Martin Luther King Jr.: Disappointment In The Church

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Disappointment in the Church Despite being put in prison for his actions, one man broke the mold of his time and is now the only native citizen of the United States to have a national holiday in his honor. That courageous man is Martin Luther King Jr. He was a major leader of the Civil Rights Movement and an advocate for change. Standing on his faith, he rallied support to bring equality for the Negro community. However, there were forces that would prove to be obstacles in his way, including the white Church. Martin Luther King Jr. was disappointed with the white Church because it was not siding with him, it was no longer powerful, and it did not have the sacrificial spirit of the early Church. To begin, Martin Luther King Jr. was disgruntled by the white Church because it was not siding with him. King pointed out his disappointment when he said, “I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery…show more content…
King expressed the severity of the situation by saying, “If the Church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early Church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century” (363). In other words, King desperately wants the Church to recapture the spirit it once had so it will not lose its legitimacy. Much to his frustration, it was now clear that he could not trust the Church to save our nation. The Church was not willing to sacrifice its comfort in an effort to redeem our country. King noted that he would have to put his faith in the inner church inside the Church to be the confidence for the world (363). To put it another way, he was going to have to rely on the faithful few that had broken the mold of conformity and had joined the “struggle for freedom”

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