Pain in Letter From Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr.

In the second chapter of the book Tokens of Trust, by Rowan Williams, the topic of creation was studied. Our lord created the world and all things in it, including how everything is supposed to balance and interact with one another When everything is in balance, and working as God had planned it to, we see harmony achievedt Not always however, do we see everything working perfectly, God’s own creation begins to function in ways outside of its original purpose at Limes, and this leads to struggling. This relates to a piece written by Martin Luther King Jr, which was his Letter from Birmingham Jail. The pain that was being felt by both Martin Luther King th and the rest of the African American community during the time when this letter was written was caused by the mistreatment and wrongful doings.

The suffering endured during the slave trade, and the suffering endured during the movement towards equality were not intended by the lord as he never intended for the African American population to be in these situations originally, All men were created equal, both preached by King and in the word of God itself, as through his eye and in his own image both white and black men were created However, through the ignorant eye of white men during that time of enormous discrimination, the ‘black community’ became oppressed and viewed as a secondary class. When fighting for equality, we saw this shown as Martin Luther King was arrested for peaceful protests. Never did he hurt other groups nor did he treat them with disrespect — but he and his followers were constantly treated in the opposite manner because of the shear fact of an ignorance generated by their heritage’s past as slaves.

In some ways we see Martin Luther King Jr. is similar to the prophets in the Bible. When people began to stray from the plan of the lord in biblical times we saw an individual chosen to help restore order. Paul was an example of this happening in that time period, as he left the comfort, safety, and assurance of his own house in order to spread the word of god, In the Letter from Birmingham Jail we see King Jr. talk on this subject, and actually refer to himself as similar to Paul: Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid. (King Jr.) We see Martin Luther King Jr. explain as to how he felt a calling to Birmingham, the city in where he was arrested.

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He saw an injustice happening to people similar to himself, and so decided he was supposed to go to that area and attempt to restore order in God‘s creation. Birmingham was one of the cruelest towns when looking at the treatment of protesters. Both a racist government and ignorant population made it a life threatening act to protest. However although this was dangerous, we see King Jr, setting out to tackle the task. He was quoted saying, “I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”(King Jr.) He was unable to look past the situation, which is similar to when we saw the many brave men in the Bible set out to the most unholy areas to spread to word of god. This can be related to Jonah who traveled to Nineveh, one of the most corrupted and struggling areas, to show them God’s love and help bring them out of the unfavorable state they were in.

Martin Luther King Jr. had set to do similar with the African American population, traveling to what could be his equivalent Nineveh to show them God’s plan, King Jr, had addressed the majority of his letter towards the body of the church, calling to the white priests who would join with him on this issue He struggled to find them, seeing even the men who were closest to the god whom they teach about were flawed humans unable to deem this cause worthy enough. He called to the church as a whole asking them to gather and help reconnect with gods plan as seen here, but also knew even if they were to fail that God would help them restore order as it was what was meant to happen. This is seen in the following quote, “I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour, But even if the church does not come to the aid ofjustice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are presently misunderstood.

We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal ofAmerica is freedom,” and he continues by showing faith that‘ll his cause will succeed, “Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America.” (King Jr) King related what he was talking about to Pilgrims landing in Plymouth and how they were destined to do great things, just as the African Americans were destined to do great things and overcome such diversity. A biblical moment that relates to this situation was when the lsraelites were about to leave Egypt and were informing the Pharaoh. They were telling him to let them leave or else the Nation of Egypt would be punished by the Hebrew God. The Israelites were destined to make it out of Egypt as God informed Moses before he even initially started the negotiations, and he told him that if the Pharaoh was unable to cooperate then the lord would show his powers by punishing the country which was unwilling to accept the unstoppable future of God’s children.

Although not seen in flashing force as he was in the time of the Israelites, God was prevalent through the fight for equality in Birmingham. There were many miracles, and in the end of the story laws were passed promoting African Americans as equals to the white Americans. It was truly pre-destined that all men would be equal, and we only strayed from this due to human flawr This is the same flaw is that which causes pain in the world, by causing us to move away from the plans which our lord had for his creation. We can however, as done both in the Bible and in the situation of Martin Luther King In in Birmingham, restore order to creation and restore happiness and peace in the doing of so Rowan Williams talked about how when god is let into every aspect of life, then your relationship with him is at its closest. If everyone allowed god into every aspect of their personal lives we would see a flawlessly working world, however we do not see this Pain is inevitable as it‘s by human nature, but we must react and strive to have creation work in the manner in which it was meant to.

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