E. Stanley Jones and Martin Luther King, Jr., Part 1

Photo of E. Stanley Jones, reprinted with permission of the Jones' Family

Published in 1944, E. Stanley Jones' The Christ of the American Road laid out what the United States needed to do in order to live out the promise of the Reign of God. Among other subjects, it addressed head-on the sin of racism in the U.S. Drawing upon his friendship with and knowledge of Mahatma Gandhi, Jones outlined a way in which Christians—both black and white—could put an end to the insidious racism in the country. He advocated for educating the populace that the words of the Declaration of Independence—“liberty and justice for all”—mean for all. He called for a nationwide curriculum in public schools on race appreciation. He called on Christian churches to welcome persons of other races into membership. He called for a nationwide campaign to do away with discriminatory laws. If all of these actions failed to bring an end to racism, Jones wrote:

Then [African Americans], probably joined by whites, may have to resort to nonviolent non-cooperation by picking out certain injustices and then, through volunteers trained in nonviolent methods, refusing to obey these specific injustices and taking the consequences of that civil disobedience. This would be an appeal to the conscience of the country. [i]

I was stunned when I first read those words. He wrote this in 1944! He foretold the coming Civil Rights movement in America and the non-violent methodology that Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced.

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[i] E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the American Road, p. 180.