Today I found myself reflecting on some comments made by Bishop Jakes at a training I attended a few weeks ago. His comments were about the gulf that seems to exist between intellectualism and spirituality in the minds of so many church goers. This supposed gulf impacts me in a personal way as I attempt to write my dissertation which deals with emancipatory education and the Black Church. The other day, I was explaining to my peers at the Center for Race and Ethnicity that my work, in addition to embodying my own personal sense of agency, attempts to bridge intellectual and spiritual territories that are often disparate. As I contend in my work, this should never be.
In the course of my reflections, I recalled the first time I read King's Birmingham Jail Letter during my 1st year of seminary in my New Testament class. I was amazed at King's ability to weave the African American story into the narratives of the Bible so seamlessly. Their were times where you were so caught up in his explication of the plight of the Civil Rights movement that you didn't realize that he was discussing the ministry of the Apostle Paul. It was upon reading this letter that I realized for the first time that Dr. Martin Luther King was not just "a young black minister from Georgia" as President Obama so frequently likes to refer to him. King was in fact one of the best theologians, intellectuals, and preachers in the history of the United States.
In considering this fact, I enjoy the way one of my former professors, Dr. Hak Joon Lee says it in his book, "We Will Get to the Promised Land: MLK's Communal-Political Spirituality. Lee notes:
"King was a philosopher and systematic theologian by training. It was King's belief that religion should be socially active as well as intellectually respectable. To be intellectually respectable, religious ideals and principals need to be communicated through reasonable and sensible language, in terms that the public can understand. In formulating a plausible form of public theology for social change, King translated his particular religious language and symbols into public terms, identifying and interpreting in spiritual terms the challenges and problems of a society. A master of intertextuality, King freely interwove various spiritual, moral, and intellectual sources for the persuasion of the public. He creatively mixed spirituals, African American proverbs, and folklore with phrases from the Bible (e.g., the Exodus, wilderness, crucifixion, redemption, and eschaton), Western philosophies, theologies, and political documents, such as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, in making a public case for the freedom of African Americans."
Dr. King was indeed a minster from Georgia, but it was his God given intellectual prowess that separated him from the masses as an effective leader, that enhanced his ability to so profoundly articulate the gospel, and to encourage peoples' participation in the struggle, which for him was as much spiritual as it was political.
The next time you hear someone refer to King as simply a "young black minister from Georgia"... whisper in their ear that he was "much more than that." AND the next time someone tries to tell you that intelligence and spirituality can't coexist, remind them about a "young black minister from Georgia" who was really, really smart.
Written by Frederick A Hanna
