Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In our recent discussions, many people were voicing concern over how to "act" as a pacifist. In his address, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. states it beautifully: "We [King and followers] had to make it clear that nonviolent resistance is not a method of cowardice. It does resist. It is not a method of stagnant passivity and deadening complacency. THe nonviolent resister is just as opposed to the evil that he is standing against as the violent resister but he resists without violence. This method is nonaggressive physically but strongly aggressive spiritually," (12). "And so at the center of our movement stood the philosophy of love," (13). You cannot fight love. It stands inside of all of us. And, why, would you ever want to fight something so powerful? So good?

The other question that Dr. King brings to us is in "Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience": "How can you be logically consistent when you advocate obeying some laws and disobeying other laws?" (48). 

In the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, it is written that: "Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." 

It is destructive not only to those oppressed, but to the oppressor. The foundation of Safety and Happiness is not oppression, it is not hate. It is love. The agape love that Dr. King talks about. The love that will cross all boundaries. The love that, I believe, we are all capable of.