About
This special online publication presents a series of short essay reflections commemorating the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Strength to Love.
About Strength to Love
On June 5, 1963, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. published Strength to Love, his first and only book of collected sermons. The book includes 15 homilies originally given by Dr. King from the pulpit at Dexter Avenue Church of Montgomery, Alabama, and the Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta, Georgia. He wrote several of these sermons (“Loving Your Enemies,” “Love in Action,” and “Shattered Dreams”) from a jail cell when he was incarcerated for in Albany, Georgia in July 1962 during the Albany Movement, and he drafted the final sermons in the volume early 1963 as he prepared for the Birmingham Campaign.
In his Preface to the original 1963 publication, Dr. King explained why he published Strength to Love, and why he wrote and preached the sermons it contains:
In these turbulent days of uncertainty the evils of war and of economic and racial injustice threaten the very survival of the human race. Indeed, we live in a day of grave crisis. The sermons in this volume have the present crisis as their background; and they have been selected for this volume because, in one way or another, they deal with the personal and collective problems that the crisis presents.
Because Strength to Love is a collection of homilies, the text highlights Dr. King’s primary identity as a Christian pastor and minister of the Gospel, and proponent of the social gospel movement of the Protestant Church in the United States. “In these sermons I have sought to bring the Christian message to bear on the social evils that cloud our day and the personal witness and discipline required.” Dr. King noted that many friends across the nation had asked for copies of individual sermons. In deference to them, and to his congregants in Montgomery and Atlanta, “I offer these discourses I the hope that a message may come to life for readers of these printed words.”
As recounted in the King Encyclopedia of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University:
His editors praised the first results, seeing Strength to Love as the words of a minister who addressed his congregation with messages of “warmth, immediate application, and poetic verve” (Wallis, 3 October 1962). In the process of editing the book, however, many familiar King phrases were removed by Arnold and Charles Wallis. King’s assessment of segregation as one of “the ugly practices of our nation,” his call that capitalism must be transformed by “a deep-seated change,” and his depiction of colonialism as “evil because it is based on a contempt for life” were stricken from the text (Papers 6:480; 6:471; 6:530). In particular, many of King’s vivid anti-military and anti-war statements were deleted. In his draft sermon of “Transformed Nonconformist,” for example, he characterized the early Christian church as anti-war: “Its views on war were clearly known because of the refusal of every Christian to take up arms” (Papers 6:473). These statements were absent in the sermons’ published versions.
Strength to Love was the first volume of sermons by an African American minister widely distributed to white as well as black readers, and to an ecumenical audience of different denominations and faiths. In the Foreword to the updated edition, Coretta Scott King wrote: “If there is one book Martin Luther King, Jr. has written that people consistently tell me has changed their lives, it is Strength to Love. I believe it is because this book best explains the central element of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy of nonviolence: His belief in a divine, loving presence that binds all life.”
For those of you interested to read the volume as published in June, 1963, here is a PDF version of the original edition of Strength to Love. A 2010 revised edition, containing Coretta Scott King’s Foreword, can be ordered here.
About the April 2023 Interfaith Symposium on Strength to Love
On April 19, 2023, pursuant to the USF Interfaith Nonviolence Initiative (led by the Joan & Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Social Thought and the Ignatian Tradition, the USF Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice, the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, the USF Office of the Provost and USF University Ministry) and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, convened a symposium at the University of San Francisco to honor and commemorate the 60th anniversary of the publication of Dr. King’s Strength to Love.
The symposium engaged diverse faith leaders, scholars and community activists to reflect upon the application and meaning of Dr. King’s prescient sermons to the challenges facing our communities, our nation and the world after sixty years. Participants included Baptist, Buddhist, Catholic, Episcopal, Jewish, Muslim, Pentecostal and secular leaders and scholars. We engaged each other as a learning community for a day of insight, dialogue and reflection on the meaning of Dr. King’s prophetic ministry in our own lives. We were blessed to experience a deeply meaningful immersion in Dr. King’s words, and a transformative experience of encounter together, in the spirit of Dr. King’s witness and toward the Beloved Community he asked us to build.
Each participants selected or were assigned one of the Strength to Love sermons to discuss in dialogue with an assigned partner. Thirteen symposium participants also wrote a short reflection essay and shared it with all symposium members, and authors had an opportunity to revise their essay following our discussion. These short essays are not intended to be academic articles but personal reflections on the continued relevance of Dr. King’s words in the context of moral challenges of our own time.
The final symposium essays are published here. Where applicable, we have included links to the text of Dr. King’s framing sermon, in an early version.
Symposium participants
Rev. Marc Andrus, Grace Cathedral, Episcopal Bishop of California.
Rabbi Camille Shira Angel, USF Rabbi in Residence; professor, Queering Religion, LGBTQIA activist.
