No Midnight Long Remains
‘No Midnight Long Remains’: The Evangelical King and the End of Nonviolence
Martin Luther King often described the situation under segregation and periods of the civil rights struggle as “darker than a thousand midnights.” King’s analogical eloquence signals his sense of urgency for the task before him, one requiring both careful strategy as well as moral conviction. In this paper, I will argue that King’s conception of nonviolence embodied both of these dimensions, that is, a consequentialist/pragmatic logic and a deontological urgency, with their confluence pointing toward a deeper, more radical, even evangelical end—reconciliation and the creation of the beloved community.
When analyzing King’s conception of nonviolence, one must attend to both its form and nature. By form, I distinguish his conception of nonviolence as nonviolent resistance rather than nonresistance, a position often espoused by other Christian pacifists. For King, this distinction in form is manifest in taking direct action against injustice while not submitting to any unjust law: “an act of massive noncooperation” (“Stride Toward Freedom,” 429). By the nature of nonviolence, I point to the orientations of nonviolence mentioned above: expedient political strategy as well as Christian moral imperative. As King positions himself fully on the side of nonviolent resistance in terms of form, he seems to interweave both consequentialist and deontological notions of the nature of nonviolent resistance throughout his speeches and books. This correspondence is echoed in his condemnations of violence: “Violence is not only morally repugnant, it is pragmatically barren” (“Showdown for Nonviolence,” 65). It is this dual vision of the nature of nonviolence that is addressed in this paper.
These two perspectives of nonviolent resistance as tactic or moral imperative are often posited as oppositional, and often King is described as prescribing nonviolence solely for expedient political reasons. I contend that in King’s thought they designate two congruent dimensions of King’s vision of the end of nonviolent resistance – that is, the building of reconciliation and community. I will take each dimension in turn, focusing primarily on two texts: his short essay “Nonviolence and Racial Justice” and his longer work, “Stride Toward Freedom,” complementing these with notations from other articles and speeches. After exploring these two perspectives, I will demonstrate the ways in which their confluence points to King’s deeper vision of the beloved, or gospel, community—noting the evangelical impulses that animate his vision and practices. I conclude by attending to three underlying theological suppositions that function to unify the two ‘natures’ into this deeper vision. In reading King’s nonviolent theology evangelically I follow Peter Goodwin Hetzel who, in arguing against those who frame King merely as a Niebuhrian realist or mainline liberal, or a progeny of the black church, contends that King’s theological vision was shaped by all three dimensions: the black church, liberal theology, and evangelical theology. He claims, “King cannot be fully understood without attention to the evangelical features of his theology, practices, and identity.” In agreement with Hetzel, I attend in this paper to the evangelical dimensions of an area of King’s theology and practice largely neglected by Hetzel: King’s nonviolence.
Nonviolence as Tactic
In one of his early articles, “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” Martin Luther King outlines five points concerning nonviolence as a “method” to bring about better racial conditions:
1. It does resist.
2. It does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship.
3. It is directed against the forces of evil rather than against the persons caught in those forces.
4. It avoids external violence and internal violence of the spirit, because it is based on love.
5. It is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice (paraphrased, 7-9).
While his first point concerns the unquestionable distinction in form, the second evidences King’s conception of the nature of nonviolent resistance as an effective strategy for socio-political change—to win over the opponent. I will label this dimension nonviolence-as-tactic. This method of resistance, King suggests, is not an end in itself but rather “means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent” (“Nonviolence,” 8). On one level, nonviolent direct action is a pragmatic tactic to elicit certain changes in the political system in the struggle for freedom and equality for the oppressed. King’s nonviolent tactics, appropriated from Gandhi’s success in India, were employed to create “pressure,” or crisis, situations that would force oppressors to reckon with their own actions and attitudes, as well as demonstrate their sinister character to any sympathetic “onlookers,” especially those with political power. These crisis situations incorporated economic and social elements, and directed them, nonviolently, toward a psychological objective—fostering a sense of shame or outrage to engender socio-political change. For instance, the nonviolent tactics employed during such activities as the Montgomery bus boycott and Selma marches revealed those in opposition to be the “instigators and practitioners of violence” King would suggest, in an intentional effort to garner attraction and support to the cause of freedom (“Stride,” 484).
