William C. Inboden: Why Obama Should Think of MLK During Hu's Visit
[William C. Inboden is a Contributing Editor at Foreign Policy magazine.]
Most years during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend, I re-read a few of his sermons, as a way of reflecting on his legacy. This year, I read a passage in one of those sermons that seems especially timely:
"Christianity insists that man is an end because he is a child of God, made in God's image. Man is more than a producing animal guided by economic forces; he is a being of spirit, crowned with glory and honor, endowed with the gift of freedom."
King titled this sermon "How should a Christian view Communism?" and in it he distinguished between the communist and Christian views of the human person -- the latter holding that all human beings are created in the divine image and thus "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," in the words of the Declaration of Independence. Though King's primary devotion in his too-short life was to the civil rights struggle in the United States, he constantly connected this effort with the universal aspirations of all human beings to realize in fact this liberty and dignity. And as he spoke out against the human rights depredations of communist governments, he also condemned the hypocrisy of his beloved America in fighting against communism abroad while denying basic rights at home to a class of its own citizens.
The communist ideal largely perished with the end of the Cold War, and exists now only in a few flickering embers in isolated outposts such as North Korea. But one of communism's cardinal flaws -- this belief that human beings are subservient in value to the State -- persists still today in too many authoritarian nations.
This past week alone witnessed considerable ferment in the cause of freedom...
Read entire article at Foreign Policy
Most years during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend, I re-read a few of his sermons, as a way of reflecting on his legacy. This year, I read a passage in one of those sermons that seems especially timely:
"Christianity insists that man is an end because he is a child of God, made in God's image. Man is more than a producing animal guided by economic forces; he is a being of spirit, crowned with glory and honor, endowed with the gift of freedom."
King titled this sermon "How should a Christian view Communism?" and in it he distinguished between the communist and Christian views of the human person -- the latter holding that all human beings are created in the divine image and thus "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," in the words of the Declaration of Independence. Though King's primary devotion in his too-short life was to the civil rights struggle in the United States, he constantly connected this effort with the universal aspirations of all human beings to realize in fact this liberty and dignity. And as he spoke out against the human rights depredations of communist governments, he also condemned the hypocrisy of his beloved America in fighting against communism abroad while denying basic rights at home to a class of its own citizens.
The communist ideal largely perished with the end of the Cold War, and exists now only in a few flickering embers in isolated outposts such as North Korea. But one of communism's cardinal flaws -- this belief that human beings are subservient in value to the State -- persists still today in too many authoritarian nations.
This past week alone witnessed considerable ferment in the cause of freedom...