Monday is not only Inauguration Day. It’s also the day our nation observes Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It is perhaps ironic that on a day when President-elect Donald J. Trump is inaugurated in the midst of a deeply divided nation, we also celebrate a man who spoke often about the need to create “the beloved community.”
The Rev. King’s vision
“The beloved community” represents a world where poverty, hunger and homelessness are not tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. It does not mean “no conflict,” but it does mean a world where conflict does not devolve into violence or the “otherizing” and dehumanizing of people different from ourselves.
The term “the beloved community” was first used in the early days of the 20th century by the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce, who founded the Fellowship of Reconciliation. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., also a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, popularized the term.
For King, “the beloved community” was “not a lofty utopian goal to be confused with the rapturous image of the Peaceable Kingdom, in which lions and lambs coexist in idyllic harmony,” according to The King Center. “Rather, ‘the beloved community’ was for him a realistic, achievable goal that could be attained by a critical mass of people committed to and trained in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence.”
The work continues
King’s vision lives on today. In 2021, his son, Martin Luther King III, spoke at a Brigham Young University forum on the topic so dear to his father. “To begin building the beloved community, we must embrace the belief that, ultimately, we are all brothers and sisters in the great human family,” King said. “It means working together to create communities which have no barriers between black, white, red, brown and yellow. We are all members of the same family because we are all children of the same God.”
Citizens of the beloved community stand up against bullying, corruption, exploitation and war and stand up for peace, justice and reconciliation. Such a community provides decent jobs, decent homes, quality education, justice and health care. It also requires interracial cooperation and creative altruism, creative activism and creative leadership, reported the Deseret News at the time.
Later that year, the Rev. Andrew Teal, chaplain, fellow and lecturer in theology at Pembroke College, also spoke at BYU on building the beloved community. First, he said, we need to recognize that “we are all beloved now. No exception.” That means the person who doesn’t look like you, doesn’t worship like you, has different political views than you — they’re beloved, too.
”Being a beloved community is also necessarily building a beloved community that is safe,” he said. The beloved community has “boundaries, norms, and expectations. We cannot seek to exploit the vulnerable or collude with oppression or unkindness; we must especially safeguard the most vulnerable — those who need our help the most.”
The foundations of how we begin to build a beloved community, he shared, begin with: “We see you,” “We will learn to see ourselves with you,” and “Together we will face the whole host of difficulties rooted in our history and prejudices and our own confusion.”
In January 2022, Shankar Vedantam, journalist, writer and previous NPR social science correspondent, also spoke at BYU on the beloved community and the “psychological genius of nonviolence.”
“One of the greatest psychological and strategic advantages of nonviolence and the idea of loving your enemy,” he said, is that “it allows you to see your enemies as human beings. It allows you to be curious about them, allows you to ask, ‘Let me try and understand where you’re coming from.’”
Modern application
Creating the beloved community through seeing others’ humanity and their divine nature, through treating people with dignity and disagreeing without being disagreeable, probably sounds familiar — and it should.
President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has repeatedly called on church members to shun contention and be peacemakers. President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, asked members to “root out racism.”
The Dignity Index invites us to check our political speech and use words that recognize the dignity of those with whom we disagree. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox continues to emphasize the need to “disagree better,” and author Bryan Stephenson talks of the need for stone catchers in an era of stone throwers.
Each of us holds the power to effect change by nurturing empathy, promoting understanding and standing in solidarity with those who seek to be treated with dignity and kindness. By choosing dialogue over division and compassion over conflict, we can honor the legacies of the Rev. King and work together toward a future where the ideals of the beloved community are not just aspirations, but a lived reality. We can’t sit back and wait for someone else to do something. We all need to “lift where we stand” and work to heal our deep divisions. As we do so, King’s dream will inch ever closer to becoming a reality.
Originally published in the Deseret News