During his reflections upon receipt of the Nobel Prize, King confirmed that nonviolent action was “a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation” (“Nobel Prize,” 225). Often calling nonviolent resistance a “potent weapon,” King asserted that its purpose was persuasion of the oppressors and powerful to “see the error of their approach and come to respect us” (“Stride,” 447, 485; STL, 150; “Our Struggle,” 81). This ironic invocation of violent imagery reinforces the pragmatic nature of nonviolence for King; he was no “doctrinaire pacifist,” he would assert (STL, 152). His “realistic pacifism” was an expedient political tool that accomplished much in the first 10 years of the movement. King summarized the tactical methodology of the movement: “The nonviolent strategy has been to dramatize the evils of our society in such a way that pressure is brought to bear against those evils by the forces of good will in the community and change is produced” (“Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom,” 58), alluding to the student sit-ins as examples of the strategy’s “dramatic” expediency. Despite the abundance of methodological rhetoric, however, this perspective does not exhaust King’s conception of nonviolence.
Nonviolence as Moral Imperative
The third and fourth points regarding nonviolence in “Nonviolence and Racial Justice” suggest that King viewed nonviolent resistance as more than strategy. His foundation of nonviolence on a “love ethic”—defining this agapic love as disinterested, “neighbor-regarding concern for others”— entails a deeper moral conviction undergirding the tactical notions presented in the previous section. King understood that while tactical operations of nonviolence may break through the legal barriers of Jim Crow, something must “touch the hearts and souls of men so that they will come together spiritually because it is natural and right” (STL, 37-38). Throughout speeches and sermons, he continually describes nonviolence as a refusal to hate. In claims that seem to demarcate the aims of the movement from its motivation, King avers that nonviolence “in the truest sense” is not a strategy that one uses only due to its expediency; it is “a way of life” for people who believe in “the sheer morality of its claim” (“Stride,” 450; “An Experiment in Love,” 17). This second nature of nonviolence for King is nonviolence-as-moral-imperative, even Christian moral imperative. This underlying moral imperative is not an abstract notion of the good or utilitarian calculation of right action; it is a confessional proposition of nonviolence as a “simple expression of Christianity in action” (“Stride,” 450).
As many have argued, the movement, as far as King was concerned, was a Christian movement supported by the churches and operating out of a Christian moral imperative to love both neighbor and enemy. In this sense, nonviolence was a sign of faith. While acknowledging its pragmatic purposes, King’s perpetual call to refuse to hate oppressors revealed the basic rationale: Jesus’ command to “‘Love your enemies . . . that ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven.’ We are called to this difficult task in order to realize a unique relationship with God.” He continues, “We must love our enemies, because only by loving them can we know God and experience the beauty of his holiness” (STL, 55). This confessional language frames nonviolence in Christological terms, that is, faithfulness to the commands of Christ. This eucharistic language situates nonviolence as a means of communion with God. King describes it as a Christian ascetic practice, a beatific experience, even a form of sanctification.
Far removed are we now from mere tactical calculations. King seemed to shift between pragmatic rhetoric of consequentialism and deontological notions of obedience to the call of Christ, imparting a potent Christian element onto the work of the movement. While there is no doubt King remained firm in his belief in the success of nonviolence, these texts express the sustaining quality of this moral imperative, even in moments of fluctuating practicality. King seems to enter one of those moments in his “Remaining Awake” speech: “There comes a time when one must take the position that [nonviolence] is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come with a massive act of conscience and say in words of the old Negro spiritual ‘We ain’t goin’ study war no more.’” (277)
King’s understanding of nonviolence is not contained by its pragmatic or its moral nature; he often waxes seamlessly between them. The two dimensions flow together into a constructive body that entails more than the sum of these two parts. In fact, King claims that these two elements must always work toward growth (“Stride,” 488). The confluence of these two natures in King’s discourse envisages an end beyond pragmatic, political success or deontological obedience—political expediency is not for the sake of expediency in the same way that moral obedience is not for the sake of obedience. Together they serve a deeper, more proleptic—dare I say, more evangelical—end, and it is to that I turn.
