THE CHURCH IS NOT A SERVANT OF THE STATE

Words of Martin Luther King/ Sermon

 

How often has the church left men standing in the frustrating midnight of economic deprivation. In so many instances it has so aligned itself with the privileged classes and defended the status quo that it found it impossible to answer the knock at midnight. We must never forget the lesson of the Greek Church in Russia.

This church allied itself with the status quo and became so inextricably bound with the corrupt czarist regime, that it was impossible to get rid of the corrupt political and social system without getting rid of the church. This is the fate of every ecclesiastical organization that allies itself with the status-quo.

The church must be reminded once again that {it} is not to be the master or the servant of the state, but the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state,—never its tool. As long as the church is a tool of the state it will be unable to provide even a modicum of bread for men at midnight. 

If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal and cease to be an echo of the status-quo it will be relegated to an irrelevant social club with no moral or spiritual authority. If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace, economic and racial justice, it will forfeit the loyalty of millions and cause men everywhere to know that it is an institution whose will is atrophied. But if the church will free itself from the shackles of a deadening status-quo, and, recovering its great historic mission, will proceed to speak and act fearlessly and insistently on the questions of justice and peace, it will enkindle the imagination of mankind. It will fire the souls of men and imbue them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice and peace. Men far and near will then see the church as that great fellowship of love which provides light and bread for lonely travelers at midnight. In speaking of the laxity of the church, I must not overlook the fact that the so-called Negro church has often left men disappointed at midnight. I say so-calledNegro church, because ideally, there can be no Negro or white church. It is to the everlasting shame of the American church that white Christians developed a system of racial segregation within the church, and inflicted so many indignities upon its Negro worshippers that they had to go out and organize their own churches. There are two types of Negro churches that have failed to provide bread at midnight. One is a church that burns up with emotionalism and the other is a church that freezes up with classism. The former is a church that reduces worship to entertainment, and places more emphasis on volume than on content. It confuses spirituality with musicality. The danger of this church is that its members will end up with more religion in their hands and feet than in their hearts and souls. So many people have been fed by this type of church at midnight, and it had neither the vitality nor the strength to feed their hungry souls.