Dr. Erin Brigham, Director, Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Social Thought and the Ignatian Tradition, University of San Francisco, and member of the USF Jesuit Mission Council.
Dr. Jonathan Butler, associate minister, Third Baptist Church of San Francisco; Executive Director, San Francisco African American Faith-Based Coalition; and Assistant Professional Researcher at UCSF in the Department of Family and Community Medicine
Dr. Clayborne Carson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor of History, emeritus, at Stanford University, founder, Stanford’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, founder and director, World House Project, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford University.
John P. Fitzgibbons, S.J., PhD, Chancellor, University of San Francisco.
Dr. Roger Friedland, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, UCSB.
China Galland, author Longing for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna, The Bond Between Women, and Love Cemetery.
Tova Green, resident Zen Buddhist priest at San Francisco Zen Center.
Jonathan D. Greenberg, Director and co-founder, USF Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice and member of the USF Jesuit Mission Council.
Rev. Donal Godfrey, S.J., University Chaplain, Associate Director for Faculty/Staff Spirituality, USF
Aaron J. Hahn Tapper, the Mae and Benjamin Swig Professor in Jewish Studies and the founding Director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice.
Rabbi Laurie Hahn Tapper, Associate Dean for Religious & Spiritual Life, Campus Rabbi, Stanford.
David Hartsough, peace and justice nonviolence activist.
Hala K Hijazi, Muslim and interfaith leader, community organizer and human rights activist.
Lofton Holder, Co-Chair, USF Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice Leadership Council.
Dr. Clarence B. Jones, former lawyer, strategic advisor and draft speechwriter for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Founding Director Emeritus, USF Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice.
Rev. Dr. Zandra L. Jordan, Chaplain Affiliate and Director of Director, Hume Center for Writing and Speaking, Stanford University.
Silena Layne, Program Director/Steward of Community, Faithful Fools, Tenderloin, San Francisco.
Patrick Lee, S.J., Rector, Loyola House Jesuit Catholic Community at the University of San Francisco.
Professor Rhonda V. Magee, USF School of Law and Director, Center for Contemplative Law and Ethics, and author, The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness).
Dr. Lerone A. Martin, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Chair and Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, author, The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism.
Rev. Michael McBride, Lead Pastor, The Way Christian Center, Oakland and National Director for Urban Strategies/LIVE FREE Campaign with the Faith in Action Network.
Lonnie Morris, Director, No More Tears, community leader and violence prevention mentor.
Angélica N. Quiñónez, Director, University Ministry, USF.
Jacqueline Ramos, poet, educator, movement worker, public health researcher and Program Manager, Community-Engaged Learning at The Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good, USF.
Barwendé Sané, S.J. nonviolence educator, peace activist, author, From the Inner Mountain to the Common Good with Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr
Rev. Ronné Wingate Sims, Baptist minister, USF Asst. Director Religious Diversity Justice & Outreach.
Sheila Smith McKoy, USF Vice Provost of Equity, Inclusion and Faculty Excellence, scholar and poet.
Vanessa Rush Southern, San Francisco First Unitarian Church.
About the USF Interfaith Nonviolence Initiative
Our Strength to Love symposium was convened as the culminating gathering at the completion of Year 1 of a two-year USF Interfaith Nonviolence Initiative. This initiative was designed to facilitate an integrated interdisciplinary learning process, aligned with an Ignatian model of investigation, engaging USF faculty and students from a variety of academic departments and programs in community engaged research partnerships with grassroots service organizations.
Pursuant to the initiative, teams led by USF faculty, including USF students, are conducting community-based research investigating the traumatic dynamics of violence and healing processes of nonviolence in a variety of societal areas, including: refugee rights and community empowerment, indigenous education in Colombia and the United States, nonviolent resistance in Burma and co-resistance in Israel/Palestine, Muslim identity in the SF Bay Area, and reduction of gang violence in Central America.
The process of engagement, rooted in ongoing encounter with the reality of violence and experiences of nonviolence, involves empirical research and scholarly analysis by the USF faculty and students. Contributions by the participating clergy and community service leaders include theological and ethical reflection and concrete praxis for social transformation, and the experience of collaborative nonviolence training together with USF faculty and students.
The initiative demonstrates USF’s commitment to the prevention and reduction of violence, and the promotion of nonviolence as a central facet of Catholic social thought, advances the university’s vision of profound interfaith dialogue for social justice, collaboration, and alliance; and it strengthens USF relationships throughout San Francisco and the broader regional community based on our core educational and civic values.
To conclude the initiative in Spring 2024, we have begun to plan a final conference for the entire USF community and several events with interfaith clergy in SF congregations.
For more information, please see Jonathan D. Greenberg, “The USF Interfaith Nonviolence Initiative” in Pierless Bridges, a publication of the Joan & Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Social Thought and the Ignatian Tradition.
Erin Brigham and Jonathan D. Greenberg
