New Poor People’s Campaign Bible Study Series #5: Unity

New Poor People’s Campaign Bible Study Series #5: Unity

This Bible study is the fifth in a series developed to foster conversations about the biblical and theological significance of the Poor People’s Campaign. It is available for download in PDF form here.

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After the big wins of the Civil Rights Movement, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. saw that civil rights were insufficient for meeting the needs of poor black families. The “triple evils” of poverty, racism and war persisted. He said that to address those enmeshed evils the movement must move from focusing on civil rights to human rights. And he said that while the Civil Rights Movement was a reform movement, a movement in the era of human rights must be a revolutionary movement requiring a transformation of political and economic power. This new era would require new forms of organizing and new leadership that could unite the poor across lines of social division. This is why King called for a Poor People’s Campaign and drew together existing leaders from across racial, ethnic, geographic and sector divisions for a “Minority Group Leaders Conference” to come together around a shared vision for why they must unite as a class to transform society.

The early church also struggled to understand and fulfill the mission Jesus Christ called them to take up. Ephesians 4 discusses leadership and relationships among those who have committed their lives to the work of Christ. They were living under the economic, political and religious control of the Roman Empire, which enriched its elites and left the vast majority of its population in dangerous poverty. But the poor struggled to find the unity that would make resistance to the empire possible because the ruling elites used national, ethnic and religious difference to preempt unity. The early Jesus followers came from many nations and proclaimed that God, not Caesar, is the true provider and caregiver of all. Jesus proclaimed this reality and called his disciples to use their gifts to do the same.

This study pairs verses from Ephesians 4 with a section of a sermon by the Rev. Shelly Fayette and two excerpts from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It is recommended that you read the texts aloud together (20-25 minutes), share initial responses (10-15 minutes), and then answer the discussion questions (20-40 minutes). If you have less than an hour, you might ask participants to read the texts in advance.

Discussion Questions

  1. In Where Do We Go from Here? King says that they needed new forms of unity “to move to high levels of progress.” How was this different from past ways of organizing?
  2. What insights do you draw from Eph 4:4-7’s emphasis that we must “travel on the same road and in the same direction” in “Oneness”? And why does that not mean “you should all look and speak and act the same”?
  3. What convinces us we are separate? How do we overcome those messages?
  4. What are the practices of trust, love and commitment in all of the readings that make unity possible?
  5. Why is unity important to our ability to resolve the enmeshed crises of racism, poverty, war and environmental devastation?

Ephesians 4 (Message Bible)

1-3 In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

4-6 You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.

7-13 But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. The text for this is,

He climbed the high mountain,
He captured the enemy and seized the booty,
He handed it all out in gifts to the people.

Is it not true that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth? And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ’s followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.

14-16 No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for impostors. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.

 

The Rev. Shelly Fayette, “Poverty Initiative Leadership School Chapel,” Wilkes-Barre, PA, July 2011

“To be extremely tender with one another means to treat each other, both as individuals and as organizations, with the extreme kindness that is necessary for trust, and for love. It means to see each other clearly, to see through everything that the world wants to place over our eyes to convince us that we are separate.  The LORD has not forgotten our cry.  The least we can do is not forget each other, and ourselves.  We will need both trust and love, in enormous quantities, as we work together to build a world of justice, and righteousness.  Each person here is a gift to each other person here.  Each person here carries something that each other one of us needs to be able to do what we do, with full hearts.  I know this may seem impossible, but not every organization in this room has always been kind to every other organization in this room.  Not every organizer in this room has always been kind to every other organizer in this room.  Not every organization in this room has been kind to its own members.

Be careful with one another, so we can be dangerous together.

Remember who you are as you leave this space. Remember that our righteous weapon is our relationships, our network, our organization.  Sometimes, when we own our own power, when we come into our own power and truly inhabit it, it can be extremely tempting to test it out on one another.  Resist that temptation.  Remember to turn that power on those who are actually pulling the strings to keep us poor, and sick, and lonely, and scared.

