But American Christians, I must say to you as I said to the
Roman Christians years ago, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Or, as I said to the Philippian
Christians, “Ye are a colony of heaven.” This means that although you live in
the colony of time, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You
have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and
earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the
state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his
ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God’s
will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow
the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence
over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.
The end of the universe is not to be happy. The end is not
to avoid suffering. But the end of life is to do the will of God, come what
may.
So the greatest of all virtues is love. It is here that we
find the true meaning of the Christian faith. This is at bottom the meaning of
the cross. The great event on Calvary signifies more than a meaningless drama
that took place on the stage of history. It is a telescope through which we
look out into the long vista of eternity and see the love of God breaking forth
into time. It is an eternal reminder to a power drunk generation that love is
the most durable power in the world, and that it is at bottom the heartbeat of
the moral cosmos. Only through achieving this love can you expect to
matriculate into the university of eternal life.
Excerpts from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, ”Paul’s Letter to
American Christians“
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