In August of 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood before an intensely divided nation, crying out for racial justice, describing the necessities of that moment in terms of what he called “the fierce urgency of now.” Today, some do not realize the extent to which King’s vocal and embodied activism was rooted in his enduring, oft-tested faith. King’s prophetic words and readiness to confront entrenched opposition with boundless love were fueled by his faith in Jesus, a marginalized, widely misunderstood, first-century Palestinian Jewish teacher with a revolutionary vision of a worldwide community shaped and characterized by divine love and peace. Unfortunately, King’s words and actions have too often been domesticated and trivialized more than followed, even by those who claim to be his followers. And, all too often, the same can be said about Jesus.
In his relentlessly enigmatic yet compelling way, Jesus arrived on the scene, highlighting the ‘fierce urgency’ of his contemporary ‘now,’ as he announced the inbreaking of God’s empire. Exactly what Jesus had in mind when he invoked this divine reign has not always been clear. In his day, some assumed that Jesus—as the long-awaited messiah—would lead his followers in violent opposition against their imperial Roman overlords; others imagined that his arrival heralded the impending end of the famously corrupt religious hierarchy of his day. Eventually, when neither of those things occurred, the state had Jesus murdered (with the collaborative complicity of the religious leadership).
Many in Jesus’ day, who may have otherwise been favorably disposed to his message, struggled with his vision; this enigmatic storyteller seemed to advocate a kind of ‘third way’ between logical, binary options, regularly confounding even those who followed him around. He decried violence, exhorting his disciples to love everyone, including their enemies, but he did not passively roll over in the face of opposition. In truth, he confused even his closest friends. According to Luke, the folks in his hometown synagogue were so disturbed by how Jesus described God’s loving disregard for human boundaries and borders that they tried to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:14-30). Over time, many affiliated with Jesus’s legacy became comfortable acquiescing to governmental authorities, relegating much of Jesus’s significance to an immaterial, heavenly future. Loyalty and obedience to the state often became not merely pragmatic responses to injustice, but even theological virtues.
No wonder many of us struggle to figure out what it means to follow Jesus today. In the United States, we find ourselves in relatively uncharted socio-political territory. As I write (in April 2025), the current administration seems intent on destroying longstanding legal and democratic norms, as its agents shamelessly abuse their power, vilify any opposition, and revel in the exploitation of the vulnerable. Our nation is coming apart at the seams. We have sailed into dangerous, uncharted waters, and things seem destined to get worse before they get better. Too often, the church has been silently complicit in—if not at the forefront of—our unjust and dehumanizing conduct and the self-delusional mythmaking that justify it. Amid all of the noise, chaos, and calamity, how do we respond faithfully in the way of Jesus? He loved everyone, including his enemies, literally to death. What does that kind of love look like today?
King’s prophetic, forthright assessment of—and response to—“the fierce urgency” of the 1963 “now” in which he found himself may provide an instructive example of how we can begin to reckon today with the implications of Jesus’s revolutionary, self-giving love—as many of us are seeking to follow him faithfully into our own fiercely urgent “now.” In his own time, and when it counted most, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not shrink from the urgency of the moment but navigated the challenges he and the nation faced by following Jesus and his vision of what could be, of what should be—of what he believed eventually would be—a vision of a completely different, non-imperial, divine empire, a community of complete abundance and flourishing, within which, as my friend and co-author John Franke often puts it, “everyone has enough and no one needs to be afraid.”
Jesus referred to this particular empire as the “reign” or “rule” (or, as the Greek basileia is often still translated, the “kingdom”) of God. It is important to be attentive to what Jesus means and what he does not when he invokes God’s reign. We miss the depth and power of Jesus’s imagery if we understand his references to God’s reign as synonymous with “heaven”—particularly if by “heaven” we envision an otherworldly realm out there beyond the clouds somewhere, a ‘place’ only experienced beyond death. Jesus is indeed talking about heavenly possibilities, but he is not talking simply—or perhaps even primarily—about a distant place or relegating those heavenly possibilities to a sweet, future by-and-by. Instead, he’s talking about the contemporary inbreaking of God’s “rule” or “reign” in time and space (see, e.g., Luke 4:18-21), in and through an imperfect but beloved, hopeful, and revolutionary community shaped by God’s values and governed by the presence of God (see, e.g., Luke 17:21). In other words, the “reign of God” upon which Jesus’s life and teaching were fixated is emerging, even if only in nascent form, right now—indeed, right in the “fierce urgency of now.” King was guided by this vision of what he called God’s “beloved community.” Jesus’s way of self-giving love and active peacemaking provided King with both a map for and a means to engage in the adventure.
