This is the first in a series of posts on the Scriptural, theological, philosophical, and historical foundations of Beloved Community focusing particularly on the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.
What we know as Beloved Community comes to us through the experience of the African American church via the civil rights movements of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. While it is true that the civil rights movement (especially after the assassination of Dr. King) changed significantly in its rhetoric and methods thanks to the ascendancy of leadership impatient with the tenets of Kingian nonviolence and focused on affecting change by any method necessary, it is still true that the roots of Beloved Community as a vision and a goal remain deeply embedded in Biblical precepts.
This is not to say that Beloved Community is an exclusively Christian undertaking. The figures we most associate with Beloved Community—Martin Luther King, Jr., Howard Thurman, John Perkins, and John Lewis, perhaps foremost among them—were committed Jesus-followers who understood Beloved Community as the earthly expression of Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God. But they frequently acknowledged that Beloved Community is, by its very nature, radically inclusive (this is the basis of Dr. King’s “world house” metaphor). And the conceptions most foundational to Beloved Community—reconciliation, justice, selfless love, the unity of all peoples, peace, nonviolence—are obviously not exclusive to Christianity. They are embraced to varying degrees by most of the world’s religions and spiritual practices.
Yet it is the case that Dr. King preached, spoke, and wrote widely about Beloved Community almost always, implicitly or explicitly, with reference to specific passages from the Bible (he was a Baptist preacher, after all). So I operate from the assumption that familiarity with these passages is important not only to navigating the paths of Dr. King’s thinking, but to understanding Beloved Community itself—no matter where you hang your hat spiritually.
This post is a starting point.
It is not a comprehensive list of all the passages to which Dr. King referred but the ones which turn up frequently in his writing, speaking, and preaching. Nor is it an attempt to document every way in which Dr. King used each passage to talk about Beloved Community. I’ve chosen what I believe to be among the more important ways, and grouped them by focus. I’ve also included links to sources where you can hear or read Dr. King’s own words.
First, however, I want to offer a definition of Beloved Community. There are many such definitions and, in service to eventually crafting my own, I’ll offer a different definition in each of the posts in this series. For this first post, I want to offer a definition from a particularly appropriate source, Coretta Scott King, from her memoir, My Life, My Love, My Legacy:
To me, the Beloved Community is a realistic vision of an achievable society, one in which problems and conflict exist, but are resolved peacefully and without bitterness. In the Beloved Community, caring and compassion drive political policies that support the worldwide elimination of poverty and hunger and all forms of bigotry and violence.
Romans 12:1-5, 9-18: Admonishes the community to pursue the transformation of their hearts and minds to embrace self-less love (agape), living in harmony, honoring one another, and refusing to repay evil with evil.
Colossians 3:12-15: Urges the community to clothe themselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, practice mutual forgiveness, and allow the love and peace of Christ to rule in their hearts.
1 John 4:11-12: Reminds the community that if God so loves us, we ought to love one another in the same way.
Matthew 5:44: Jesus insists that we achieve a new way of loving (agape) which encompasses all people, including our enemies.
How Dr. King applied these Scriptures to the Beloved Community:
Agape love is an agent of human transformation.
Dr. King insisted that loving one’s enemies was not a sign of emotional weakness, but a powerful instrument for social change. He argued that refusing to repay evil with evil (”overcome evil with good”) was the only way to break the chain of hate.
The purpose of boycotts and marches, according to Dr. King, was never to defeat or humiliate those opposed to desegregation and equal rights, but to win their friendship and understanding, ultimately creating a harmonious community.
Dr. King dedicated entire sermons to explaining how agape love is the only mechanism capable of transforming a broken, segregated society into the Beloved Community.
See: “Loving Your Enemies” (November 17, 1957)
Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, this entire sermon is a deep theological analysis of Matthew 5:44. Dr. King explicitly states that in insisting on the self-less love of agape, Jesus was not an “impractical idealist” but a “practical realist.” He argues that to achieve community, the oppressed must possess the power to forgive, stating, “He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”
Acts 2:44-47; 4:32-35: Describes how members in the early church held everything in common, sharing resources with anyone in need, and communing with glad and sincere hearts.
Galatians 3:28; 6:2: Argues that all people are free and equal in Christ and should bear one another’s burdens, thereby fulfilling (in part) the “law of Christ” (i.e. the ethic we find in the Sermon on The Mount [Matthew 5-7]).
