Letters to a Birmingham Jail: A Response to the Words and Dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Book Review By Bryan Knedgen
Many people have read Letter from a Birmingham Jail, it is a classic in American literature and one of the most convicting letters to the Church in the United States. I remember the first time I read Letter from a Birmingham Jail; it was given to me by my professor, Dr. Perry, during our covenant group (think of it as a prayer/study group) in the cold, wet month of February in 2010. At the time I process the depth and beauty of Dr. King’s words under the weight of classes, a part-time job and Army Reserves service. However, if we truly want to remember and learn from our past we must reread what has been written and respond. That is what I did this past January in light of Dr. King’s birthday and black history month this February. I found the wise and convicting words of Dr. King are like the law of God, displaying our sin but also calling us to live in a truly human way. The book I am reviewing, Letters to a Birmingham Jail, is a collection of reflections by professors, pastors and community leaders on Dr. King’s Letter. Since there were so many contributors, I wanted to highlight the ones that I thought did well and those that could be improved upon.
First up is John Perkins, who helped found the Christian Community Development Association and is the father of its ministry philosophy. His essay is titled “Why We Can’t Wait for Economic Justice.” In it he talks about his life story, growing up in Mississippi as a sharecropper in the 1930s and losing his mother to starvation at an early age. Perkins goes on to talk about his testimony and how God called him back to Mississippi to work for civil rights. His big idea is the three Rs: relocation, reconciliation and redistribution; moving to a place, loving the people there and participating in helping them grow as persons as they help us grow as persons. Redistribution is a scary word and Perkins qualifies it, “This is not speaking of forced redistribution, God entrusts wealth to the few so that they will share it with the many.” I thought Perkins’s essay was one of the most insightful.
Soong-Chan Rah is associate professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary and was also the founding pastor of Cambridge Community Fellowship Church. His essay is titled, “A More Biblical Sunday,” where he focuses on how the changes in the United States immigration allowed more immigrants from Asia, Latin America, and Africa to relocate here. Rah shifts to talking about the damaging effects of the Church Growth Movement (CGM) and how it led to a normalization of racial segregation. Despite the fact that his essay is lacking in a narrative flow and based more on research, I thought it was one of the most informed and revealing reasons why the church has taken a back seat to working on racial issues.
Following Rah’s is Sanders L. Willson, senior minister of Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Gospel Coalition boardmember. He is a much older white pastor that from his earliest days remembers that our racial relationships are not the way they are supposed to function. His study on Joseph is fantastic and a great launching point to understand where the evangelical church has needs to repent. Wilson owns his church’s history well, both the glories and the ruins. Willson displays a character of humility that breaks the norm for “Old White Southern Pastor.” His essay was my third favorite, right behind Ed Perkins and Soong-Chan Rah.
The popular John Piper also contributes; he is the founder of Desiring God, former senior pastor at Bethlehem and has written countless books. Piper begins his essay about how when he first read Dr. King’s letter he was like me, to self-absorbed to see the importance and need of this proclamation. Piper goes on to decry the softness of both white and black churches on their theological laziness and empowers them to replace it with a bold Christ-exalting, gospel saturated view so that racial diversity, justice and love will flourish. He ties in our participation in redeeming creation on this earth but also waiting for the day when it redemption is finally fulfilled in Jesus. Piper’s essay was good, however, I think it failed to display practical ways on how to pursue racial reconciliation in light of good theology being the foundation.
John Bryson, teaching pastor of Fellowship Memphis Church and severs on the board of Acts 29. Bryson’s introductory story about his mother witnessing a white bus driver beating a Black American passenger is horrifying. Bryson grew up in a black church where he was the only white family. His upbringing is incredibly unique and he recognized it and pursued a life of ministry that focused on racial reconciliation. It felt like he thought, “I have never been racist and don’t struggle with that problem,” rather than being vulnerable about his apathy, so I disliked his essay the most. It is hard to describe but Bryson also seems to constantly try to prove his credibility, with shout outs to Run DMC, his Vanilla Ice hair cut or playing Play Station 2, which only weakened his essay.
This book hits home on multiple levels. Even though I live it every day with Angela, this book displays to me how much I need to grow in learning how to love, fellowship, and cross racial lines. I lament that the ministry I work in, and the church I go to is mostly White. This book invigorates me to regain the heart of the early church, where a majority of communities were dealing with race relations. Most of the letters by the Apostle Paul were in the context of dealing with ethnocentrism and how God is calling every tribe and tongue to worship him in a single community. We should always be repenting of our sins in racial reconciliation and striving for more reconciliation.
I highly recommend this book for everyone, it is going to be uncomfortable, it is going to push our assumptions and make us question what we have been doing for the past 50 years. I suggest you watch the movie Selma and read this book to truly understand how little our evangelical past has done and how little we have done to humbly repent personally and corporately. I also suggest