King’s prophetic voice and gospel-fueled courage remind us that faithfulness often shows itself most clearly in life’s challenging moments. The New Testament suggests over and over that following Jesus may well put us into spaces of difficulty and even opposition; indeed, King’s life and legacy suggest that a faith devoid of inconvenience probably reflects a failure to hear the full call of the gospel. How did King show up in “the fierce urgency of now,” and how will we?
Some Context: “A Call for Unity”
In January 1963, Alabama inaugurated its new governor, George Wallace, who assured his constituents that he stood for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Wallace, along with Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor, was unapologetic about his support for the ongoing culture of white supremacy that he envisioned for Birmingham and the state as a whole. Following King’s speech in Washington, non-violent, anti-segregation protests were breaking out in Birmingham by April. A court order was issued, outlawing, among other things, parades, demonstrations, and boycotts. Refusing to comply, King was jailed.
On April 12, alarmed by what they saw, eight clergy (seven Christian, one Jewish) in Birmingham published an open letter—“A Call for Unity”—urging patience, restraint, and decorum. Recognizing at least some of the injustices being perpetrated against the Black community, the pastoral leaders were content to wait upon the courts for redress. They were concerned that “outsiders” (including King) were providing guidance for the protests, and, “convinced that these demonstrations [were] unwise and untimely,” they advised that Birmingham’s racial problems should be addressed by its citizens. Effectively blaming the victims of racism for the opposition they were experiencing, the pastors asserted that “such actions as incite to hatred and violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems.” From their perspective, the “extreme measures” used by the protesters were beyond justification. Calling for observance of “the principles of law and order and common sense,” the clergy urged “our own Negro community to withdraw support from these demonstrations.”
About three weeks later, on May 3, 1963, with television cameras rolling, “Bull” Connor unleashed police dogs and water cannons on youthful Black marchers—appalling scenes that were witnessed on televised evening news reports across the nation (and that would ultimately galvanize wider support for the Civil Rights Movement). The events in early May underscore—especially with the benefit of hindsight—the inadequacy of the clergymen’s April 12 “Call for Unity.” Still, their calls for restraint and ‘legality’ undoubtedly resonated with the wide swaths of Birmingham’s Christian community. Not dissimilarly, many today are being told not to overreact as vulnerable people are exploited and disappear, and long-standing institutions are undermined. For those privileged enough not to be direct targets of injustice, restraint and legality may seem no less logical than they did to the Birmingham clergy. It is, however, worth paying attention to King’s gospel-infused response to the eight pastoral leaders. Indeed, his remarkable “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” which, in our own “fierce urgency of now,” merits close attention from every American Christian, provides timely guidance and enduring wisdom for those of us seeking to combat the injustices we encounter in our own time. Although much more could be said, I would simply like to lift five key themes from King’s letter—insights that can inform and shape white American Christians like me as we seek to follow Jesus into “the fierce urgency of now.”
Five Themes from “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” for Christians Today
First, King deconstructs the assumption that he has no standing in Birmingham as an “outsider.” He explains that he had come to town at the invitation of the Birmingham affiliate of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. More fundamentally, King asserts he is “in Birmingham because injustice is here.” He sees connective tissue linking the situation in Birmingham with other contexts: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” Traditional boundaries cannot restrain solidarity in the pursuit of justice. As King notes, residents of the United States cannot be outsiders in their own country.
