Ring Out Freedom (Excerpt)

8/14/2019 Ring Out Freedom (Excerpt)

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A Discourse of Faith 11

11

1. A Discourse of Faith

When he was doing research for his study Martin Luther King,

Jr.: The Making of a Mind, John Ansbro asked Wyatt Tee Walker,chief of staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

(SCLC) during several of the movement years, which writingsmost influenced King. Walker simply answered “Matthew,

Mark, Luke and John.” W

alker added that “[t]he basis of Mar-tin Luther King’s ministry and mission was the ethics andmorality of the Crucified Carpenter from Galilee. . . . [F]irst

and foremost he was an unapologetic proclaimer of the Gospelof Jesus of Nazareth.”1 These statements illustrate the central-

ity of religion in the activities of King.But this centrality also provokes questions as much as it pro-

vides answers and it merits a careful examination if one wantsto understand how King’s rhetoric works. The basic influence

of the gospel and the ultimate grounding in Jesus Christ can-

not be viewed alone. King’s faith was part of a public and soci-etal struggle that had many different dimensions, and his ren-

dition and “use” of his faith must be viewed within the realmsthat this context constitutes.

This first chapter is therefore concerned with this the most

fundamental element of King’s rhetoric: How does he use reli-

gion and faith to signify, define, and understand? What are theconsequences of using religion and faith in this way? How is

his use of his religious faith related to the movement’s self-understanding and place on the American political scene andto King’s position between cultures?

For these questions to be answered, the basic structure of the civil rights movement discourse as a whole must be ana-lyzed and its fundamental workings must be mapped out.



12 Ring Out Freedom!

The Structure of the Discourse

The classic dichotomy of idealism and materialism is a fruit-ful tool with which to explore King’s religious rhetoric. Ideal-

ism can be defined as the notion that reality is ultimately con-stituted by ideas, thoughts, and knowledge and that any changeor progress in this world ultimately depends on these factors.

Materialism can be defined as the notion that reality is ulti-mately constituted by the practical activities of man2 and that

any change or progress in this world is finally dependent onmaterial factors.3

These notions can help to formulate a question that makevisible the construction of King’s discourse of faith: In what

ways does King let idealistic values determine his descriptionof practical reality and what position does that practical real-ity—or materialism—have in relation to these values by which

it is described? The question becomes even more helpful if thequalifications of the notions are enlarged with the caveat that

it is meaningless to speak of objects or facts as existing inde-pendent from the concepts and terms by which we describe

them, but it is also at least as problematic to, as idealism does,view these concepts and terms as reality in themselves. The

dichotomy between idealism and materialism as here defined

points to a deep ambiguity in King’s rhetoric, but the caveatscan help us to understand how this ambiguity in itself is cre-

ative.To further understand this ambiguity, let us turn to King’s

speech “The Church on the Frontier of Racial Tension,” given

before the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louis-

ville, Kentucky, in April 1961. The speech is both thematicallyand rhetorically quite typical of King’s public speaking before

this type of audience.4 Its main theme is the place of the civilrights movement in relation to the responsibilities of the church,and its goal is to challenge the audience to realize that the church

is and must be the central institution of the struggle. The criti-cism the speech offers is aimed mainly at the passive attitude

still persisting within some quarters and the failure of some to




realize the important part the church has to play as a vehicle

for political and social change.After an initial mention of how the civil rights movement is

a part of a worldwide uprising against oppression in the forms

of imperialism, colonialism, and segregation and how the worldstands on the threshold of something “new,” King presents a

historical survey explaining why the American civil rights

movement was born at its particular point in time and whatthis moment consists of and will lead to. It is this explanation

that provides an entry into the questions of this chapter.At one point King states that

living with the conditions of slavery and later segregation, manyNegroes lost faith in themselves, many came to feel that perhapsthey were less than human, perhaps they were inferior. But thensomething happened to the Negro. Circumstances made it neces-sary for him to travel more: the coming of the automobile, the

upheaval of two world wars, the great depression. And so his ruralplantation life background gave way to urban industrial life, hiseconomic life was gradually rising through the growth of indus-try and the influence of organized labor and other agencies, andeven his cultural life was rising through the steady decline of crip-pling illiteracy. All of these forces conjoined to cause the Negro totake a new look at himself.5

The history behind the civil rights movement is thus explained

in materialistic terms. But when King turns to the contempo-rary struggle, his definition of how change comes about is dif-

ferent. He then turns to the wisdom of the academic world:

