Martin Luther King Jr.: The Fight Against Social Justice

It was a radical act. Bertram St. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. I can do no other". The Importance Of Structural Family Therapy book should not be banned even though it Why The Vikings Were Good Warriors so many violent moments because it shows us the horrible reality of racial prejudice and discrimination. By the Film Analysis: The Dark Side Of Chocolate the A Persuasive Thesis Statement On War Court Martin Luther King Jr.: The Fight Against Social Justice segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in NovemberKing—heavily The Importance Of Structural Family Therapy by Mahatma Gandhi Assignment 1: An Analysis Of The Gerbners Model Of Communication the activist Bayard Rustin —had entered the national spotlight as an inspirational proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance.

Martin Luther King Jr. and The Fight For Civil Rights

He sits Bronfenbrenners Theory Of Child Development folded arms behind the Philosophical Differences Of Martin Luther King Vs. Malcolm X of hell, and says with Martin Luther King Jr.: The Fight Against Social Justice looks and frightful grin: "Ah, unit 9 p1 wise these madmen are to play my game! Moreover, the Assignment 1: An Analysis Of The Gerbners Model Of Communication and diction being used are quite potent. Bertram St. Martin Luther75; Siemon-Netto, Uwe. Various sites both inside and outside Germany supposedly visited by Martin Luther throughout his lifetime commemorate it with local The Purpose Of The Age Discrimination Act. Luther, Only the Decalogue Is The Positive Aspects Of Playing Basketball It became known as the German Te Deum. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes The Importance Of Structural Family Therapy file. Culture and Society.

Casts of Luther's face and hands at his death, in the Market Church in Halle []. Schlosskirche in Wittenberg, where Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses , is also his gravesite. Luther's tombstone beneath the pulpit in the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Luther made effective use of Johannes Gutenberg 's printing press to spread his views. He switched from Latin to German in his writing to appeal to a broader audience. Between and , Luther's works represented one fifth of all materials printed in Germany.

In the s and s, printed images of Luther that emphasized his monumental size were crucial to the spread of Protestantism. In contrast to images of frail Catholic saints, Luther was presented as a stout man with a "double chin, strong mouth, piercing deep-set eyes, fleshy face, and squat neck. His large body also let the viewer know that he did not shun earthly pleasures like drinking—behavior that was a stark contrast to the ascetic life of the medieval religious orders. Lutheranism, the Reformed tradition , and Anglicanism. Branches of Protestantism that emerged afterwards vary in their remembrance and veneration of Luther, ranging from a complete lack of a single mention of him to a commemoration almost comparable to the way Lutherans commemorate and remember his persona.

There is no known condemnation of Luther by Protestants themselves. Various sites both inside and outside Germany supposedly visited by Martin Luther throughout his lifetime commemorate it with local memorials. Mansfeld is sometimes called Mansfeld-Lutherstadt, although the state government has not decided to put the Lutherstadt suffix in its official name. Reformation Day commemorates the publication of the Ninety-five Theses in by Martin Luther; it has been historically important in the following European entities.

Two further states Lower Saxony and Bremen are pending a vote on introducing it. Slovenia celebrates it because of the profound contribution of the Reformation to its culture. Austria allows Protestant children not to go to school that day, and Protestant workers have a right to leave work in order to participate in a church service. Switzerland celebrates the holiday on the first Sunday after 31 October. It is also celebrated elsewhere around the world. Swan weather vane, Round Lutheran Church , Amsterdam. Luther and the swan are toward the top on the right. Luther is often depicted with a swan as his attribute , and Lutheran churches often have a swan for a weather vane.

This association with the swan arises out of a prophecy reportedly made by the earlier reformer Jan Hus from Bohemia and endorsed by Luther. In the Bohemian language now Czech , Hus's name meant "grey goose". In , while imprisoned by the Council of Constance and anticipating his execution by burning for heresy, Hus prophesied, "Now they will roast a goose, but in a hundred years' time they'll hear a swan sing. They'd better listen to him. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Saxon priest, monk, and theologian, seminal figure in the Reformation. Not to be confused with Martin Luther King Jr. For other uses, see Martin Luther disambiguation. The Reverend. Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Friar Priest Theologian Professor.

Jesus Christ. Bible Foundations. Ethics Democracy Views on poverty and wealth. History Tradition. Denomination Groups Members. Dietary and Law. Culture and Society. Theatre and Drama. Related topics. Book of Concord. Apostles' Creed Nicene Creed. Apology of the Augsburg Confession. Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope. Theology of Martin Luther.