Second, King highlights how socially located storytelling can obscure and misrepresent reality. He acknowledges the clergy leaders’ frustration with the demonstrations in Birmingham while expressing dismay that they have failed to “express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being.” By blaming those victimized by racial injustice for white discomfort with the protests, the pastors have chosen not to narrate Birmingham’s story from the beginning. Instead, they have decided to tell the story about their current moment by describing what they find to be a problematic reaction to injustice rather than with its true origins: the city’s long history of injustice toward Black Americans. In response, King describes how carefully, thoughtfully, and strategically he and his fellow protestors have engaged in the actions they have taken. While he eschews violence, he nevertheless points out that “constructive nonviolent tension” in the moment “is necessary for growth, for moving oppressors toward a legitimate process of negotiation. And in response to the claim that the uprising was “untimely”—that demonstrators should await change with more patience—King writes, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” For Black Americans, he notes, the call to “wait has almost always meant ‘never.’” Given the enduring specter of “never,” King expresses “hope” that the religious leaders “can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.”
Third, King responds to the pastors’ suggestion (made in an earlier letter, “An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense”) that demonstrations breached local laws. He argues that rather than seeing legality as a simple matter of fact, we must recognize “that there are two types of laws:” just and unjust. In alignment with God’s law, the former humanizes, while the latter dehumanizes. For King, humans are morally obligated to oppose unjust laws, including those codified in Birmingham. He notes his agreement with none other than St. Augustine: “An unjust law is no law at all.” For King, when one is willing to suffer the consequences of disobeying an unjust law, that demonstrates a fundamental commitment to the notion of law itself. Poignantly, he reminds the clergymen both that the Bible is replete with examples of faithful civil disobedience—and, hauntingly, “that everything Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal.’” Obedience to the law is not as straightforward a matter as the pastors wanted to suggest.
Fourth, King expresses his deep disappointment with what he calls the “white moderate”—those more committed to “order” than to “justice,” who prioritize “a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” Indeed, King makes it clear that, from his perspective, the “white moderate” is more problematic than a member of the Ku Klux Klan. At least the Klan opposition he faces is clear and overt. By contrast, white moderates, reluctant to inconvenience themselves, regularly fail to come alongside those suffering from injustice. As the letter suggests, many of those in King’s “white moderate” category identify themselves as followers of Jesus.
Fifth, King rejects the suggestion that those protesting injustice in Birmingham are being “extreme.” He describes his attempt to find a third way between “complacency” and violent retaliation in the face of enduring mistreatment. The “more excellent way” that he has discovered—and is engaged in—is a way “of love and nonviolence.” He reminds the pastors that “oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever,” and that he is delighted to be numbered among extremists like the biblical prophet Amos, the apostle Paul, and, of course, Jesus. For King, “the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice.” King rues the fact that he may have been “too optimistic” in assuming that “the white moderate” would understand this fundamental point. King goes on to describe how “disappointed” he is, as a Christian, “with the white church and its leadership.” In contrast with the early church—“small in number but big in commitment”—King laments that “the contemporary church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo.” He asserts that “if the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring . . . and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.” Not surprisingly, King notes, many young people have turned from such a quietistic church in “disgust.”
King’s Lessons for Following Jesus into Our Own “Fierce Urgency of Now”
While there is much more to ponder in King’s brilliant and bracing letter, these five themes—lessons, really—provide significant wisdom, especially for white Christians in the United States, as we seek to follow Jesus into our own “fierce urgency of now.”
- King’s claim regarding the interconnected nature of injustice is thoroughly biblical. American notions of atomized individualism—and the utilitarian and libertarian moral logics that undergird them—do not mean that we are, in fact, independent of one another. Quite the opposite: Cain’s objections notwithstanding (see Gen 4), we are expected to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. King states, “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Followers of Jesus are called to foster everyone’s well-being. There are no islands. The “reign of God” is nothing less than a communal vision of wholeness, flourishing, and shalom—for all—now and forevermore.
- Sadly, obscuring and misrepresenting the whole story—by emphasizing the discomfiting outcry rather than the existing injustice that inflamed it—is an all-too-typical move made by those in positions of power and privilege. King’s letter helps to remind us that the truth does indeed set us free (cf. John 8:32). As we engage in our present moment, we must be truth-tellers who refuse to tell self-serving, partial stories; rather, we must allow ourselves to be informed and shaped by the stories of those who are marginalized by our traditional narratives—and the history that those narratives so often seek to paper over.
