Episode Details

Chuck Colson often described the importance of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 2009, Chuck, along with fellow authors Dr. Timothy George and Dr. Robert George, cited Dr. King in the Manhattan Declaration, a statement of conscience regarding life, marriage, and religious liberty in the United States. 

In 1955, after only a year of pastoring a church in Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. King was selected to lead an organization that boycotted public transportation. This was in response to the arrest of Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on a bus. With a remarkable speaking ability and his advocacy of peaceful protest, Dr. King became a primary voice of the Civil Rights Movement.

Chuck Colson noted three significant aspects of Dr. King’s work.  First, Dr. King was deeply influenced by his Christian faith. Though a series of personal failures are now known to be, sadly, serial, the principles from which he spoke and wrote were undeniably Christian. Reflecting on Dr. King’s time in Birmingham, fighting against segregation and for equal job opportunities for African Americans, Chuck noted the following: 

During his Birmingham civil rights campaign, Dr. King required every participant to sign a pledge committing to do ten things. The first was to “meditate daily on the teachings and life of Jesus.” Others included the expectation that all participants would “walk and talk in the manner of love, for God is love” and “pray daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free.” 

To truly understand Martin Luther King, students must learn about his Christian faith. It was at the heart of what he did. 

Recently, sports commentator Chris Broussard and human rights expert Dr. Matt Daniels have produced a video series emphasizing the biblical principles that inspired Dr. King’s life and work. Dr. Daniels is concerned that the Christian underpinnings of Dr. King’s legacy are being lost. You can find this series “Share the Dream” at churchsource.org. 

In another commentary, Chuck Colson noted how Dr. King understood divine law as the source of human law. King’s greatest demonstration of this was in his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,”  something Chuck Colson often referred to as “the most important legal document of the twentieth century.” Here’s Chuck: 

King defended the transcendent source of the law’s authority. In doing so he took a conservative Christian view of law. In fact, he was perhaps the most eloquent advocate of this viewpoint in his time, as, interestingly, Justice Clarence Thomas may be today.  

Writing from a