Each MLKjr Day I read this letter. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior wrote the letter sitting in jail. The letter’s occasion was to respond to several mainline church white pastors who admonished King to wait and negotiate and give the process more time. King had a different strategy – peacefully demonstrate, and then you get to negotiate. Time had produced no change. Here’s on of my favorite selections of the letter:

For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant ‘Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.

Change comes from below. Theologian Miguel A. de la Torre said so. Change activates from the oppressed, the voiceless, the harassed, butchered, and enslaved. de la Torre notes the Hebrews cried out to God and the prophets called for change while the Jews were being slaughtered by the Assyrians during Jonah’s time of prophecy. Those in power have the luxury and privilege of thinking, discussing, writing, pondering – and doing nothing. I know this role all too well. I am hegemony.

I ponder if the African American church is the future of American Christianity. At the same time I believe a certain large segment of Christianity will become the “National Christian” movement. For many centuries a certain segment of Christians have unwittingly become puppets of the state. This will be a moralistic privileged segment of Christianity. I will say that they will cease to be Christian in my opinion. I am talking about conservatives here. Of course, the “modern moral order” (MMO) that philosopher Charles Taylor identifies has already left its mother, the church. Progressive moralists know better than the church and the Bible what is good morals. Like all moral fundamentalists they are willing to attack any who oppose them.

Is the middle the true church? Or is the middle just the lame duck church? Neither nationalistic or secular moral fundamentalist, the middle may just end up being like the Sadducees of Jesus’ day – privileged land holders (middle class +) who simply have to do nothing to maintain their comforts.

Maybe this is why I think the black church holds the future of authentic Christian faith for America. African American believers are conservative. They are willing to activate justice for those who are put down. Their worship is hopeful and energetic. The preaching is uncompromising. Their daily belief borders on what secularists might call magic or folk religion. Good. Good because as Karl Rahner once said, “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or not exists at all.”

An article in local newspaper this morning said we should expect to hear a lot about King’s mentor, theologian Howard Thurman. Thurman was classified a mystic simply because he practiced solitude and silence, disciplines descriptive of contemplatives. Therefore, King did too. No one becomes a radical without solitude and silence, often forced through incarceration. I am thinking of Gandhi, Mandela, and any number of Reformation theologians, saints, exiles, and martyrs like Thomas Moore, Cranmer, Calvin, etc.

My hope is that today’s Christian, today’s America church would practice “mystical” disciplines and asceticism. We need to sit at the feet of Jesus and like Mary “unum est necessarium” – do the one thing necessary. This is not un-action – contemplative prayer is the red hot coals of biblical justice. Without contemplation we are just angry privileged white Christians. With prayer however, we become children of God most high. Thurman’s grandmother was once a slave. She told her grandson that a slave preacher once told the congregation ‘You are not slaves! You are children of God!” Amen. May all of us drop our titles and classifications, judgments and labels, and become children of God.