- For too long, many of us have been too comfortable with forms of injustice that are technically legal. In our own “fierce urgency of now,” we who follow Jesus must reckon with the fact that our loyalty to the ultimate peacemaker will almost surely require us to oppose myriad forms of injustice that have been legalized. This is nothing new; the eighth-century biblical prophets Amos, Micah, and Isaiah often railed against the same thing. As King reminds us, we are morally obligated to oppose unjust laws. Individual and communal discernment are crucial in this and every moment, particularly when the Christian tradition is being explicitly weaponized against the vulnerable. Like King, we must be ready to defy unjust laws and authorities who foster dehumanization—and to accept the potential consequences for doing so—precisely because we have been captivated by Jesus’s vision of God’s alternative empire of love, mercy, and justice.
- Like the priest and the Levite who, in Jesus’s famous parable (Luke 10:25-37), avoid getting involved when a man is lying half-dead near the roadside, many of us are more committed to self-preservation than to true peace and justice, to full solidarity with our suffering brothers and sisters. Few of us are immune to what we might, in the spirit of King, call White (Moderate) Christian Bystander Syndrome, though moderates are by no means the only ones affected by this phenomenon. Elsewhere, King insightfully discerned the fundamental difference between the two religious leaders who passed by the injured man and the Samaritan who helped him, despite significant personal inconvenience, even at the risk of his physical and financial security. The priest and Levite asked themselves, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” By contrast, the Samaritan, demonstrating mercy and compassion, “reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’” We are challenged in Jesus’s parable by the Samaritan’s neighborliness, recognizing that the injured man, as a first-century Jew, may well have considered Samaritans to be beneath him—and perhaps counted them among his enemies. In “the fierce urgency of now,” will we learn to act intentionally and proactively with mercy and compassion? If not, King reminds us that we will remain like the “white moderate,” effectively more problematic than the most overtly racist among us.
- As King makes clear, the pivotal question as we engage “the fierce urgency of now” is not whether we will be extremists, but rather what we will be extremists for. Followers of Jesus are called and empowered by God’s Spirit to be extremists for love and justice. That’s not some kind of back-door, partisan political claim. That’s a biblical and gospel truism. Being an extremist for love and justice is precisely what it means to follow Jesus, whether or not any given ‘now’ feels ‘fiercely urgent’ to us. We will surely experience more of the inbreaking “reign of God” to the extent that we become a community of extremists for love and justice. Too often, white Christians in the United States have valorized moderation, even in the face of hatred and injustice. We are called neither to violence nor to passivity, but we are called to a particular kind of extremism. Moderation in the face of hatred and injustice is limited to collaboration and complicity. God does not remain neutral in the face of injustice, nor may we. Who knows? As we seek to follow Jesus faithfully into “the fierce urgency of now” as extremists of love and justice, perhaps even young people who have found themselves disgusted by the church’s mealy-mouthed discipleship will begin to discern the outlines of an emergent revolution worthy of their interest and engagement. May it be so.
Michael Barram, Ph.D., is Professor of Theology & Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s College of California. His work focuses on missional hermeneutics and how the Bible seeks to shape its readers’ moral imagination and reasoning (particularly about economic and social justice). Barram is the author of Missional Economics: Biblical Justice and Christian Formation (Eerdmans, 2018); Mission and Moral Reflection in Paul (Lang, 2006); and, with John R. Franke, Liberating Scripture: An Invitation to Missional Hermeneutics (Cascade, 2024). He is also co-editor of Reparations and the Theological Disciplines: Prophetic Voices for Remembrance, Reckoning, and Repair (Lexington Books, 2023), and co-chair of the Forum on Missional Hermeneutics, and co-editor of the Cascade series, ‘Studies in Missional Hermeneutics, Theology, and Praxis’. Barram is a New College Berkeley Board of Trustees member and regularly teaches for New College Berkeley and at his home church, First Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, California.