Professor Sorokin of Harvard University wrote a book some yearsago entitled The Crisis of Our Age, and his basic thesis was that acrisis develops in a society when an old idea exhausts itself andsociety seeks to reorientate itself around a new idea. This is what

we see today, the old idea of paternalism, the old idea that [sic]segregation has exhausted itself; and American society is seekingto reorientate itself around the new idea of integration, of personto person relations. This is something of the crisis we see.6

Here it is the death of an old and the birth of a new idea thatstands at the center of change, an idea that will create and de-




velop the new society. But it will not come to life on its own. Its

birth involves a struggle, and when, in the speech, we reachthis struggle and the future it will bring about, King adds yetanother dimension. He says:

[L]et me say that we must have faith in the future, the faith tobelieve that we can solve this problem, the faith to believe that aswe struggle to solve this problem we do not struggle alone. But wehave cosmic companionship. Oh, before the victory is won, somepeople may have to get scarred up. . . . Who will be part of that

creative minority that will stand firm on an issue will help us bringinto being the Kingdom of God, knowing that in the process, Godstruggles with us. The God that we worship is not some Aristote-lian Unmoved Mover who merely contemplates upon himself. TheGod that we worship is not merely a self-knowing God, but he isan ever-loving God, working through history for the salvation of man. So with this faith we can move on.7

There is no denying that King’s worldview is at base idealistic.Ultimately the universe is moral; it is created and upheld by

the almighty God. This basic assumption is always present inhis sermons, speeches, and writings. But how should we thenregard his often-recurring materialistic explanations, of which

the above is one of many examples? The contradiction is per-haps not too bewildering. Any ideology contains contradictionsof different kinds, as does any thought and speech of a human

being; who goes through life without contradicting him or her-self? That both idealistic and materialistic explanations can be

found in King’s rhetoric does not mean that they hold an equal

position or that they create meaning at the same level. It isexactly this point that provides a way into the structure of King’scivil rights movement discourse.

If we formalize the three passages above we see the past asmaterialistic, the present as idealistic, and the future as reli-gious. These three philosophies represent different layers of

King’s civil rights discourse; they form a hierarchy that ordershis system of belief. King’s rhetoric orders and understands

the world through this hierarchy of values.In the first quote, King states that the Negro’s changing self-




evaluation had its main origins in the changing historical and

material realities of the first half of the twentieth century. Inthe second quote, he continues the story by stating that thisled to a struggle between two systems of ideas. His story ends

in the third quote with the guarantee that this struggle will bewon since the universe is upheld by an active God. This is a

typical example of what may be called an actualization of a

religious superstructure through a ladder of signification, acentral feature of the civil rights movement discourse as a dis-

course of faith. The signification structure of the discourse hasthree different levels: the religious, the idealistic, and the ma-terialistic. Each of these three modes of explanation is used inKing’s rhetoric. But these three modes of explanation are also

interconnected, and they are interconnected according to a cer-tain order. In this sense, they can be understood as three rungs

on a ladder, connected with each other by the sidepieces of the

ladder. This order means that the modes of explanation havedifferent definitional powers. The religious mode is the mostpowerful and therefore the highest rung of the ladder. It is there

that the ultimate definition is always anchored. Thereafter comethe idealistic mode, and lastly the materialistic. But, and this iswhat is central to the functioning of the discourse, since the

modes are interconnected in the form of a ladder, the power of

the ultimate definition also becomes a part of the other modes,which means that materialistic explanations become vested withthe authority of God and his universe of idealism.

In this speech, King wants to describe the background of thecivil rights movement, its current struggle, and the conse-

quences of its coming victory. In that sense, the speech is highlyrepresentative of King’s project in general. In these three seg-

ments he explains the “whats,” the “whys,” and the “hows” of what he is doing and aiming for; these general positions arepresent throughout his entire public career.8 But there are still

some interesting discrepancies to note that highlight the dif-

ferences between materialism, idealism, and religious idealism:The material and historical explanation of how the civil rights




movement came about is broad in scope; it describes the soci-

ety in general in which the new Negro emerges. The idealisticdefinition of contemporary society takes a much more narrowview; the idea of segregation stands opposed to the idea of inte-

gration. Finally, the religious definition of the struggle pro-vides a context to both the earlier explanations. It positions

them inside its own frames of meaning and understanding. Such

positioning is a defining characteristic of the discourse of faith.The three levels of materialism, idealism, and faith are in-

terconnected. They form a hierarchy in which each new levelcontains a further element of truth that posits the earlier defi-nition. And on the highest rung of this ladder of significationstands faith (or, if one wishes to personalize it, God). In brief:

