I can think of no better way to honor the memory of the man whose life we celebrate today than to read his Letter From a Birmingham City Jail.
It's hard, I think, to read King's letter without drawing the conclusion that he was driven by his conviction that the Gospel demands that we do justice to our fellow man and that this is our highest obligation. His Christian faith permeated and informed his political thinking, and it would be good for those who admire King but who also believe that religion has no place in the public sphere to reflect on the fact that apart from Christianity there would have been no Martin Luther King. Indeed, a naked public square could never have produced an American civil rights movement.
RLC
