To love America enough to not worship it.
I’m of the opinion that Martin Luther King Jr. will probably be remembered as the greatest American who ever lived, the one whose prophetic posture toward the land of his sojourn helped usher in an America worthy of celebration. He loved the hope of America enough to refuse to worship it. He was determined to mine the open-ended language of the Constitution for all it might be worth. King embodies an evangelical tension in regard to America, a tension that gets glossed over when people get confused over symbols and pretense. In the rush to claim affiliation with King’s brand, it is often overlooked that the same King whose image appears in the social media feed of our Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and whose grave site is featured in presidential photo ops passed his final moments in a Memphis hotel room working on a sermon titled ‘Why America May Go to Hell.’” Slow the tape and see.