How fitting.
"To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men--for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?"
Dr. King's ministry here is the "ministry of of Jesus Christ" and the war is the Vietnam war. He continues--
"...as I try to explain for you for myself the the road that leads from Montgomery to this place, I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. Because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, the victims of our nation, for those it calls 'enemy', for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers."
-excerpts from "Beyond Vietnam" addressed to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church April 4, 1967
Dr. King then proceeds to give voice to the voiceless. He gives a voice to those who don't have a voice, in the spirit of Proverbs 31:8-9:
"Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy."
He denounces the many lies told the U.S. government in support of their war and against the Vietcong. Things that I actually had not known until I had read them from himself, even though the speech is forty three years old. . How strange it is that Vietnam seems to have been glossed over and forgotten.
How strange that we haven't...we have not apologized for that great and horrible, atrocious mistake we committed in Vietnam.
How strange is it that the truth and passion of Dr. King finds and expounds upon comes from scripture, the same scripture we use today to affirm our political structure, materialism and indulgent indifference.
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