Strength to Love Book Analysis

This book is arguably the best book I have read, most relevant, practical and clear approach to social justice and personal morality. Oskar Ko

Summary

In Strength to Love, Martin Luther King Jr. sets out “to bring the Christian message to bear on the social evils that cloud our day and the personal witness and discipline required.” (SL, xiii) In King’s desire to accomplish what he sets out to do, he focused on the synthesis of various aspects of Christian life, both collectively and individually. King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, shares in the foreword that King’s “theological belief in the interdependence of all life inevitably led to methods for social change that dignified the humanity of the social change advocate as well as his adversary.” (SL, ix) To accomplish what he sets out to do, King used the first five chapters to bring the mind and the heart together, and the remaining chapters to focus on the transcending hope, faith, and love found in Christ alone that integrates the spiritual and the intellectual; the eternal and the temporal; the visionary and the practical.
In King’s effort to eliminate social evil, he focuses on two basic perspectives: (1) Christian life requires a tough mind and a tender heart; (2) Christian life depends on the fact that God is able. King argues that, in order to have the strength to love even in the midst of overwhelming evil and injustice, one must have a tough mind to know right from wrong and therefore not be swayed by the false reality through noncooperation. He also says that one must have a tender heart to approach social change with nonviolence so that the means to reach the end will be consistent and the dream to overcome evil and bring about Beloved Community on earth can come true.
“He is tough minded enough to transcend the world; he is tenderhearted enough to live in it.” (SL, 9) This sentence summarizes King’s perspective on who God is and how God’s people should live. From King’s argument, soft-mindedness is the simplest way to think; it is easily manipulated and prone to making conclusions without facts and examination which often results in hatred, prejudice, half-truths and downright ignorance. Therefore, tough-mindedness is necessary to save one from the lies, deceits, and manipulations of this world. Tough-mindedness demands nonconformity to the rest of the world–where one must live according to one’s conviction instead of one’s comfort and live to transform the society instead of reflecting the society. As one embraces the toughness of mind, one must act out that toughness of mind in tender love–a neighborly love demonstrated by the Samaritan found in Jesus’ parable, whose “altruism was universal, for he thought of all men, even publicans and sinners, as brothers. His altruism was dangerous, for he willingly traveled hazardous roads in a cause he knew was right. His altruism was excessive, for he chose to die on Calvary.” (SL, 30) Love in action is therefore consistent with one’s mind and heart. One’s words and deeds must spring from a perspective of a forgiven sinner who is willing to forgive in a qualitative and persistent attitude as Christ did, so that one can persevere in the journey to bring about change in loving action.
“Is there any one of us who has not faced the agony of blasted hopes and shattered dreams?” (SL, 87) This question reveals the tension of having a tough mind in a fearful and manipulative world, a loving heart in a hostile and threating environment, and a forgiving attitude towards the seemingly pure presence of evil. King responds with the integration of God into our reality. For God is not a distant God who is so high above that our lives become irrelevant, and God is not so sentimental and soft that He is unable to carry out His plan of redemption. King argues that God created us in His image; even in the worst of humankind, there’s still goodness, and therefore reason to love and forgive. One must also, therefore, reawaken the God-given divine image and goodness within us to embrace that we as human beings are fully capable to participate God’s act of bring love and justice to a world of darkness. This requires faith in God so that, in the midst of shattered dreams, our hearts will not grow cold and our hope will not diminish.
“The Christian faith makes it possible for us nobly to accept that which cannot be changed, to meet disappointments and sorrow with an inner poise, and to absorb the most intense pain without abandoning our sense of hope.” (SL, 97) This statement illustrates the Christian faith as the essential fuel that energizes, propels, and ultimately gives Christians the strength to love. King contends the quality of God in multiple ways throughout Strength to Love; God is the dawn of hope. Even at the moments of reaching the darkest hour, we know from history and the Spirit’s inner working that a new dawn of hope is coming because God is able and God is infinite in His love, strength, justice, and wrath while the disappointments, hatred, and fear of this world is finite. King argues that both the OT and the NT stress over and over again that God is a God of power–able to do exceedingly abundant things in nature and history. King advocates that, if God is able, then God also leaves us peace, which He promised in Scripture to aid us and strengthen us in the midst of mounting fear to do what is tough with what is tender.
Faith and hope in God, who not only has the power to conquer evil and injustice, but has also given us power so that we may participate in His work in bringing not only the spiritual redemption but the practical freedom to humanity, then becomes the foundation for Christians to transform the world. Faith and hope in God produce the necessary courage and love to challenge social evil and fear itself with noncooperation and nonviolent resistance. With these, all the injustice will reach an end that is redemption and reconciliation and the aftermath is the creation of the Beloved Community.

Analysis

In Strength to Love, King identifies racial injustice, economical exploitation, and the potential outbreak of wars as the major threats to humanity. King sees that despite these threats, God’s nature is rooted in love and justice, which are not withdrawn from human society. God intimately designed human beings to work with Him in weeding out the evils of this world. Therefore, in King’s view, God’s sovereignty works hand in hand with human efforts to resolve social injustices. This view of God also influenced King’s view on human nature. He holds that, even though humans are naturally inclined to do evil, God has given human beings the capacity to accomplish greater goods through placing loyalty and faith in God. King’s way of reasoning always returns back to the principles and virtues of bringing justice through actions done in nonviolence with attitudes rooted in love. King argues that only nonviolence means can bring about peaceful ends, and only through love can reconciliation become a reality. To King, “the Christian doctrine of love, operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence, is one of the most potent weapons available to an oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.” (SL, 159)
King appeals to Scripture as his authority and uses it as the foundation to his basic convictions, however, more often than not, King uses natural laws and human history to demonstrate the need for God and the need for love and justice to ensure the continuation of human society and to realize that even “in a dark, confused world the Kingdom of God may yet reign in the hearts of men.” (SL, 164) I agree that what King argued for can be a reality and that only when our lives are rooted in such perspectives can we truly have the strength to love and find opportunities in every crisis to bring about redemption and reconciliation.