As we watch images of anger and protest following this week’s events in Minneapolis, I cannot help but be reminded of the black-and-white footage of the civil rights movement that once filled evening newscasts in the 1960s. Images of citizens being violently repressed while nonviolently protesting the systemic racism they endured day after day caused an entire nation to pause, reflect, and ultimately work toward lasting change.

As a theologian, Martin Luther King often reflected on his understanding of nonviolence. Both “morally and practically” committed to nonviolence, King believed that “the Christian doctrine of love operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence was one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”

King was first introduced to the concept of nonviolence when he read Henry David Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedience as a freshman at Morehouse College. Having grown up in Atlanta and witnessed segregation and racism every day, King was “fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system.”

In 1950, as a student at Crozer Theological Seminary, King heard a talk by Dr. Mordecai Johnson, president of Howard University. Dr. Johnson, who had recently traveled to India, spoke about the life and teachings of Mohandas K. Gandhi. Gandhi, King later wrote, was the first person to transform Christian love into a powerful force for social change. Gandhi’s stress on love and nonviolence gave King “the method for social reform that I had been seeking.”

While intellectually committed to nonviolence, King did not experience the power of nonviolent direct action first-hand until the start of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. During the boycott, King personally enacted Gandhian principles. King eventually decided not to use armed bodyguards despite threats on his life, and reacted to violent experiences, such as the bombing of his home, with compassion. Through the practical experience of leading nonviolent protest, King came to understand how nonviolence could become a way of life, applicable to all situations. King called the principle of nonviolent resistance the “guiding light of our movement. Christ furnished the spirit and motivation while Gandhi furnished the method.”

King’s notion of nonviolence had six key principles:

• First, one can resist evil without resorting to violence.
• Second, nonviolence seeks to win the “friendship and understanding” of the opponent, not to humiliate him.
• Third, evil itself, not the people committing evil acts, should be opposed.
• Fourth, those committed to nonviolence must be willing to suffer without retaliation, as suffering itself can be redemptive.
• Fifth, nonviolent resistance avoids “external physical violence” and “internal violence of spirit” as well: “The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him.” The resister should be motivated by love in the sense of the Greek word agape, which means “understanding,” or “redeeming goodwill for all men.”
• The sixth principle is that the nonviolent resister must have a “deep faith in the future,” stemming from the conviction that “The universe is on the side of justice.”

During the years after the bus boycott, King grew increasingly committed to nonviolence. King began to advocate nonviolence not just in a national sphere, but internationally as well: “the potential destructiveness of modern weapons” convinced King that “the choice today is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence.”

Here is one of my favorite quotes of Dr. King: “Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Please join us on Monday for a morning of service, community building, and reflection to honor Dr. King’s legacy.