Martin Luther King Analysis

Followers of Christ may find living out Jesus’ mission extremely difficult, especially His call for justice for all people in the world and the importance of love and nonviolence acting as the catalyst for this justice. While this notion can be troublesome to grasp, they can look towards Martin Luther King Junior and his life to experience this belief in action. King’s life, particularly noting his stances on non-violence, and his Drum Major Instinct sermon demonstrate how justice is a journey in the sense that it challenges people to change their perspectives and try to live more like Jesus Christ.
To begin, King’s sermon, “The Drum Major Instinct,” challenges people to truly live by Jesus’s words, “...but whosoever will be great among
In his speech, King explains that Jesus told his disciples that to be great that they must serve others. Jesus and King’s explanation of greatness is universal because anyone, despite ethnicity, culture, economic status, or education level, to serve others. This definition of greatness truly challenges what could be someone’s worldview of greatness. Someone's worldview is their understanding, conceptions, or beliefs about the world. Serving others will bring about the Kingdom of God, a reality where “love is more important than anything else in people’s lives,” and that is when true greatness will be apparent in everyone’s lives. Furthermore, this new definition of greatness challenges people who are actively serving others and asking themselves “why serve others?” To truly be great, one must serve others out of a place of compassion, not enlightened self interest. With all that said, coming to Jesus and King’s interpretation of greatness is not easy. It is something people must work towards, truly making justice a
As King’s associates explain, “In order to understand Martin Luther King you must start with the fact that he was a minister. That is the key to who Martin Luther King Jr. was. If you try to take him as a, quote, civil rights leader, or a political leader, you will miss the real King. He was first and foremost a minister.” King was fiercely devoted to his faith and thought that his duty in life was to take up the cross as Jesus did and his cross was being a prominent leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Following in Jesus’s footsteps, King took a nonviolent approach to challenge segregation and racism in America. While there a many examples of King’s nonviolent actions to protest the injustices in America, one in particular that stands out is his protests in Birmingham, Alabama. The Birmingham movement was a rally to bring attention to the efforts of people in Birmingham to desegregate public places. However, the city, in anticipation of the protest, got a state government order that deemed the protest illegal. Despite the order, King, along with many others, decided to continue with the protest, which ended with King and the other protesters being arrested. Here, King demonstrated civil disobedience, the refusal to obey a corrupt system, usually in a peaceful way. King’s peaceful protests were sometimes met with abusive challengers and even those who were working