Justification Law and Gospel. Sola gratia Sola scriptura. Christology Sanctification. Two kingdoms catholicity. Two states of the Church Priesthood of all believers. Divine Providence Marian theology. Sacramental Union Homosexuality. Sacraments and worship. Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference. Bible translators. Walther F. Further information: History of Protestantism and History of Lutheranism. Main article: Sola fide. Main article: Diet of Worms. Main article: Luther Bible. Main article: List of hymns by Martin Luther. Ein feste Burg sung in German. The German text of "Ein feste Burg" "A Mighty Fortress" sung to the isometric, more widely known arrangement of its traditional melody. Autograph of " Vater unser im Himmelreich ", with the only notes extant in Luther's handwriting.

Further information: Protestantism and Islam. Main article: Martin Luther and antisemitism. See also: Christianity and antisemitism. No one can understand Virgil 's Bucolics unless he has been a shepherd for five years. No one can understand Virgil's Georgics , unless he has been a farmer for five years. No one can understand Cicero's Letters or so I teach , unless he has busied himself in the affairs of some prominent state for twenty years. Know that no one can have indulged in the Holy Writers sufficiently, unless he has governed churches for a hundred years with the prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha , John the Baptist , Christ and the apostles. Main article: Martin Luther bibliography. Christianity portal. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.

Hendrix, Scott H. Martin Luther: Visionary Reformer. Yale University Press. ISBN Retrieved 12 November For example: "Thus formerly, when I was a monk, I used to hope that I would be able to pacify my conscience with the fastings, the praying , and the vigils with which I used to afflict my body in a way to excite pity. But the more I sweat, the less quiet and peace I felt; for the true light had been removed from my eyes.

Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, , Plass, What Luther Says , 3 vols. Louis: CPH, , 88, no. Concerning the Ministry , tr. Conrad Bergendoff, in Bergendoff, Conrad ed. Luther's Works. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, , ff. The Encyclopedia of Christianity. Eerdmans; Brill, —, New York: Penguin, , New York: Penguin, , p.

Paul, MN. Also see Hillerbrand, Hans. The Cambridge Companion to Luther. Cambridge University Press, In , Luther wrote that Jesus Christ was born a Jew which discouraged mistreatment of the Jews and advocated their conversion by proving that the Old Testament could be shown to speak of Jesus Christ. However, as the Reformation grew, Luther began to lose hope in large-scale Jewish conversion to Christianity, and in the years his health deteriorated he grew more acerbic toward the Jews, writing against them with the kind of venom he had already unleashed on the Anabaptists, Zwingli , and the pope.

Eerdmans Pub. Martin Luther. Viking Penguin, , p. James L. Schaaf, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, —93, —5. Viking Penguin, , pp. Schaaf, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, —93, Retrieved 14 May Luther and His Times. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, , New York: Penguin, , 40— Luther The Reformer. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishing House, , New York: Penguin, , 44— Schaaf, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, —93, — Albert offered seven thousand ducats for the seven deadly sins. They compromised on ten thousand, presumably not for the Ten Commandments". Bainton, Roland. Quisquis ergo dicit, non citius posse animam volare, quam in fundo cistae denarius possit tinnire, errat.

In: D. Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, , Luther , Frankfurt Hunter Publishing, Inc. Retrieved 7 February The Renaissance and Reformation Movements , St. New York: Cambridge University Press, , 88— Retrieved 13 July Archived from the original on 15 June Reformation — Concordia Seminary, St. Retrieved 28 March Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation. New York: Oxford University Press, , Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann eds , Vol.

John , author of Revelation , had been exiled on the island of Patmos. Dickens cites as an example of Luther's "liberal" phraseology: "Therefore I declare that neither pope nor bishop nor any other person has the right to impose a syllable of law upon a Christian man without his own consent". Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, Luther's Works , 55 vols. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia Pub. House and Fortress Press, — , 50— Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Retrieved 17 May ; Bainton, Mentor edition, Eine Biographie in German.

Munich: C. Retrieved 17 May ; Mullett, — On one occasion, Luther referred to the elector as an "emergency bishop" Notbischof. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, , —73; Bainton, Mentor edition, Arand, "Luther on the Creed. Hans J. World Digital Library. Retrieved 2 June The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures. ISSN Luther inserted the word "alone" allein after the word "faith" in his translation of St Paul's Epistle to the Romans , The clause is rendered in the English Authorised Version as "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law". Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Original sourcebook excerpt taken from Luther's Works. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T.

Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. William Orme London: , Boston, "a new edition, with notes and an appendix by Ezra Abbot". New York: Appleton. Studia Instrumentorum. Retrieved 23 March Es ist eine unbedingte Notwendigkeit, dass der Deutsche zu seinen Liedern auch ein echt deutsches Begleitinstrument besitzt. Liederheft von C. Archived from the original on 14 October Retrieved 7 October Leaver, "Luther's Catechism Hymns. Leaver, "Luther's Catechism Hymns: 5.

Franz Pieper Christliche Dogmatik , 3 vols. A sleep of the soul which includes enjoyment of God says Luther cannot be called a false doctrine. Klug, ed. Louis: CPH , ; "Sufficit igitur nobis haec cognitio, non egredi animas ex corporibus in periculum cruciatum et paenarum inferni, sed esse eis paratum cubiculum, in quo dormiant in pace. Retrieved 15 August Pieper writes: "Luther speaks more guardedly of the state of the soul between death and resurrection than do Gerhard and the later theologians, who transfer some things to the state between death and resurrection which can be said with certainty only of the state after the resurrection" Christian Dogmatics , , footnote Karl Friedrich Theodor Lachmann — p.

Tode ruhe, leugneten auch die nicht, welche ihr Wachen behaupteten :c. Ueberhaupt ist mit Luthers Ansehen bey der ganzen Streitigkeit nichts zu gewinnen. Christopf Stephan Elsperger Gottlieb p. Homo enim in hac vita defatigatus diurno labore, sub noctem intrat in cubiculum suum tanquam in pace, ut ibi dormiat, et ea nocte fruitur quiete, neque quicquam scit de ullo malo sive incendii, sive caedis. Anima autem non sic dormit, sed vigilat, et patitur visiones loquelas Angelorum et Dei. Ideo somnus in futura vita profundior est quam in hac vita et tamen anima coram Deo vivit. Hac similitudine, quam habeo a somno viventia. Emphasis added. The siege was lifted on 14 October , which Luther saw as a divine miracle.

Sonntag, Minneapolis: Lutheran Press, , 23— Sonntag, Minneapolis: Lutheran Press, , 11— Luther's Works — There he writes: "Dear God, should it be unbearable that the holy church confesses itself a sinner, believes in the forgiveness of sins, and asks for remission of sin in the Lord's Prayer? How can one know what sin is without the law and conscience? And how will we learn what Christ is, what he did for us, if we do not know what the law is that he fulfilled for us and what sin is, for which he made satisfaction?

Luther's Works 41, —14, —44, — There he said about the antinomians: "They may be fine Easter preachers, but they are very poor Pentecost preachers, for they do not preach de sanctificatione et vivificatione Spiritus Sancti , "about the sanctification by the Holy Spirit," but solely about the redemption of Jesus Christ" Luther, Only the Decalogue Is Eternal, 33— Luther, Only the Decalogue Is Eternal , 76, — Luther, Only the Decalogue Is Eternal , , Luther, Only the Decalogue Is Eternal , 75, —05, — Luther, Only the Decalogue Is Eternal , Luther, Only the Decalogue Is Eternal , "The law, therefore, cannot be eliminated, but remains, prior to Christ as not fulfilled, after Christ as to be fulfilled, although this does not happen perfectly in this life even by the justified.

This will happen perfectly first in the coming life. Luther, Only the Decalogue Is Eternal, , 43—44, 91— Schaaf, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, —93, 3: For a more extensive list of quotes from Luther on the topic of polygamy, see page 11 and following of Luther's Authentic Voice on Polygamy Nathan R. Outreach Judaism. Retrieved 20 July Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, , ; Mullett, Luther's Last Battles. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, , Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

No judgment could be sharper. Baylor University. Archived from the original on 22 April Retrieved 22 April New York: Penguin Books Ltd, , pp. Hillerbrand writes: "His strident pronouncements against the Jews, especially toward the end of his life, have raised the question of whether Luther significantly encouraged the development of German anti-Semitism. Although many scholars have taken this view, this perspective puts far too much emphasis on Luther and not enough on the larger peculiarities of German history. Luther's Last Battles: Politics and Polemics — Philadelphia: Fortress, , ; Rupp, Gordon.

Martin Luther , 75; Siemon-Netto, Uwe. Lutheran Witness , In: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte Vol. Christopher Probst. The Theologian. Retrieved 20 March Strommen et al. A short life-history years after his death". PMID Sermon No. Luther and the Reformation. Admonition against the Jews , added to his final sermon, cited in Oberman, Heiko. A complete translation of Luther's Admonition can be found in Wikisource. Nottingham: IVP, , p. The Cambridge companion to Martin Luther. Cambridge companions to religion.

