They Had a Dream

Martin Luther was not an African-American minister. He was an Augustian monk from the early 1500’s, reformer of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and the man behind a reform movement that birthed a Protestant Reformation and a people of faith called Lutherans.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an African-American minister, civil rights leader, and reformer of American culture and public policy.

Parsippany, NJ is not the ‘land of the Lutherans,’ as some would suggest Minnesota might be. When asked what religion I am, the response “I’m a Lutheran Christian” is often met with, “What’s that?” I can not even begin to count the number of times I’ve explained to people I interact with outside of the church that Martin Luther King, Jr. was not the founder of Lutheranism, but that he shares a name with a man equally committed to changing the status quo.

Both men saw the abuses of the political, and religious powers of their times and sought to make reforms to their cultures and governments through peaceful means; Luther through dialogue with church leaders, preaching, writing, and the circulation of his 95 theses; King through peaceful preaching, protest and marching. Both men chose to use the power of their words for their arsenal of weaponry to effect change. Both used the Bible to show society the truth of their preaching. Both men sought to use education as a means to change; Luther by translating the Bible into the language of the common man, German; King in his search for changes to public laws and education policies toward a goal of desegregation, racial equality among people, and a color blind society.

Both men dreamed that God would be the only judge of a human being’s worth.

AMEN!