 Dr. King had faith in the inevitability of God’s justice, but they also had faith in the ultimate justice of the people. People’s rights cannot be denied forever. Eventually
people will agitate for freedom and for justice, and will build a movement that will prevail.
Of course, there are competing visions of justice. White Southerners in the United States, and white South Africans, often had a different idea of what they thought was just. In the modern era we have seen very long and very difficult struggles to achieve the vote for women, to end slavery and racial segregation, and for anti-discrimination protections and the freedom to marry for gays and lesbians, to name a few. We Americans often disagree with one another. And, amidst many disappointments, justice doesn’t always seem inevitable.
The moral arc ~
In our long national struggle to end slavery, Rev. Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister who served in West Roxbury and then in Boston, was one of the outstanding abolitionists of his time. Parker led public demonstrations that were nearly riots, protesting the Fugitive Slave Act that mandated the arrest and return to slavery of black men and women who had freed themselves and had moved to the North. Parker’s direct public actions, his organization of public protests, were so effective that Massachusetts stopped trying to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act.v
In a sermon published in 1853, Theodore Parker said, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
Years later someone anonymously made the statement more concise, rephrasing it as, “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King repeated this phrase many times, sometimes putting it in quotation marks, sometimes attributing it to Theodore Parker. But the phrase became associated with Rev. King, and it is now on the carpet in President Obama’s Oval Office, where Rev. Parker’s words are attributed to Rev. King.
The road ahead ~
Yes, the moral arc of the universe is a long one. Can we make it bend toward justice? We will have to speak clearly to the incoming Trump Administration. Because, as religious liberals, we are convinced that women’s rights are human rights; gay rights are human rights. Black Americans who are stopped by the police have human rights that must be respected. Immigrants and refugees have human rights that we must respect. Religious freedom, including the freedom of our Muslim neighbors, is a human right that must be protected and respected.
And again, as religious liberals, we believe that human rights are natural rights. That is not to say that they rely on some particular creed or dogma, but that the only way that we can credibly assert human rights is with the assumption that human nature is moral and spiritual. We, as human beings, whether male or female, poor or rich, straight or gay, immigrant or native-born, have reached a stage where our moral and spiritual nature requires freedom and fairness; and in order for each person to exercise such freedom society must guarantee it. Because wherever this assumption is rejected it becomes clear that only might becomes right.
And so we must stand together. Sen. Bernie Sanders said the other day, “To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. … [But] to the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”
I agree with Sen. Sanders. And I agree with Theodore Parker – the moral arc of the universe is long. Like him, I can’t see the end. But, as it was with Theodore Parker, Martin Luther King, and Desmond Tutu, I have faith that, using our hands and hearts and feet, we can put enough weight on that arc that we will bend it toward just