MLK’s Dream: toward a “nonreligious interpretation of a biblical concept”
by Robert G. Umidi
In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. established his essential legacy at the “March on Washington”, delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech to a quarter of a million people (and many more listening on radio and TV). Listeners with different religious beliefs, or no religious belief, understood and were inspired by his central image of the “dream.” The dream he described has become, for religious and nonreligious people alike, an iconic part of our national psyche; it has provided a shared horizon of meaning and purpose.1
Now, 50 years since King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, this word, “dream”, continues to function as a “word of power”2 for much of our culture. How can a word have transformative power for both people of faith as well as those who no longer look to religion as their ultimate concern? And what does this suggest about how we preach the Word of the Lord in the world today?
Through his upbringing, training, and conviction, King embraced the biblical concept of “dream.” Without hesitation, he weaves into the fabric of his speech Isaiah’s prediction that “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it,” (Isa. 40:5) and Amos’ demand that justice will only be satisfied when it “rolls down like waters” (Amos 5:24). For King, the dream was deeply rooted in the biblical theology of God’s kingdom, and in the prophetic vision of a world ordered by foundational principles of love and justice.3 King embraced the biblical hope that “sons and daughters shall prophesy, young men shall see visions, and old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17).
But, on that day in 1963, in one of the greatest speeches of American history, a meaning for the concept of “dream” emerged that had transformative power, not just for people of faith who understood its biblical connection, but also for nonreligious people, for whom biblical categories are no longer a “live option”. Since that day, both religious and nonreligious dreamers have been able to share and work for this dream together. How do we account for a meaning that is both biblical, yet nonreligious?
While in prison, the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer struggled to express his thoughts about a “nonreligious interpretation of biblical concepts.” Reading Wilhelm Dilthey and others, he came to see that Western history had arrived at a point of maturity in which science (and all fields of knowledge) has enabled humankind to live in the world without religion, as if God did not exist. “We are approaching a completely religionless age. . .” Bonhoeffer wrote. “. . . people as they now are simply cannot be religious anymore.”4 This means that Christians can no longer offer biblical concepts in a “take it or leave it fashion,” but must also interpret these concepts in nonreligious ways. What does that mean?
In this early stage of his thinking, Bonhoeffer offered two initial criteria to explain the difference between religious versus nonreligious interpretation of biblical concepts. Interpretation in the religious sense, he posits, has always been about: (1) metaphysics and (2) individual salvation. To return to our investigation of dreams, let us ask what it might then mean to interpret non-metaphysically and non-individualistically the biblical concept of the “dream.”
First, Bonhoeffer explains how biblical interpretation has always assumed a metaphysical framework in which Reality is “beyond” this world. By contrast, a nonreligious interpretation of our concept “dream,” can no longer make this metaphysical judgment, but must dream in concrete forms of action focused upon the world in which God is at the center of life where people live. If God was in Christ, and Christ is understood as “the man for others,” then interpretation of our concept of dream must be a dreaming on behalf of this world. “The church stands not at the point where human powers fail, at the boundaries, but in the center of the village.”5 Such an interpretation of dream is, in fact, evident in King’s speech, filled as it is with vivid examples of the freedom and justice made possible when God is at the center of our nation—not religiously but non-religiously. He speaks of America’s “shameful” social conditions, of “the fierce urgency of the now” for forging change and obtaining full freedom and justice (as opposed to the counsel given by the status quo to “be patient,” or at worst, to place one’s hope in the by and by). He touches upon the physical difficulties and indignities suffered by those in the civil rights movement. And, of course, he shares his personal dream as a father via a beautiful image of his own four children someday being judged by “the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.” These “this-worldly” problems and aspirations situate the meaning of his dream in such a way as to make it a real possibility for a great nation.6 Only at the end of his speech does he evoke Isaiah’s vision of a day when every valley will be “exalted” and every mountain be “made low.” This is the poetry of complete justice and liberation, where freedom rings louder and clearer over the arc of history. But unlike these biblical concepts, which come from prophets who also saw apocalyptic violence as a way to the dream, King’s nonreligious form of the dream is only realized through non-violent action. To some, that dream may feel like an impossibility; but what is the purpose of a dream if not to transform us? A non-metaphysical interpretation raises the need for a dream that can be achieved in this world without violence.
The second way in which Bonhoeffer describes a nonreligious interpretation of biblical concepts is by noting how religious interpretation has been individualistic, especially regarding personal salvation. He asks, “Hasn’t the individualistic question of saving our personal souls almost faded away for most of us?”7 He clarifies that the final answer to that question is certainly of great significance, but as to the question itself, which is so often the subject of religious interpretation, he doesn’t believe an individualistic doctrine of salvation is something the bible really addresses. What matters more is life in this world. Looking at King’s speech, his focus is the same: the dream he envisions is a shared hope derived from our shared human relationships, particularly with those who are different and deprived of their full rights as human beings to freedom and justice. Human community, in all its diversity and its inequity, is the context in which this dream is born and shared. And as this dream becomes reality, so does a “beloved community” made up of all peoples, all religions, even the nonreligious, who seek love and justice for all.
Those of us in pulpits each week, leading prayers or officiating the observance of the sacraments, are always working with biblical concepts which shape us and our religious communities of faith. On this point Bonhoeffer cautioned that our religious language and biblical categories must be protected and appreciated for their power to inform our faith. He spoke of an “arcanus”—a mysterious discipline of the early persecuted Church in which the faithful maintained beliefs as “hidden” or “things that are not to be told.” The doctrine of the Trinity is an example, or the Church’s confessional statements. But he felt that, in a “world come of age,” we need to be asking “. . . how the concepts of repentance, faith, justification, rebirth, and sanctification should be reinterpreted in a ‘worldly’ way. . .”8 It could be argued that this question, which he felt needed asking in 1944, has only deepened since then, so that a nonreligious interpretation of biblical concepts is even more necessary now. As servants of the Word, can we learn to speak a new language that is nonreligious but still full of the hope of the Gospel? Perhaps Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech is one example where this transformation took place for the biblical concept of the dream. Perhaps this helped to renew its power in a world that desperately needs to dream again.
Notes
1. In this essay I do not assume that Martin Luther King, Jr. had much knowledge of Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Bonhoeffer’s thoughts from prison about “a nonreligious interpretation of biblical concepts.” This fact, however, does not diminish the possibility that MLK’s “I have a dream” speech might be considered an example of this kind of theological thinking. The speech can be read at https://www.archives.gov/files/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf, 5/18/2018, or watched at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs 5/18/2018.
2. Edward Farley, Deep Symbols: Their Postmodern Effacement and Reclamation. (Harrisburg: Trinity International Press, 1996).
3. For a demonstration of the importance of biblical material in MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech, consider Keith D. Miller, “Second Isaiah Lands in Washington, DC: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” as Biblical Narrative and Biblical Hermeneutic,” Rhetoric Review, 26, No. 4 (2007): 405-424.
4. John W. De Gruchy, ed., Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 8, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009): 362.
5. Ibid., 367.
6. In a previous speech called “The American Dream,” King said “America is essentially a dream, a dream as yet unfulfilled. . . a dream of a land where men of all races, of all nationalities and of all creeds can live together as brothers.” King finds the substance of the dream expressed in the fundamental truths of the Constitution, that “. . . all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. . .” “The American Dream” June 6, 1961 in James M. Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.. (San Francisco: Harper, 1986) 208-216.
7. De Gruchy 372.
8. Ibid., 373.
