The Beloved Community, Charles Marsh

Subtitle: How faith shapes social justice, from the civil rights movement to today.

Author: Charles Marsh. (other work: God's Long Summer).

In 1956 at the end of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King said that the goal that they had in mind was not just the end of segregation but rather "the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption, the end is the creation of the beloved community".

Marsh's point is to demonstrate that the faith of the black church, a self-consiously Christian faith, stood behind the civil rights movement's cry and work for social justice. This faith tradition remains alive and growing through the work of many intentional communities and organizations today, most of whom are a part of the Christian Community Development Association.

Part 1 -- Chapters on King, Koinonia Farm (Clarence Jordan), and SNCC.

1. King. This chapter traces King's movement from that of a young middle class, well educated pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church (Montgomery) just out from under Daddy King's supervision, to the established national civil rights leader that most people remember him as. Marsh recites King's conversion experience (p32) in which he senses his calling to the work in a personal way that incites courage and trust in God that he will need to face all that will come against him.

Kings kitchen epiphany is grounded in the God of Jesus Christ (p36). Beautiful recitation of King's address to the crowd on the front step of his bombed out home(p38).

During this time King moved toward a commitment to non-violence (against Niebuhr) and though initially kept a loaded gun at home, soon rejected this as a result of his shift in theological consideration. As a result of the Montgomery boycott Kings' vision moved to one rooted deeply in the transformative power of love. (p38) King calls the Montgomery boycott a "spiritual movement" and a "Christian Movement" p42.

"King described the cross as the event that interprets the non-violent direct action". The cross is the event that enables resistence, the power of the non-violent resister to suffer and not to retaliate, and further the cross activates the mission of the church, its comphensive retelling of the human story, its pursuit of the peaceble kingdom." " In this context King understood Ghandi's great sacrifices for humanity as gifts to the Montgomery movement, parables of justice standing beside and complementing the long tradition of our Chrsistian Faith" p45.

So for King the motivation and power to pursue the beloved community is squarly anchored in the Cross of Christ.

2. Koinonia Farm/ Clarence Jordan.

This chapter summarizes the intentional community established in Americus Georgia. The communty was designed to create an environement in which Christians (black and white) could live and work together in true community, as equals.