The Gospel Community
“Nonviolent resistance had emerged as the technique of the movement, while love stood as the regulating ideal,” King wrote. “In other words, Christ furnished the spirit and motivation, while Gandhi furnished the method” (“Stride,” 447). Spirit and method collaborated toward one unified end in King’s mind. In a sense, one could say both natures, as I have described them, were methodological—that is, they were structured means toward the achievement of one over-arching end. That end, however, lay beyond political gain and beyond the moralism of obedience. “The end,” urges King, “is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community” (“Nonviolence,” 8; “Stride,” 487). The five points of nonviolence articulated in “Nonviolence and Racial Justice” point toward this proleptic goal—proleptic because in King’s mind the beloved community is not a purely eschatological reality; it can be both now and not yet. By crafting his second point to suggest that nonviolent resistance aims to win the friendship and understanding of the opponent, King does not intimate this “winning” is for material gains, but speaks of true, spiritual conversion. The aim of nonviolence and its love for the enemy is conversion, reconciliation, and community—to “transform oppressors into friends” (“Facing the Challenge of a New Age,” 141). It is evangelical.
King utilizes familiar evangelical language in these descriptions, portraying nonviolent resistors as “witnesses to the truth” who “wear you down” by their example of suffering and “appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process” (“Stride,” 485). This conversion, King expresses, is the precondition for reconciliation—“it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality” (“Stride,” 487). Conversion is the result of Christ’s command to love neighbor and enemy and, as the nonviolent resistors witness to Christ’s “love ethic,” they will win their oppressors over to their side. That is the beginning of the beloved community, Christ’s beloved community. In fact, agape does more than merely concern itself with others, as I previously indicated. “Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community,” he insists, “to go to any length to restore community” (“Experiment,” 19-20). King’s ultimate vision of agape is to cultivate community, to found the beloved community between black and white, rich and poor, on Christ’s self-giving love and call to love others as he loves.
King’s conceptual fabric of the movement and its practices are woven around the person and work of Christ, and those who practice nonviolence are “witnesses” to Christ. The beloved community is not a progressive, socio-humanist development; it is a Christo-centric creation based on Christ’s call to love one another. In other words, it is an evangelical community founded on a gospel ethic—an ethic of good news to the poor, oppressed, and powerful alike. King incorporates this language of gospel in his description of the integration of the two natures of nonviolence in their unified aim of reconciled community. “The gospel of Jesus Christ,” he describes, “is a two-way road. On the one side, it seeks to change the souls of men and thereby unite them with God; on the other, it seeks to change the environmental conditions of men so that the soul will have a chance after it is changed” (STL, 102). This Gospel community has peace as its means and end, and thus, is the “presence of justice and brother-hood . . . . which is the Kingdom of God” (“Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience,” 51). In sum, King conceives of nonviolent resistance not solely as an expedient tactic and not solely as a moral injunction. These two streams converge and point to King’s ultimate goal: reconciling the opposing forces of racism and oppression into a Christ-centered community of agapic love. King weaves these strands seamlessly throughout the discourse of his speeches and sermons to construct this Gospel vision of community.
Unifying Elements
Having demonstrated the way in which King weaves the tactical and moral notions of nonviolence into a coherent directive for reconciled community, we are still left with a question regarding the underlying theological resources King used to craft a unified vision. In other words, what theological presuppositions allowed King to unify the strategic and deontological forces of nonviolence? Throughout his speeches and publications on nonviolent resistance, King alludes to three underlying suppositions that act as unifying agents in his thought: his understanding of cosmic morality, redemptive suffering, and divine participation. I will conclude by exploring each of these briefly in turn.
In the midst of the darkest midnights of the movement, King often repeated the claim, “The arm of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice” (“Our God is Marching On,” 230; and others). This conception of a deep, cosmic morality oriented toward justice underlies many of King’s claims and constitutes his fifth point of nonviolent resistance: It “is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice” (“Nonviolence,” 9). This cosmological certitude that permitted King to send himself and others into the perilous situations he encountered (and engendered) entailed more than an abstract universal morality or providence; rather the “loving purpose” of God placed within the structure of the universe absolute moral laws to ensure that “truth will ultimately conquer its conqueror” (STL, 152, 111). In other words, even in the dark midnight of the struggle there is a theological and providential rhyme and reason to the world, and truth ultimately overcomes the forces of evil. God created the universe and instilled within it an orientation toward justice. “God is on the side of truth and justice” (“Nonviolence,” 9), and God’s “cosmic companionship” struggles alongside the oppressed (“Facing the Challenge,” 142). This theological and moral orientation incorporates yet another Christological element as King suggests this moral bent toward justice reverberates in the “triumphant beat of Easter drums” (“Nonviolence,” 9).
