“He was a troublemaker.”
I was 10 years old and had just asked an adult, “Who was Martin Luther King Jr.?” At that age, I wasn’t doing a whole lot of critical thinking. I accepted the answer and moved on.
Twelve years later in a class taught by Dr. Bob Black at Southern Wesleyan University, I found myself reading “Discovering an Evangelical Heritage” by Don Dayton. I was inspired as I read how Wesleyans were instrumental in the antislavery movement. Through their writings and active service on the Underground Railroad, they risked security, reputation and their lives for a just cause.
Given the nature of our rich founding heritage, I assumed we had a similar presence during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. To my disappointment, I discovered the opposite. As a matter of fact, it was a low point for the greater Evangelical Movement. In a May 1975 article in the “Post-American,” the Civil Rights Era was viewed as a time in which there was “a failure of Evangelical conscious.”
This historical journey took me back to my 10-year-old self and the answer to my question about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “He was a troublemaker.”
I started to think how founding Wesleyans were known as troublemakers. Officially, people called them “agitators.” One of our founders, Reverend Orange Scott, comes to mind. People’s irritation with him is captured in Dr. Bob Black and Dr. Keith Drury’s book “The Story of the Wesleyan Church” when they say:
“Scott was the most outspoken advocate for abolitionism at the conference and therefore the most exposed target to abolitionism’s opponents. One southern delegate characterized him as ‘either a reckless incendiary or non compos mentis,’ legal language for ‘not of sound mind.’ Another said of him, ‘I wish to God he were in heaven,’ an artificially polite invitation for Scott to drop dead.”1
This got me thinking that perhaps I needed to read some of Dr. King’s writings. I started with “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Imagine my surprise and delight as I recognized themes consistent with our own Wesleyan writings a century previous.
At one point in his letter, Dr. King says:
“A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.”2
I was struck by how similar this language was to Reverend Luther Lee’s (one of The Wesleyan Church founders). In his sermon “The Supremacy of the Divine Law,” Rev. Lee says: “… the design of human law is to secure what is already known to be right. The only good reason why any human law should be enacted, is the fact, that the end to be secured by it is right.”3 He goes on to qualify “right” as springing from God’s eternal character.
In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King defends the use of civil disobedience. This too was something founding Wesleyans defended. Rev. Lee preached “The Supremacy of the Divine Law” at the funeral of Reverend Charles Turner Torrey who was found guilty of breaking the law when he actively participated in helping slaves escape. Sentenced to five years in prison, Rev. Torrey died before his release. Rev. Lee acknowledged that he broke the law but defended it by saying Rev. Torrey did what was right.
In the following quote, one gets the sense of how radical Rev. Lee was in setting aside the law when doing the right thing.
“If money, a horse, or a boat will enable a slave to secure his liberty, and he cannot secure it without, he has a right to take them, because his right to liberty is inalienable, and greater than another man’s right to property.”4
As I continued to read “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” I too came to view Dr. King as a troublemaker. A troublemaker in the same way our founders were troublemakers because they were calling people to the right and the good. Over time I came to understand that when one is on the wrong side of the right, those calling you back to the right are troublesome. Look at Elijah during the reign of Ahab. It amuses me how Ahab greets him in 1 Kings 18:17 (MSG), “The moment Ahab saw Elijah he said, ‘So it’s you, old troublemaker!’”
Over the years, I have come to admire Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the same way I admire our Wesleyan founders. In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he called for justice and redress of the law. He called for nothing less than what Rev. Luther Lee was calling for 100 years earlier when he said of justice, “Justice is that virtue which consists in rendering to all what is required by the law of absolute right.”5 Dr. King was calling for the United States to pass legislation that would secure the rights many blacks were being denied.
I admire Dr. King for being a voice calling for justice during a period in which many evangelicals had grown silent. In his letter, Dr. King appeals to the prophet Amos. It was a time of prosperity for Israel, but Amos warned Israel that judgement was coming because of their unjust ways toward the poor. Amos makes it clear that God was tired with all of Israel’s religious pretense. The word from the Lord was, “… let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24, NIV).
I admire Dr. King because he reminds me of what we were at our founding, which gives me hope for our future.
One thing I appreciate about John Wesley and The Wesleyan Church founders is that through them our heritage is rooted in a tradition of salvific and social concern. They are not bifurcated. They are one. While we have had times in the past where we have struggled to hold the two in sway, I am encouraged that there are many who understand the importance of both sides of our calling.
Rev. Anthony Casey is the assistant general secretary of The Wesleyan Church.
Black, Robert, and Drury, Keith. “The Story of the Wesleyan Church” (Fishers, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 2012). Used by permission.
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
King, Jr., Martin Luther. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf.
Lee, Luther. “Elements of Theology or An Exposition of the Divine Origin, Doctrines, Morals and Institutions of Christianity” (Syracuse, NY: A. W. Hall Publishers, 1899).
Lee, Luther. “Fourth of July Oration, Delivered from the Rock above the Grave of Capt. John Brown, at North Elba, N.Y., by the Rev. Luther Lee, of Chagrin Falls, Cuyahoga County, Ohio,” in “Liberator,” August 3, 1860.
Lee, Luther. “The Supremacy of the Divine Law,” in “Five Sermons and a Tract,” ed. Donald Dayton (Chicago: Holrad House, 1975).
The Message (MSG), copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson.
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1 Black and Drury, “The Story of the Wesleyan Church,” 28.
2 King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
3 Lee, “The Supremacy of the Divine Law,” 52.
4 Lee, “Fourth of July Oration.”
5 Lee, “Elements of Theology,” 73.
