A Call to the Beloved Community: A Vision for Justice, Peace and Reconciliation in the 21st Century
Simeon Talley
April 2006
The Beloved Community is a term that was first coined in the early 20th century by the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, which Royce founded, popularized the term and invested within it a deeper moral and spiritual vision. And it is with King’s vision of The Beloved Community that I return to answer the prompt all of the contestants here are responding to. Rooted in the gospel concept of Agape love as King interpreted it, The Beloved Community urges us to examine our humanity and awaken our consciousness. The Beloved Community is a vision for justice, peace and reconciliation in our world. We seek this community out of the agape love as King talked spoke of it. This is not a romantic love or one that is expressed out of reciprocity rather one that is understanding and redeeming for all. This is a love that is creative rather than static and never limited. It is the love of God operating in the human heart calling us to a fuller attainment of our shared humanity. To King The Beloved Community was our shared destiny. This vision King spoke of in the mid 20th century still should morally compel us in the 21st century. For the injustice and inequity that has always plagued our world inhibits the actualization of such a vision. We will never fully be human or a whole humanity, while injustice inflicts so many. Our human existence is fractured and our ability to be in relationship with God and each other as a result of injustice is deficient. King’s vision of The Beloved Community can still morally convict and spiritually awaken us today.
At the dawn of the 21st century our humanity faces enormous challenges to deal with the injustices and inequities that plague our world. Throughout the world, claims of prosperity and economic well-being are contradicted by the increasing income insecurity with which the majority of people live. Institutional racism is still the norm, systematically deferring the hopes of millions who aspire to participate fully and equally in all facets of social life. Wealth continually is concentrated and accumulated within the hands of the few giving rise to a plutocratic political process.
In our American context we have seen the rise of antidemocratic dogmas as Cornel West illustrates in his book Democracy Matters, which tear at the gentle fabric of American democracy. The ideology of free-market fundamentalism has become a reigning cultural theology. The market system promotes income differences, social inequality, while separating and perpetuating age-old hierarchical distinctions along ethnic, gender and age lines. Full citizenship and even the acknowledgement of one’s essential humanity increasingly depend upon the amount of money at one’s disposal. The market places a premium on buying and selling, consuming and taking, promoting and advertising, and devalues community. The human being is dehumanized and transformed into a thing. The full realization of man’s humanity and his/hers emancipation from the social forces that imprison him/her are thus bound up.
We have allowed our fear and insecurity to rationalize unjust military force or rather we were all deceived by faulty intelligence. The use of force, violence and militaristic aggression is seen as our salvation from terrorism. The doctrine of pre-emptive strike represents a furthering bankruptcy of already morally bankrupt American foreign policy. This brand of hubris disregards international cooperation and multilateral diplomacy. Its actions are beyond reproach while it takes the lives of many of the innocent people it claims to be helping.
21st century imperialism necessitates a network of uneven and unjust power relationships. As George Bond points out in his book Buddhism at Work “Our relentless pursuit of economic growth is accelerating the breakdown of the planet’s life support systems, intensifying resource competition, widening the gap between rich and poor, and undermining the values and relationships of family and community” (Bond 116). Poverty in the underdeveloped countries is directly correlated to the quality of life experienced by those living in what is called the developed countries. Its historical construction and its perpetuation are linked together. The unwillingness to cancel debt harbors many countries at the mercy of the West. Towards the end of the first semester a group working with debt cancellation organization jubilee USA appeared before many Christian Values in a global community classes. One woman, whom had happened to be a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, commented that indebtedness of the world’s poorest countries to the richest represents occupation; occupation in the historical context of colonialism and imperialism. Simply worded but powerfully spoken she said “Debt equals Death”. A former president of Tanzania may have most succinctly summarized it with his statement “Must we starve our children to pay our debts?"
These challenges and many more await us as we move into the 21st century. How should we respond to them? How should justice loving, peace seeking people interact within a world of so much injustice? This beckons us to examine the true meaning of what it means to be human and participate in humanity. It questions the spiritual and moral depths of our faith to live in community. And what I assert is that it calls us to reaffirm that we strive towards a Beloved Community.
Central to the idea of the Beloved Community is the solidarity of the human family. As articulated in King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail Cell “We are all tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality”. Society and our very humanity are interwoven together. To King the Civil Rights movement to “integrate” was to enlarge the concept of brotherhood to a vision of total interrelatedness. The social construction of race physically and spiritually separates us from what King envisioned to be the ideal corporate expression of the Christian faith, community. In such a Beloved Community our loyalties must transcend our race, class and our nation. In such a community the plight of the poor is the plight of us all and we are morally obligated out of love for one another to work towards economic justice. The participants in the Civil Rights movement represented the Beloved Community in microcosm. Drawing from every section of American society, the educated and the illiterate, the affluent and the welfare recipient, white and black, men and women who heretofore had been separated by rigid social and legal codes were brought together in a common cause.
The interrelatedness of human existence means that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”, either we will have justice for all or none will have justice. Racial, economic and gender inequality weaken the whole social fabric; furthermore it makes us less human. The liberation of the oppressed liberates the oppressor. We are all in moral bondage when war breaks out, when inequality rises or when we discriminate, these evils hold us all captive. Humanity is indivisible. Making this connection King says “Let us be dissatisfied until rat-infested, vermin-filled slums will be a thing of a dark past and every family will have a decent sanitary house in which to live. Let us be dissatisfied until the empty stomachs of Mississippi are filled and the idle industries of Appalachia are revitalized…Let us be dissatisfied until our brothers of the Third World of Asia, Africa and Latin America will no longer be victims of imperialist exploitation, but will be lifted from the long night of poverty, illiteracy and disease”. And the securing of the right of all to live with dignity and integrity within community requires the eliminations of the structures of economic injustice that capitalism yields.
The Beloved Community can not be disassociated from the alleviation of inequity and injustice. Expressions such as “human dignity” and “brotherhood of mankind” mean little when they have no concrete expressions in the structures of society. Institutions must be changed and we must work at systemic levels. Inequities are linked; King had the foresight to see the linkages between racism, economic inequality and Vietnam. Our commonality in seeking peace, justice and reconciliation must unite us.
In conclusion, I would like to illustrate my point with an example that King used to explain his commitment to nonviolence. Most succinctly either we have nonviolence or we have nonexistence. The use of violence is evident of our human brokenness and moral depravity. To fully exist as God has called us to be we must shed our use of force for it detracts from the very nature of our humanity. This is not a utopian idea or goal. The Beloved Community is the most authentic and genuine expression of what we are to be in our world with each other and with our God. Nonviolence and justice are not our ends. The Beloved Community is our end. Thank You.
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