Honoring the Dream

The Washington Post reported yesterday that "Conservative commentator Glenn Beck on Saturday drew a sea of activists to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where he championed a religious brand of patriotism and called on the nation to recommit itself to traditional values he said were hallmarks of its exceptional past." I think that is a pretty "fair and balanced" paragraph that I imagine Beck himself would agree with. He does proclaim, as far as I can tell, a "religious brand of patriotism" and he does exhort people to "traditional values."

The question I would ask is simply this: does that commitment rightly honor Dr. King's dream? Which brand of religious patriotism and which traditional values?

I have both re-read and re-watched the speech that Dr. King gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial 47 years ago. Every school child remembers those four words, "I have a dream" but watching/reading the entire speech gives us a context, some of which may be unknown or unfamiliar. King uses the word "justice" no less than five times, including a direct and familiar quote from the prophet Amos-"let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." (Amos 5:24) He also addresses the injustices of his day, comparing the rally to cashing in on a promissory note: the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people made at the founding of the nation and yet still denied to "the Negro." In addition to Amos, there is a liberal sprinkling of the prophet Isaiah: and there is an awareness of "poverty in a land of prosperity" and of "segregation in the land of the free" as counter to that Biblical vision of shalom.

There is also in that speech an important ethical commitment to non-violence that must not go unnoticed: to meet violence with "soul power" and to confront hate with love. As many readers of this blog certainly know, King did his graduate work at Boston University and was indebted to Ghandi, among others, in his own recognition that the path to peace must be a non-violent one.

Love. Non-violence. Social justice that includes life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. While these values clearly transcend political party affiliation, it is very difficult for me to see how they were articulated or even valued by the political vision of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin on the mall this weekend. Beck regularly mocks a commitment to social justice. His 912 Project is filled with "I"s - not the "We" that Dr. King called us to live into. Beck is about personal responsibility, which has a place; but devoid of any mention of social justice. He is entitled to those opinions and in fact they reflect the values of many Americans and not a few Christians. But it is beyond me to see how this is in line with Dr. King's dream, and more importantly, God's dream for a nation that may well be "good" but is called to do much better.