King’s conviction in the moral orientation of the cosmos, based on God’s solidarity with the oppressed and Christ’s triumphant resurrection over worldly powers, enables his belief in redemptive suffering. The realization that “unearned suffering is redemptive” is a willingness to accept suffering without retaliation, “to accept blows from the oppressor without striking back” (“Experiment," 18). As threats and retaliatory attacks mounted against the movement, King developed a stronger conviction that suffering may bring about greater goods. If God is in control of the moral order, then God can certainly deliver profound goods from the midst of suffering. With this conviction, King viewed ordeals as opportunities to transform the self and heal those involved in tragic situations (“Suffering and Faith,” 41). “The nonviolent say that suffering can be a most creative and powerful social force,” he suggests (“Love, Law,” 47). Though challenged recently by many womanist and feminist ethicists, for King, transformative suffering reflects a point of congruence between the pragmatic and imperative perspectives of nonviolence, a congruence further rooted in King’s notion of humanity’s participation with God in the work of justice.
King’s confidence in God’s cosmic morality and faith in the redemptive value of suffering cast the end of segregation as an ordained inevitability, but not a cause for complacency. He calls the belief “that God will cast evil from the earth even if man does nothing except sit complacently by the wayside” a fallacy as untenable as the belief that humans can do everything for themselves (STL, 132, 133). Both precepts are founded on a deficiency of faith. Instead, King understands God and humanity as co-workers in the struggle to speed up the inevitable demise of Jim Crow (“Facing the Challenge,” 143). Human beings participate with God on the side of justice through the gift of God’s agapic love. “Both man and God,” King professes, “made one in a marvelous unity of purpose through an overflowing love as the free gift of himself on the part of God and by perfect obedience and receptivity on the part of man, can transform the old into the new and drive out the deadly cancer of sin” (STL, 133). As Karen Guth notes, nonviolent love is a ‘creative practice’ for King—creating a new type of community and re-creating a redeemed world. In this way, the tactical purposes of nonviolent resistance are caught up in the redemptive purposes of God and made into “one marvelous unity of purpose” to redeem and reconcile oppressors and oppressed in the unified community of Christ. Through their participation, nonviolent resisters become “instruments of God” and allow “God’s energy” to enter and direct not only their actions, but their souls as well (STL, 135). This participatory imagery ascribes a new theological dimension to the work of the movement that breaks down the delineations between pragmatism and faithful obedience, incorporating both into the deeper purpose of God’s redeeming work. Human agency becomes oriented toward participation in divine work. Humans become, in the words of Guth, “co-creators who work with God to carry on God’s process of creation.” In the end, nonviolent resistance becomes more than a means to socio-political accommodations and more than adherence to moral duty. It is the divine work of reconciliation, actualized in the building of Christ’s beloved community in space and time through participation in the redemptive activity of God. The two natures of nonviolence are united in a type of incarnational community that seeks nothing less than the redemption of the whole world.
Even when the prevailing darkness of midnight obscures God’s purpose, the difficulties of the struggle suggest that suffering for the sake of love only perpetuates oppression, and one must confess, “It is difficult to be faithful,” King points to a new reality on the horizon. In the confusing darkness of midnight, King suggests the nonviolent work of the movement is, in fact, Gospel work. God is on the side of justice, and he proclaims that if his listeners will participate with God in that struggle, the beloved community is a possibility—a community founded on the love of God, embodied in the converting and reconciling acts of nonviolence, and manifest in the hope of the coming dawn. “The most inspiring word that the church may speak,” King preaches, “is that no midnight long remains. The weary traveler by midnight who asks for bread is really seeking the dawn. Our eternal message of hope is that dawn will come” (STL, 66).
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