FOR- Fellowship Magazine -Martin Luther King's World House Vision and Agenda

November/December 2004

Martin Luther King's World House Vision and Agenda - True Security for Everyone Everywhere

by Carol Bragg

Most of us are familiar with Dr. Martin Luther King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech, delivered before a crowd of 200,000 people at the March on Washington in August, 1963. But few have read Dr. King's World House essay, probably the best summation of his teachings.

This essay is adapted from King's Nobel Peace Prize lecture, given at the University of Oslo on December 10, 1964. He worked on this speech for nearly a month and later gave it prominence as the final chapter in his book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, published in 1967.

The World House essay describes the enormous challenges facing humanity and prophetically ends by warning of the tremendous urgency of addressing them: "Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late."'

When Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel introduced Dr. King to a Rabbinical Assembly ten days before King's assassination, Heschel proclaimed: "Where in America today do we hear a voice like the voice of the prophets of Israel? Martin Luther King is a sign that God has not forsaken the United States of America. God has sent him to us. Martin Luther King, Jr., is a voice, a vision, and a way. The whole future of America will depend on the impact and influence of Dr. King."

Black theologian and activist Vincent Harding has written: "If there is even a chance that Rabbi Heschel was correct, that the untranquil King and his peace-disturbing vision, words, and deeds hold the key to the future of America, for scholars, citizens, or celebrants to forget the real man and his deepest implications would be not only faithless, but also suicidal."

This year is the fortieth anniversary of Dr. King's World House vision. It is time to heed the prophet and let him lead us "out of the wilderness."

Summary of the World House vision

King begins his essay by suggesting that we have inherited a large house, a "world house" in which we must somehow learn to live together in peace—black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Muslim and Hindu—a family widely separated in ideas, culture, and interest. We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or together we will perish as fools.

He goes on to say that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit that stands in sharp contrast to our scientific and technological advances. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.

He then describes three great problems facing humanity:

• racism

• poverty/materialism

• war

Racism and its perennial ally, economic exploitation, provide the key to understanding most of the international complications of this generation. If we are not diligent in our determination to root out the last vestiges of racism in our dealings with the rest of the world, we may soon see the sins of our fathers visited upon our own and succeeding generations. If Western civilization does not now respond constructively to the challenge to banish racism, some future historian will have to say that a great civilization died because it lacked the soul and commitment to make justice a reality for all people.

Poverty, like a monstrous octopus, stretches its choking prehensile tentacles into lands and villages all over the world. Two-thirds of the peoples of the world are undernourished, ill-housed, and shabbily clad. We have the resources and the scientific know-how to provide everyone everywhere with the basic necessities of life. There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will.

The time has come for an all-out effort to eradicate global poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. The wealthy nations must initiate a massive, sustained Marshall Plan for Asia, Africa, and Latin America, allocating two percent of their gross national income annually for ten to twenty years in order to conquer the ancient enemy, poverty.

All people are interdependent; all life is interrelated. The agony of the poor impoverishes the rich; the betterment of the poor enriches the rich. We are inevitably our brother's keeper because we are our brother's brother. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

The final problem humanity must solve in order to survive in the world house is finding an alternative to war. Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the destructive power of modern weapons eliminates even the possibility that war may serve any good at all. It is as possible and as urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to poverty and racial injustice.

King suggests that the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence become a subject for study and experimentation in every field of human conflict, including relations between nations. The United Nations is a gesture in the direction of nonviolence on a world scale. King proposes that it examine the uses of nonviolent direct action—the persistent and determined application of peaceable power to offenses against the world community.

In the final section of his essay, King states that the stability of the world house will require a revolution of values. We must rapidly shift from a thing-oriented society to a people-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

We are called upon to be the Good Samaritan on life's roadside. But true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. The whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can lead the way in this revolution of values. A nation that year after year spends more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. There is nothing to prevent us from paying adequate wages to schoolteachers, social workers, and other servants of the public. There is nothing to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen, whether a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid, or day laborer. There is nothing but shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum—and livable—income for every American family. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against Communism [substitute "terrorism"]. War is not the answer. We must seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of Communism/terrorism grows and develops.

A genuine revolution of values means that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to humanity as a whole. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all people.

Love is the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or to bow before the altar of retaliation. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals who pursued this self-defeating path of hate.

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on." We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. This may well be humanity's last chance to choose between chaos and community.

Summary excerpted from Where Do We Go From Here. Chaos or Community?
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1968)

How you can promote Dr. King's World House agenda

1. Read the World House essay. Give a copy to your minister, priest, rabbi, or imam and ask that it be used as the topic for a sermon and for study by the congregation. Copies of the complete essay can be obtained from the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) for $.75 each; 10 for $5.00. E-mail riforusa@aol.com. The essay is also on FOR's website at www.forusa.org/nonviolence/mlk_worldhouse.html.

2. Encourage educators to include the World House vision and agenda in their teaching about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Utilize as the theme for Dr. King Birthday observances in January. A complete packet of materials is available for $10 from bookstore@forusa.org or Box 271, Nyack, NY 10960.

3. Mail copies of the World House essay to your newspaper editor, radio talk show hosts, and television news anchors and reporters. Urge them to report that Dr. King's legacy includes his World House vision and the challenge to eradicate racism, poverty, excessive materialism, and militarism.

4. Schedule use of FOR's World House replica (4' depth x 8' width x 6' height) for your congregation, school, or community group or get instructions for building your own. Ask for a speaker or workshop facilitator on the World House. Suggested donation: $40.00. Call 401-273-4369 or 401-724-7700 ex. 6. (World House replica: concept by Nondas Voll, Rhode Island Fund for Community Progress; design and construction by Rev. T. Michael Rock, FOR Rhode Island Chapter and Rhode Island Committee for Nonviolence Initiatives.)

5. Join the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest and largest interfaith peace and justice organization in the US. Write FOR, Box 271, Nyack, NY 10960. Call 845-358-4601. Online, go to FOR's website: www.forusa.org.

Carol Bragg, past member of the FOR National Council, is active with the Rhode Island FOR. She is a writer and activist with particular interest in the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.