Religion determines the ideals that determine the material re-ality; once this process has taken place, it is possible for reli-

gion to explain both ideals and material reality within its own

sphere.This is the function of the religious superstructure and the

basic building block of the construction of the civil rights move-

ment discourse as a discourse of faith. King’s concrete histori-cal reality takes place within the framework of religious real-ity. A discourse of faith means that meaning is always given

from above. A concrete situation is always determined by ide-

als that have their home and final end in faith.This reveals how closely connected the discourse of faith is

with the project of creating an discourse of inclusion, a process

by which the discourse of faith is able to incorporate a totality,as opposed to separate parts, through its monopolistic claims

that it is grounded in truth. Through its naming process, a dis-course of faith can create frames around a content that is vastly

diverse. But despite this diversity, when the discourse of faithis used successfully as it was, generally speaking, in King’s pre-1965 rhetoric, it gives the speaker and also—and this is impor-tant—the ideologue almost the same power as Adam, who was

given the power to name the earth’s inhabitants.

In King’s rhetoric, an always-present religious superstruc-




ture determines the discourse of faith. What finally gives mean-

ing, and indeed, what finally is, is the ultimate truth and tan-gible presence of (ontologically) God and (epistemologically)faith. Religion broadly defined is what gives humankind a struc-

ture and context in which it can be fully defined and explained.It gives humans meaning. There are always several ways of

describing one thing, but the religious definition is always the

ultimate, and it is always necessary if the full meaning of some-thing/everything is to be understood. This is the retrogression

of the religious superstructure: Even when the most earthlydemand is made or when the most materialistic explanation isgiven, it already inhabits the meaning that it is given throughthe religious interpretation.

When discussing the discourse of faith in its more special-ized relationship with the rhetoric and activities of the civil

rights movement, it is also necessary to remember that a dis-

course not only creates the frames inside which speaking andunderstanding are possible. This position also implies an out-side location. You can stand on two sides of every boundary.

This means that the discourse of faith cannot be viewed asseparate from the world and society it names and defines. Theinteraction with this world and this society produces some-

thing that goes beyond the initial scope of the religious defini-

tions. But what does King’s civil rights movement discourse asa discourse of faith produce? Four areas are discernable.

Reality

The first area is that which states that reality is a religious

manifestation. The universe is moral. Knowledge and truth is

what is needed to, from the viewpoint of God, uphold and, from

the viewpoint of man, comprehend the universe. This basic re-ligious-idealistic outlook also forms a scale—the ladder of sig-

nification—and a relationship: The frames of the discourse de-termine its internal content.

It is easy to say that King uses grandiose words to describe

the little things in order to make them important, to motivate




the masses of civil rights activists and to interpret the struggle

in such a way that it can and will be accessible to as many aspossible. This is more than a style of speaking. In speaking thisway, King establishes that reality is constituted in this way.

This is not a surface below which we can find a “real” under-standing or a “reality.” King’s rhetoric rests on and expresses a

logic that in a comprehensive way defines reality in all its as-

pects.So when King states that reality is moral and idealistic, when

he states that the struggle against segregation is not a strugglebetween white and black or between individuals but is a strugglebetween the forces of good/light and the forces of evil/dark-ness, the way he expresses the struggle itself reveals what the

struggle is, how it should be fought, who should fight it, andwhat it will lead to.9

The struggle is ultimately about values. A change of values

precedes a change of the concrete relations. The struggle musttherefore be fought in a way that produces these values, andthe agents of the struggle are all those who want new values

infused into society (this is a core inclusive value of the civilrights movement’s discourse), and the goal of the struggle iswhat King later in his career dubbed “a revolution of values.”10

King’s oft-repeated version of the course of events of the

Montgomery bus boycott illustrates this point. As he explained,the boycott was precipitated by the Negro’s new self-evalua-

tion and the values produced by the Supreme Court throughtheir Brown v Board of Education decision in 1954. Togetherthis produced the zeitgeist that influenced Rosa Parks’s deci-

sion to remain seated on the bus. The boycott itself was a sym-bolic action to force a change in white attitudes and it was led

by clergymen, representing the church and, ultimately, God.11

The core of King’s notion of nonviolence indeed contains and

creates this idealistic effect. The goal is to reach the conscienceof the evildoer and thereby change him/her and his/her activi-

ties. Changing the conscience of the evildoer is also a metaphorfor what social change is as expressed in King’s notion of real-




ity. You change the world by changing man’s perception of it

and attitudes toward it.The ideological effects of this notion of reality have also

another component that is based on the same notion of change.