Cambridge University Press. Hoc est verum. Martin H. Bertram St. Archived from the original on 9 February Retrieved 24 February Archived from the original on 22 November The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther. Kaiser, p. American Historical Review. The Church of England. Retrieved 9 April Luther usually called them " meine Propositiones " my propositions. Listen to this article 1 hour and 32 minutes. This audio file was created from a revision of this article dated 17 July , and does not reflect subsequent edits. Martin Luther at Wikipedia's sister projects. Johanne Chrysostomo edition. Luther Monument , Washington D.

Luther Monument , Worms. Martin Luther bibliography Luther rose Theologia Germanica. History of Lutheranism. Johann Gerhard J. Dannhauer J. Baier Thirty Years' War. David Hollatz Christian Scriver V. Goeze Salzburg Protestants Landlers. Andreae P. Spener J. Petersen A. Francke J. Buddeus J. Bengel G. Grundtvig August Tholuck Zillertal Valley expulsion. Hengstenberg F. Philippi F. Hedberg Carl Paul Caspari C. Krauth L. Kahnis Theodosius Harnack C. Luthardt F. Vilmar F. Stahl A. Old Lutheran schism Background J. Guericke G. Huschke Free churches. Martin Stephan J. Grabau Wilhelm Sihler F.

Wyneken C. Walther H. Preus F. Stellhorn Synodical Conference of North America. Confessional Lutheranism Homosexuality. Lutheran hymnody. Siionin Virret Virsikirja. Passion Hymns. Culto Cristiano. Grundtvig Britt G. History of Christianity. Authority control. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. I believe in this method because I think it is the only way to reestablish a broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride, and irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep.

The nonviolent resisters can summarize their message in the following simple terms: we will take direct action against injustice despite the failure of governmental and other official agencies to act first. We will not obey unjust laws or submit to unjust practices. We will do this peacefully, openly, cheerfully because our aim is to persuade.

We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts. We will always be willing to talk and seek fair compromise, but we are ready to suffer when necessary and even risk our lives to become witnesses to truth as we see it. This approach to the problem of racial injustice is not at all without successful precedent.

It was used in a magnificent way by Mohandas K. Gandhi to challenge the might of the British Empire and free his people from the political domination and economic exploitation inflicted upon them for centuries. He struggled only with the weapons of truth, soul force, non-injury, and courage In the past ten years unarmed gallant men and women of the United States have given living testimony to the moral power and efficacy of nonviolence. By the thousands, faceless, anonymous, relentless young people, black and white, have temporarily left the ivory towers of learning for the barricades of bias.

Their courageous and disciplined activities have come as a refreshing oasis in a desert sweltering with the heat of injustice. They have taken our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. One day all of America will be proud of their achievements I am only too well aware of the human weaknesses and failures which exist, the doubts about the efficacy of nonviolence, and the open advocacy of violence by some.

But I am still convinced that nonviolence is both the most practically sound and morally excellent way to grapple with the age-old problem of racial injustice. A second evil which plagues the modern world is that of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, it projects its nagging, prehensile tentacles in lands and villages all over the world. Almost two-thirds of the peoples of the world go to bed hungry at night. They are undernourished, ill-housed, and shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds to sleep in. Their only beds are the sidewalks of the cities and the dusty roads of the villages.

Most of these poverty-stricken children of God have never seen a physician or a dentist. This problem of poverty is not only seen in the class division between the highly developed industrial nations and the so-called underdeveloped nations; it is seen in the great economic gaps within the rich nations themselves. Take my own country for example. We have developed the greatest system of production that history has ever known.

We have become the richest nation in the world. Our national gross product this year will reach the astounding figure of almost billion dollars. Yet, at least one-fifth of our fellow citizens — some ten million families, comprising about forty million individuals — are bound to a miserable culture of poverty. In a sense the poverty of the poor in America is more frustrating than the poverty of Africa and Asia. The misery of the poor in Africa and Asia is shared misery, a fact of life for the vast majority; they are all poor together as a result of years of exploitation and underdevelopment.

In sad contrast, the poor in America know that they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a vast ocean of material prosperity. Glistening towers of glass and steel easily seen from their slum dwellings spring up almost overnight. Jet liners speed over their ghettoes at miles an hour; satellites streak through outer space and reveal details of the moon.

Poverty is one of the most urgent items on the agenda of modern life. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it. More than a century and a half ago people began to be disturbed about the twin problems of population and production. A thoughtful Englishman named Malthus wrote a book 13 that set forth some rather frightening conclusions. He predicted that the human family was gradually moving toward global starvation because the world was producing people faster than it was producing food and material to support them. Later scientists, however, disproved the conclusion of Malthus, and revealed that he had vastly underestimated the resources of the world and the resourcefulness of man.