Nothing delights them more than seeing us pick away at each other bit by bit…The LORD has not forgotten us.  Do not forget yourselves. Be very, very careful with one another so we can be dangerous together.”

Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here?, 1967

“We made easy gains and we built the kind of organizations that expect easy victories, and rest upon them. It may seem curious to speak of easy victories when some have suffered and sacrificed so much. Yet in candor and self-criticism it is necessary to acknowledge that the tortuous job of organizing solidly and simultaneously in thousands of places was not a feature of our work…Many civil rights organizations were born as specialists in agitation and dramatic projects; they attracted massive sympathy and support; but they did not assemble and unify the support for new stages of struggle…We unconsciously patterned a crisis policy and program, and summoned support not for daily commitment but for explosive events alone…To move to high levels of progress…we will have to have people tied together in a long-term relationship instead of evanescent enthusiasts who lose their experience, spirit and unity because they have no mechanism that directs them to new tasks.” (p. 158-9)

Martin Luther King Jr., “Why We Must Go to Washington,” SCLC staff retreat speech, January 1968

“Our responsibility is to lead people into higher levels of fulfillment and into effective strategy that will make change possible. For if we say that power is the ability to affect change, or the ability to achieve purpose, then it is not powerful to engage in an act that does not do that…no matter how much you sloganize and no matter how much you engage in action…In order for a movement to be effective, it must have the power to pull masses together, and it must have the power to make a dent on that kind of majority, that has somehow allowed its conscience to go to sleep.” (p. 9-10)

Martin Luther King Jr., Speech at “Minority Group Leaders Conference,” March 1968

“We are assembled here together today with common problems. Bringing together ethnic groups that maybe have not been together in this type of meeting in the past. I know I haven’t been in a meeting like this. And it has been one of my dreams that we would come together and realize our common problems…Power for poor people will really mean having the ability, the togetherness, the assertiveness, and the aggressiveness to make the power structure of this nation say yes when they may be desirous to say no. And it is my hope that we will get together, and be together, and really stand up to gain power for poor people —  Black people, Mexican-Americans, American-Indians, Puerto Ricans, Appalachian Whites, all working together to solve the problem of poverty.”

The Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice works to strengthen and expand transformative movements for social change that can draw on the power of religions and human rights. This study was developed by Colleen Wessel-McCoy, co-coordinator of Poverty Scholarship and Leadership Development.

The Rev. Shelly Fayette is Rector at Christ Episcopal Church in Seattle, Washington. She also serves as chaplain to The Sanctuary — University of Washington Campus Ministry.

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is co-chaired by Rev. Dr. William Barber II of Repairers of the Breech and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center. The Campaign is being taken up by a broad and diverse leadership of organizations, denominations and individuals on the many front lines of poverty, responding to these times of profound crisis by becoming a nationwide, multi-racial effort calling the nation to take dramatic steps to address the evils of racism, poverty, war economy and environmental destruction. Our leadership comes from those of us who are struggling for our rights and the rights of our families to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, alongside national religious and thought leaders. Together we are emerging in the spirit of the fusion movements of US history, including the Poor People’s Campaign that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began to unite a half-century ago, an attempt to unite the poor across the lines of division that keep us apart from each other as a “new and unsettling force in our complacent national life.” We call today to a nation in profound crisis. The moral questions we face put us at the crossroads of history, with deadly poverty in the midst of unprecedented abundance, entrenched racism, an astronomical war budget and irreversible environmental devastation. Only together can we call forward a movement capable of the “revolution of values” and “radical transformation of economic and political power” King knew would be required to transform society and meet the imperatives of the Gospel to love and serve the children of God and all of God’s creation. Learn more and pledge to join us at poorpeoplescampaign.org.

For additional bible studies by the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis putting Martin Luther King, Jr. in conversation with the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, click here.