How Dr. King applied these Scriptures to the Beloved Community:
Dr. King echoed the early church’s model of shared burdens and total community care by preaching that all human life is deeply interconnected and because it is we all share responsibility for one another.
In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. King wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
Mindful that early Jesus-followers, as narrated in the book of Acts, shared resources to eliminate poverty, Dr. King’s later work heavily targeted economic injustice. He realized that a true Beloved Community could not exist if poverty, hunger, and homelessness were tolerated alongside staggering wealth. Economic justice was a spiritual mandate.
To dismantle racial discrimination, Dr. King relied heavily on the Pauline doctrine that all human barriers are erased under God.
See: “The American Dream” (June 6, 1961)
In this commencement address at Lincoln University, Dr. King explicitly cites the broad principles of Galatians 3:28. He warns that America cannot survive as a “first-class nation with second-class citizens.” He argues that God created all people out of “one blood” to dwell upon the earth, thereby making segregation in any form a direct violation of cosmic and spiritual unity.
See: “All Labor Has Dignity” (March 18, 1968)
Speaking to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee just weeks before his assassination, Dr. King calls for a radical redistribution of economic power. He points to the early Christian church in Acts as his model for societal restructuring, arguing that a true “Beloved Community” cannot exist when there is a gulf between “superfluous wealth and deadening poverty.”
Micah 6:8: Declares what the Lord requires: to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.
Amos 5:24: God will not listen to the Israelites’ singing of hymns nor accept their offerings but desires only the progress of justice and righteousness.
Matthew 5:9: Pronounces a blessing on peacemakers, who will be called children of God.
How Dr. King applied these Scriptures to the Beloved Community:
Dr. King fiercely rejected the idea that peace was merely the absence of tension. He demanded a “positive peace” rooted in active justice.
Dr. King frequently quoted Old Testament prophets to show that spirituality cannot be separated from societal ethics. In his “I Have a Dream” speech, he intoned the words of Amos 5:24, demanding that “justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Dr. King applied the Beatitude (”Blessed are the peacemakers”) through nonviolent direct action, teaching that true peacemaking requires putting your body on the line to expose societal wounds so they can be healed, rather than ignoring conflicts to maintain a false, unjust status quo.
Dr. King routinely used the rhetoric of Old Testament prophets to remind us that peace is not merely the absence of tension, but the presence of justice.
See: “I Have a Dream” (August 28, 1963)
In probably his best-known speech, delivered during the March on Washington, Dr. King invoked the words of Amos: “No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.” He used this verse as a climax to declare that civil rights protests would not cease until total systemic inequality was uprooted.
If you’re like me and your default reaction to anything is to read about it, here are some of the books I’ve read and will be using in this series (more books will follow in subsequent posts). Each has been helpful with my own understanding of how Dr. King’s thinking about Beloved Community grew from his engagement with Scripture:
Kenneth Smith and Ira Zepp, Search for the Beloved Community: The Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr., Judson Press, 3rd. ed., 1998. An excellent overview of the development of all facets and sources of MLK’s thinking about Beloved Community. If you read only one book on this subject, make it this one.
Hak Joon Lee, Will We Get to the Promised Land: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Communal-Political Spirituality, Wipf and Stock, 2017. A more scholarly and in-depth but still very readable treatment of much the same material as covered in Smith and Zepp. If you find Smith and Zepp compelling (and you will) and want to move deeper, read this.
Charles Marsh, The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice, from the Civil Rights Movement to Today, Basic Books, 2005. Marsh places Beloved Community within the broader history of the civil rights movement. This book is particularly helpful because it underscores the role of faith and the African American church in developing the idea of Beloved Community and sustaining the civil rights movement in general, arguing that the movement lost its way when more militant civil rights leaders in the late 1960s and 70s ripped the movement from its roots in the church.
James Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., HarperOne, 1991. There are several books that gather MLK’s writings, sermons, and speeches, but none with the scope of this one, which benefits from the involvement of Coretta Scott King.
And two of Dr. King’s own books that are particularly important to the Scriptural foundations of Beloved Community:
Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, Beacon Press, 2010, especially chapter 6, “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence.”
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, Beacon Press, 2010, especially chapter 6, “The World House.”
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