Actual quote cited
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks from the pulpit on courage, Selma, AL, March 8, 1965.
Deep down in our non-violent creed is the conviction there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they're worth dying for. And if a man happens to be 36-years-old, as I happen to be, some great truth stands before the door of his life--some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right.
A man might be afraid his home will get bombed, or he's afraid that he will lose his job, or he's afraid that he will get shot, or beat down by state troopers, and he may go on and live until he's 80. He's just as dead at 36 as he would be at 80. The cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. He died...
A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.
So we're going to stand up amid horses. We're going to stand up right here in Alabama, amid the billy-clubs. We're going to stand up right here in Alabama amid police dogs, if they have them. We're going to stand up amid tear gas!
We're going to stand up amid anything they can muster up, letting the world know that we are determined to be free!
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As a biblical Christian of the Reformed tradition, I am opposed to racism. The gospel is open to all ethnic groups of all origins.
Galatians 3: 28: English Standard Version 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 12: 12-13 English Standard Version 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves[d] or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. d 1 Corinthians 12:13 For the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see Preface (Of the ESV)
Cited
δοῦλοι
Ἕλληνες εἴτε δοῦλοι εἴτε ἐλεύθεροι
NAS: Greeks, whether slaves or free,
KJV: whether [we be] bond or
INT: Greeks whether slaves or free
End citation
Nominative is the subject of the sentences. 'Whether slaves or free'.
The gospel is available to all ethnic groups through knowing God within regeneration salvation (justification, sanctification), through God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, via the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross, and his resurrection, applied to believers.
Racism should not be an issue or problem within the Christian Church where people are actually regenerate (Titus 3, John 3) and reasonably understand the love and truth of God.
