[Meeting Martin Luther King Jr. in Boston]
Having lived in Boston for several years, I'm very used to a conversation with questions like "where are you from", "what do you do", etc at social events or church. Now, let's imagine that I lived in the year of 1953, just a few years after world war II. On an ordinary weekday morning, when I was on the Green Line B branch (which then was numbered "route #62") along Commonwealth Avenue toward downtown, I started a conversation with an African American guy who got up at the BU central stop. I quickly got into the typical Bostonian conversation:
"Hi, what's your name?"
"Martin." He said.
"I'm Jerome. Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, too."
"Are you a student at BU?"
"Ya. I go to the divinity school."
"That's cool. What do you study there?"
"I'm a doctoral student in systematic theology."
"Wow, that sounds very hard-core. So did you come to Boston to attend this program?"
"Ya. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. I moved here two years ago after getting my bachelor of divinity."
"So are you a pastor?"
"Yes, I am."
"Cool. So where are you heading right now?"
"I'm going to downtown to meet my finacee. She's a music student at New England Conservatory. We're going to get married in Alabama next month."
"Wow, congratulations!"
That's true. I met the civil right activist-to-be Martin Luther King Jr. in the city of Boston, where it's never a surprise to randomly run into a doctor or a professor on the street. In a few minutes, I heard more about his story. While living in the south most of his life, he did spent 4 years in Boston, where he attended Boston University and got his PhD in systematic theology. While racial segregation (which came to existence after the civil war) was still prevalent in the south, Boston was the first city where I felt he was free to do everything without discrimination. He really enjoyed this city. And instead of living in the dorm of BU, he rented an apartment at 397 Mass Ave, right next to today's Orange Line Mass Ave station.
Boston was also the city where he met his wife Coretta Scott. They got married in June 1953. And he was incredibly young as a doctoral student -- he skipped two grades in high school and completed college at the age of 19. By the time he started doctoral study in Boston (at the age of 22), he already obtained his first seminary degree. By the way, he was also the assistant pastor at Twelfth Baptist Church, an African-American congregation near Dudley Square.
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Now the conversation continued. Martin and I started talking about Christian church and theology.
"Which church do you go to?" He asked.
"The XXX church. It's an evangelical church."
"Ah, Christian evangelism." From his eyes, you could tell there was probably something in his head.
"What do you think about it?"
"Well, I'm a pastor, and I do build my ministry on the teaching of Jesus. But I hope your church is not like one of the typical American churches today. I think really miss the point of the gospel."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, they've been focusing too much on individuals being saved and ignoring the injustice in this society. They miss their mission to liberate the oppressed."
"Well, isn't a Christian church supposed to share the gospel and convert sinners to God?"
"Yup, but doesn't the gospel free us? How can you say you're sharing the gospel while so many people in this country are oppressed and suffering from inequality?"
"You're right, but this should be the outcome of salvation, instead of the salvation itself..."
"(Sigh.) I think the some churches really need to shift focus." He breathed before continuing. "Old faiths like the bodily resurrection, virgin birth and miracles that contradict the science may not be necessary for Christianity today. Churches are called to realize the Kingdom of God on earth by exercising justice and mercy..."
Now I could sense where on the "church spectrum" he was. He was vastly influenced by Walter Rauschenbusch's social gospel, a theological thought popular in the early 20th century that called for a return to the "Kingdom of God" doctrine. Church's primary calling, in social gospel's perspective, is to bring God's kingdom on earth by applying Jesus' teaching to solve social issues and rescue the oppressed. Along with Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolent approach, it shaped King's theology and fueled the later movements he led.
And It was also interesting to see theologically how liberal his was. He casted his doubt on some essential doctrines that most Christian denominations held true back then. If you are from an evangelical background, this may get on your nerves. (But keep in mind that he lived before the age of neo-orthodoxy, and people often abandoned traditional views when running into doctrines that contradict scientific knowledge.) And this is probably why while many pastors today would say King's accomplishment was fueled by the Christian faith, but avoid talking too much about his view on doctrines.
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Let's get back on the train scene. At the Park Street underground station in downtown Boston, I said bye to the newly met friend Martin and saw him disappearing in the crowd. I could tell he's a brilliant and eloquent person, but might not expect two years later he'd be the person would be a key leader in the Montgomery bus boycott, nor decades later he'd deliver his famous speech in Washington. I might not agree with everything he said, but I'd definitely remember this conversation with Martin, a person that was once like me, who lived to Boston short-term to pursue a degree and was shaped by the personality of this city.
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[Afterthought] As a member of an American evangelical church (and also a foreigner of a minority group), the story of Martin Luther King Jr. continues to puzzle me. His view on certain doctrines are likely to be condemned as unorthodox by evangelical churches, but meanwhile, as the "saved" people, do we eager to live out and advocate the biblical justice in daily life as he did? Or we're always being "gospel-centered" while ignoring the all-inclusive nature of the biblical gospel?
(In pictures: Martin Luther King Jr.'s school, apartment and church in Boston.)
