The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.
Interpretation
The church should serve as a moral compass for the state, not be controlled by it.
This quote emphasizes the role of the church in society, suggesting that it should act as a moral guide and critic to the government rather than submit to its authority. Martin Luther King, Jr. warns that if the church loses its passionate commitment to social justice and moral guidance, it risks becoming insignificant in the eyes of society.
In practice
During a sermon, a pastor might use this quote to inspire congregants to advocate for social justice.
This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
Music is the best consolation for a despaired man
We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.
We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
Israel... is one of the great outpost of democracy in the world
One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God
There are no surprising facts, only models that are surprised by facts; and if a model is surprised by the facts, it is no credit to that model.
The Catechism was not written to please you. It will not make life easy for you, because it demands of you a new life.
Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.
Today I live on an island, in a house that is sad, hard, severe, that I built for myself, solitary on a sheer rock over the sea: a house that is the spectre, the secret image of prison. The image of my nostalgia. Maybe I never desired, not even then, to escape from jail. Man is not meant to live freely in freedom, but to be free inside a prison.
Our humanist community should be thinking more about demonstrating the fundamental truth that goodness requires neither God nor the belief in God by organizing together as a community to do good. Less money spent on billboards that just make us feel good about ourselves and more on soup kitchens and organized visits to the sick and dying.
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