On January 27, 2017, the annual March for Life will take place in Washington, DC. On January 16th, we commemorate a Christian leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was assassinated in 1968 for defending the fundamental truth of the dignity of every human person. For anyone who honestly examines the facts, the connection between these two events should be crystal clear.

Social Justice and Dr. King’s Jailhouse Letter

On April 16, 1963, this great American leader, this dedicated Christian man who understood the fundamental truth that all men and women are endowed by God the Creator with inalienable rights, wrote a Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It has become one of my favorite among his beautiful writings, speeches and sermons.

This jailhouse letter should be viewed as a manifesto for every Christian, and especially Christian clergy, who want to understand and live the obligation we have to stand for authentic social justice. Sadly, the term social justice has been co-opted by some self-interested people. It has even been twisted by some folks with certain political and social agendas which Dr. King certainly did not share.

Sadly, the term social justice has been co-opted by some self-interested people. However, it is a term that should not be given up by contemporary Christians.

However, it is a term that should not be given up by contemporary Christians. Among all people, we know that we have an obligation to our neighbors, and are called by the Lord Himself to show a special love for the poor. The 25th chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew is a stirring account of the last judgement which should be read by anyone who doubts the seriousness of our obligations in solidarity.

As a Deacon of the Catholic Church, I prayerfully read this letter written from a jail cell every year during this holiday when we remember this great American hero. I have wondered over the years if more such letters from jail cells might be ahead for many Christians if this nation that we love does not turn back to God. I have hope, however, that the God whom Dr. King loved and served always hears the cry of His people.

Human Rights, The Right to Life and Dr. King’s Faith

Dr. King was, first and foremost, a dedicated Christian. It was his understanding of the unity of the message of salvation which the saving life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ offers to all men and women which inspired him and animated his life work. He did not separate faith and life. He understood they cannot be separated. He engaged in his work of true justice because he was called by God. Reverend Dr. King was unjustly imprisoned at the time of the writing of this letter for defending the fundamental human rights of every single human person.

I say “human rights” because these rights have their source in our identity as human persons who are created in the Image of God. The civil Government did not grant them, and the civil Government cannot take them away. These fundamental human rights are ours because we have received them from God. The first among them is the right to life itself.

Without the right to life there can be no other human rights.

Without that right to life there can be no other human rights. Human rights are goods of the human person and every procured abortion takes the life of an innocent human person. Civil rights are the domain of the State. They are meant to recognize and protect human rights. And, as is obvious from Dr. King’s unjust imprisonment, they are not always justly enforced or protected.

It was Dr. King’s Christian faith that inspired his letter from the Birmingham jail. He knew that as Jesus offered Himself on that Cross on Golgotha, he brought the only true end to all division by dealing with its root cause, recreating us in Himself and breaking down the dividing walls of hostility which separate us, bringing us into His Body. (See, e.g., Eph 2:14)

Dr. King on Civil Disobedience and Christian Solidarity

Dr. King explained to some within the Christian community of his day who had objected to his methods:

I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their thus saith the Lord far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

He articulated one of the best expressions of Christian solidarity which I have read in my lifetime:

I am cognizant of the inter-relatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Standing on the shoulders of the Old Testament Prophets, and under the Shadow of the Cross where the final Prophetic voice, the Word made Flesh, Jesus the Christ, hung in selfless love for all men and women, Dr. King addressed unjust civil laws:

How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a manmade 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 law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

He confronted those who accused him of being extreme because he called some laws unjust and therefore not law at all with these poignant, prophetic and powerful words:

One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake.

It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s anti-religious laws.

As we remember the dream and honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we must continue his work and not succumb to the counterfeit agendas which seek to leech upon his noble memory. There is no doubt that any positive or civil law which protects the killing of our youngest neighbor, the child in the womb, is an unjust law. It must be opposed and resisted. In his words, “Now is the time to make justice a reality to all of Gods children.”