From the beginning of his public career King spoke of economicequality, but the potential radicalness of this demand was largely

defused. It was embedded in and to a degree shielded by the

fact that the movement was perceived as “radical” in itself. Inthe 1950s South, the different aspects of this radicalness did

not need to be pointed out. Another reason for the defusing ismore directly linked with the idealistic notion of reality andthe characterization of the struggle as a struggle to change val-ues that then in their turn would change society. The demand

for economic equality becomes a part of a discourse where thedemand for racial equality is the defining demand and in this

discourse, ultimately determined by the truths of the moral

universe of God, a change of values, a change in the way mancomprehends the world, precedes, in a temporal sense, a changein the “material” world. Economic equality therefore becomes

a value issue. It is part of the demand for racial equality, a de-mand that is sanctioned by God and the Bible. If African Ameri-cans were to achieve economic equality, the thinking and atti-

tudes of man must first be changed. Once that was done, a

material change would follow.This partially explains why the “acceptance” of the demand

for economic equality was much greater before 1965 than af-

terward. The radicalization of the demand was a change of de-gree, not of kind. But during the early struggle the demand for

change could, through the unified discursive process it was thena part of, accede to hegemonic notions. It attacked not the ac-

tual structure of wealth but man’s perception and acceptanceof that structure. King argued that if the values were changed,the structure would change, not the other way around. Thislogic was partly transformed when the discursive process

changed after the legal victories and the move to the North.

The result of the unified discourse of faith was a set of ideo-




logical demands that would have been perceived differently out

of their discursive context, but as expressed within that frame,they fitted well within the dominating ideological notions of the day.

Man and Society

The second area of the ideological effects of King’s discourseis that it is connected with particular notions of what man and

society are. Here we can find strongly normative ideological

effects of King’s rhetoric, and here we can also find the impor-tance of the ladder of signification discussed in relation to real-

ity.In one sense it is quite easy to comprehend what man and

society are in King’s rhetoric (even if the emphasis varies

slightly during his career). Man has both a material and a spiri-tual side. The former must not be neglected, but it is in the

latter that the point of contact with God can be reached throughthe divinity within man’s personality, that which causes himto be made in the image of God.12 In a similar way, society is

quite simply the general form for how man organizes his col-

lective life. Ideally it should involve democracy, equality, and justice.13

But what happens when material ideals and spiritual ideals

meet? Are there any specialized norms involved in this rela-tionship, or does the generality of the divine righteousnessmean that it becomes a rhetorical construction that harbors

little more than a slight adjustment to mainstream U.S. val-ues? And what is the role of the “Kingdom of God” and “the

beloved community” here? These questions are so central in

King’s religious faith and ideology that they need to be dis-

cussed in close association with the messages in which he spokeof a new and ideal society created by and for a new man who

had learned to view reality in a different way, one that corre-sponded to the ultimate truth and knowledge of God. The lastpart of this chapter is devoted to a more detailed discussion of

this “beloved community.”




History

The third area of ideological effects of King’s rhetoric is thathis discourse contains definitions of what history is. As can be

seen in the passages from “The Church on the Frontier of Ra-cial Tension,” history and historical change are closely associ-

ated with progress, which King ties to a sense of the rationalityof history—the notion that history unfolds according to a cer-

tain plan. This is contained both in his guarantee that thestruggle will be victorious and in his discussions of the mate-rial changes in the first half of twentieth-century America. But

it is important to note that values and ideals lead this progress.This interpretation is also tied to King’s version of what realityis. Since ultimately reality is truth, knowledge, values, and so

forth, any rational progress in this reality must be initiated in

and through those areas. History unfolds, but it does so ac-cording to a particular pattern. This is true of all three ideal

understandings of history that are present in King’s rhetoric.Whether history is endowed with a force in itself (zeitgeist),understood typologically, or depicted as neutral and dependent

on the activity of humankind, it is still a journey toward lib-eration in one sense or another.14 Man must therefore put as

much effort as possible into the institutions that promotes thisrighteous path of history, which is mainly religious and educa-

tional. Again, progress is determined by the values of human-ity.

Morality

The fourth area of ideological effects of King’s rhetoric isthat the discourse is constructed and upheld by the assumption

that right and wrong (good and evil) are real entities.15 The

dichotomy does not mean that man cannot move between them,but it means that in the reality of man on earth, there always

must be someone who can define the dichotomy and be in theposition where his or her words will be taken as God’s words

and his or her judgment will be taken as God’s judgment.There is an interesting gap in King’s assertions of faith rela-

Ring Out Freedom (Excerpt)

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