Agape is not a weak, passive love. It is love in action… agape is a willingness to go to any length to restore community… It is a willingness to forgive, not seven times, but seventy times seven to restore community… .
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.” — MLK Jr, on his vision of “the beloved community.”
Never forget: Martin Luther King, Jr. was first and foremost a great preacher and he was a great preacher because he kept throwing his theological nets out deeper and deeper.
Consider, for example, his deep understanding of how and why we love even our enemies.
It’s not because we feel anything like sentimental, affectionate love for those who hate us so much they would gladly kill us.
It’s because … well …
Maria Popova summed it up nicely yesterday in reviewing King’s pillars of nonviolent resistance and the Greek notion of Agape love.
Popova is the curious brain behind the online site “Brain Pickings,” which is a readable, must-read blog featured every Sunday for people curious about all things literary, philosophical and theological.
You can read for yourself her summation of King’s tenets of nonviolent resistance and Agape love here.
Maria Popova, the brains behind “Brain Pickings.” She describes herself as “a reader, writer, interestingness hunter-gatherer, and curious mind at large.”
Here’s a sampling of Popova’s post yesterday (which I’ve broken down into short paragraphs for readability):
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Dr. King turns to Ancient Greek philosophy, pointing out that the love he speaks of is not the sentimental or affectionate kind — “it would be nonsense to urge men to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense,” he readily acknowledges — but love in the sense of understanding and redemptive goodwill.
The Greeks called this agape — a love distinctly different from the eros, reserved for our lovers, or philia, with which we love our friends and family. Dr. King explains:
Agape means understanding, redeeming good will for all men. It is an overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless, and creative.
It is not set in motion by any quality or function of its object… Agape is disinterested love.
It is a love in which the individual seeks not his own good, but the good of his neighbor.
Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes.
It is an entirely “neighbor-regarding concern for others,” which discovers the neighbor in every man it meets. Therefore, agape makes no distinction between friends and enemy; it is directed toward both.
If one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained from the friendship, rather than for the friend’s own sake.
Consequently, the best way to assure oneself that love is disinterested is to have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution.
Even many of his fellow civil rights activists initially thought King was wrong to come out against the Vietnam War as it took to the focus off the cause. But he saw the war and profiteering from it as an impediment to the realization of a restored community–it was always about community with King!
Nonviolence … does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding. The nonviolent resister must often express his protest through noncooperation or boycotts, but he realizes that these are not ends themselves; they are merely means to awaken a sense of moral shame in the opponent. The end is redemption and reconciliation. The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community, while the aftermath of violence is tragic bitterness.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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