The meaning of Martin Luther King Jr.’s creed

Posted in: News By House Divided on January 17, 2022

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered an iconic speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in 1963. Speaking before nearly 250,000 people, King said, “I have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

As Americans reflect upon King’s life, his contributions to our society, and the cause of human rights, it is fitting we seek to understand the creed that animated the life of the leader of the modern civil rights movement.

A creed is a statement of belief that guides one’s actions. The founders embedded America’s creed into the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal.”

Yet, there is a sense in which this statement is false: We are not equal in our physical strength, in our intelligence, in wealth, in opportunities, in our abilities, and so on. In the light of our obvious inequalities, through what lens did King see the equality of all mankind in America’s creed?

In 1965, during a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, King explained his views: “You see, the founding fathers were really influenced by the Bible. The whole concept of the imago Dei … is the idea that all men have something within them that God injected … and this gives them uniqueness … There are no gradations in the image of God. Every man from a treble white to a bass black is significant on God’s keyboard precisely because every man is made in the image of God.”

King understood the truth of America’s creed could only be defended in the context of the verb created with its reference to a transcendent author and his purposes. King’s politics were anchored in his belief that “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” He refused to renounce these timeless truths in favor of an alien creed. King’s dream was that as Americans come to see each other rightly, will we be moved to treat each other rightly.

Today, Americans still admire King’s lifelong commitment to defeating segregation and racial discrimination through peaceful protest. However, a growing number no longer share his views concerning the significance, dignity, and worth of every human being. A new, secular creed has taken root in America and reveals itself in the words of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who said, “I see no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or to a grain of sand.”

Scientific atheist Richard Dawkins agrees, writing, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”

In a purposeless universe, human life is a pointless accident.

The self-evident truths that once united us are now at the center of what divides us. As never before, this nation’s creeds are in conflict today. This conflict results from our irreconcilable commitments to different and opposing bases of moral authority.

James Davison Hunter, author of Culture Wars, defines moral authority as “the basis by which people determine whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable.” Our competing moral visions for America conflict because they originate from fundamentally different ideas and beliefs about truth, the good, the right, the just, our obligation to one another, and the nature of community. It is, writes Hunter, “cultural conflict at its deepest level.”

King rejected secular creeds. He saw that our longing for a better country could not be realized by America abandoning its creed but was possible only as America embraced anew its moral authority. King called Americans to reunite in their hearts and minds and return to the true meaning of their creed. Will we?