The 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is April 4, 2008. His death sparked widespread riots in Washington, DC, and in urban communities throughout the nation. King’s assassination occurred at a very turbulent time in our nation’s history, and it is interesting to note the strong parallels between what was going on in our nation then, and what is going on in our nation now.

When King was assassinated, the country was embroiled in an unpopular war in Vietnam, and poor Americans struggled immensely to meet basic everyday needs. Indeed, when King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, he was participating in an effort to aid impoverished sanitation workers and planning to lead a “Poor People’s Campaign” march on Washington.

King spoke with a prophetic voice that linked the government’s support for the war in Vietnam with the nation’s inability to take on domestic challenges like housing and poverty. His analysis of the scarcity of federal resources was astute. He understood that funds needed to solve pressing domestic problems were being spent on a war that he saw as immoral. King was a pacifist. He saw all war as being wrong, and his analysis linking domestic and international policy still rings true today as our nation fights in Iraq – a war that recent estimates say could cost us up to $2 trillion over the next several years.

King also made many comments that some interpreted as anti-American and that many found offensive. For example, King said in a sermon titled “Beyond Vietnam” to the Riverside church in New York exactly one year prior to his assassination in 1968:

“And don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine, messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, ‘You're too arrogant! And if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I'll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God.’”

It is interesting to note that if King made these comments today, it is likely that they would be played – out of context – on endless loops on Youtube or MSNBC. But King’s criticisms of America were rooted in his love for our nation. For example, in the same sermon at the Riverside Church, he also said, “I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world.”

Today, we don’t always focus on the controversial aspects of King’s messages, but the reality is that he was a strong and sometimes radical prophetic voice for social justice.

In recent months, many have found the comments of Dr. Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ – Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor – offensive. Snippets of Wright’s sermons critical of US foreign policy have been played over and over again, and popular media commentators have maligned Wright’s integrity.

However, the sermons that have been played have been taken out of context. Wright actually stands in the social justice prophetic preaching tradition of King and has written extensively about and is a strong proponent of love for all mankind. Yet, I have witnessed very few pastors who have spoken up in defense of Wright in the media, and perhaps one of the reasons why is because of the rise of the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel promotes personal prosperity and focuses on preachers building mega-churches and bigger ministries more so than advocating for social justice, and today more and more black churches are aligning with this philosophy.

This is sad news because the prophetic voice of the church is needed more than ever. There is a need for the voice of the church to cry out about the litany of injustices before us today. These include: the government’s bail-out of corporate investment banks while sitting buy idle as many lower- and middle-income Americans sink in debt because of the mortgage crisis; the DC Government paying half-a-billion dollars for a new baseball stadium while schools languish in the backdrop with inadequate facilities and too little funds for teachers and security personnel; a report from the Center for Disease Control saying that one of every two African-American teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease; the warehousing of young black men in prison; and the issues that need to be addressed go on and on and on.

So this month, as we reflect upon the 40th anniversary of King’s death, let us remember that King spoke and acted prophetically to bring about social justice, even when it was unpopular, and let us commit to do the likewise in our community.