveness, we find that “more.”
MLK said, “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Paul, referring to his opponents, wrote, “I bear them record that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” Uninformed zeal has been responsible for so much suffering and oppression in this world. The church has had a checkered history regarding a commitment to truth and enlightenment. To quote King, “At times the church has talked as though ignorance were a virtue and intelligence a crime. Through its obscurantism, closed mindedness, and obstinacy to new truth, the church has often unconsciously (RZ: and at times, I would say, purposely) encouraged its worshipers to look askance upon intelligence.)
Truth is true wherever we find it. Truth is indivisible. I remember my ethic professor’s claim to be a true conservative: “I believe in conserving the truth wherever I find it.” Any church which denies the truth of history, science, medicine, and morality is doomed to irrelevance and obsolescence. Many young people have abandoned the church because of its “head in the sand” and oppositional attitudes toward truths in many areas.
The church, in addition to calling humankind to compassion and virtue, must not neglect the demand that human beings have a moral calling and “responsibility to be intelligent.” When Jesus was asked what he considered the greatest commandment, he quoted the Shema: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God; the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4-5 included “heart, soul, and strength.” Jesus, however, added the word “mind.” Some scholars suggest that “mind” was included in “heart, soul, and strength” since Jews understood human beings to be psychosomatic wholes. However, the fact that Jesus specifically included the word “mind” indicates that he wished to stress that component of our love of God. To love God is to be open to truth, all truth. If Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” and if only the “truth can set us free,” any neglect of truth becomes, at best, a truncated form of faith and, at worst a nefarious distortion of what is intended to be good news.
I would like to end this series with two extended quotes from Dr. King. Like the words of all true and enduring prophets, MLK’s insights are among the most needed and relevant for our time when truth is continually on the scaffold while lies permeate every part of our society.
We have a mandate both to conquer sin and also to conquer ignorance. Modern man is presently having a rendezvous with chaos, not merely because of human badness but also because of human stupidity. If Western civilization continues to degenerate until it, like twenty-four of its predecessors, falls hopelessly into a bottomless void, the cause will be not only its undeniable sinfulness but also its appalling blindness. And if American democracy gradually disintegrates, it will be due as much to a lack of insight as to a lack of commitment to right.
Unlike physical blindness that is usually inflicted upon individuals as a result of natural forces beyond their control, intellectual and moral blindness is a dilemma that man inflicts upon himself by his tragic misuse of freedom and his failure to use his mind to its fullest capacity. One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right if the head is totally wrong. Only through the bringing together of head and heart—intelligence and goodness—shall man rise to a fulfillment of his true nature.
(MLK goes on to point out that such insight, wisdom, intelligence, and foresight are not dependent on academic degrees. People with Ph. Ds can be blinder and more ignorant than those who are illiterate. Most of the early followers of Jesus were unschooled but managed to “turn the world upside down” for Christ. St. Francis was a spiritual genius but lacked academic credentials. No person is incapable of acquiring and using the intelligence so needed in our world. And no person is exempt from the mandate to seek such intelligence.)
John 3:19 reads, “This is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Our future may well depend on how much we prefer the darkness of blindness and ignorance to the light of truth and love.
(Quotes come from MLK’s book entitled Strength to Love, pp. 39-41. In the forward to Strength to Love, Coretta Scott King noted the vast number of people who testify that this book by her husband has changed their lives. She writes, “I believe it is because this book best explains the central element of Martin Luther King, Jr’s philosophy of nonviolence: his belief in a divine, loving presence that binds all life.” p. ix)