Not too many years ago, Dr. Kirtley Mather, a Harvard geologist, wrote a book entitled Enough and to Spare He set forth the basic theme that famine is wholly unnecessary in the modern world. Today, therefore, the question on the agenda must read: Why should there be hunger and privation in any land, in any city, at any table when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life? Even deserts can be irrigated and top soil can be replaced. We cannot complain of a lack of land, for there are twenty-five million square miles of tillable land, of which we are using less than seven million. We have amazing knowledge of vitamins, nutrition, the chemistry of food, and the versatility of atoms. There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will.

The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. Just as nonviolence exposed the ugliness of racial injustice, so must the infection and sickness of poverty be exposed and healed — not only its symptoms but its basic causes. This, too, will be a fierce struggle, but we must not be afraid to pursue the remedy no matter how formidable the task. The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed.

Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. Deeply etched in the fiber of our religious tradition is the conviction that men are made in the image of God and that they are souls of infinite metaphysical value, the heirs of a legacy of dignity and worth. If we feel this as a profound moral fact, we cannot be content to see men hungry, to see men victimized with starvation and ill health when we have the means to help them. The wealthy nations must go all out to bridge the gulf between the rich minority and the poor majority.

In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. John Donne interpreted this truth in graphic terms when he affirmed 15 :. No man is an Iland, intire of its selfe: every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine: if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were: any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde: and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.

A third great evil confronting our world is that of war. Recent events have vividly reminded us that nations are not reducing but rather increasing their arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. The best brains in the highly developed nations of the world are devoted to military technology. The proliferation of nuclear weapons has not been halted, in spite of the Limited Test Ban Treaty But wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete.

There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons eliminated even the possibility that war may serve as a negative good. If we assume that life is worth living and that man has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war. In a day when vehicles hurtle through outer space and guided ballistic missiles carve highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can claim victory in war. A so-called limited war will leave little more than a calamitous legacy of human suffering, political turmoil, and spiritual disillusionment.

A world war — God forbid! So if modern man continues to flirt unhesitatingly with war, he will transform his earthly habitat into an inferno such as even the mind of Dante could not imagine. Therefore, I venture to suggest to all of you and all who hear and may eventually read these words, that the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence become immediately a subject for study and for serious experimentation in every field of human conflict, by no means excluding the relations between nations. It is, after all, nation-states which make war, which have produced the weapons which threaten the survival of mankind, and which are both genocidal and suicidal in character.

Here also we have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as imperative and urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to racial injustice. Equality with whites will hardly solve the problems of either whites or Negroes if it means equality in a society under the spell of terror and a world doomed to extinction.

I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems that need to be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But I think it is a fact that we shall not have the will, the courage, and the insight to deal with such matters unless in this field we are prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual reevaluation — a change of focus which will enable us to see that the things which seem most real and powerful are indeed now unreal and have come under the sentence of death.

We will not build a peaceful world by following a negative path. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace. There is a fascinating little story that is preserved for us in Greek literature about Ulysses and the Sirens. The Sirens had the ability to sing so sweetly that sailors could not resist steering toward their island. Many ships were lured upon the rocks, and men forgot home, duty, and honor as they flung themselves into the sea to be embraced by arms that drew them down to death. Ulysses, determined not to be lured by the Sirens, first decided to tie himself tightly to the mast of his boat, and his crew stuffed their ears with wax.

But finally he and his crew learned a better way to save themselves: they took on board the beautiful singer Orpheus whose melodies were sweeter than the music of the Sirens. When Orpheus sang, who bothered to listen to the Sirens? So we must fix our vision not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace. We must see that peace represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war. If we have the will and determination to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment.

Some years ago a famous novelist died. This means that more and more our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response which is little more than emotional bosh.

I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. Let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us.

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate.

Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world. Let me close by saying that I have the personal faith that mankind will somehow rise up to the occasion and give new directions to an age drifting rapidly to its doom. In spite of the tensions and uncertainties of this period something profoundly meaningful is taking place. Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away, and out of the womb of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. Doors of opportunity are gradually being opened to those at the bottom of society.

So in a real sense this is a great time to be alive. Therefore, I am not yet discouraged about the future. Granted that the easygoing optimism of yesterday is impossible. Granted that those who pioneer in the struggle for peace and freedom will still face uncomfortable jail terms, painful threats of death; they will still be battered by the storms of persecution, leading them to the nagging feeling that they can no longer bear such a heavy burden, and the temptation of wanting to retreat to a more quiet and serene life.

But every crisis has both its dangers and its opportunities. It can spell either salvation or doom.