To the Editor,

Martin Luther King Day is a national holiday to remember and honor Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his work for racial justice.  He was an ordained minister, as was his father.  Compared to the many who oppressed him, he was a towering figure intellectually and spiritually.  His professed and lived Christian faith was the power source for his life's work and his legacy.

Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela's right-hand man in emancipation from apartheid in South Africa, was a Bishop in the Anglican church. Again, Bishop Desmond Tutu was a man of faith.  As Abrham Lincoln is quoted, "Let us have faith that right makes might, and to that end let us dare to do our duty as we understand it."

It is spiritual warfare.  The power source for these men was faith in a righteous God being on their side in what humanly looked like an impossible power struggle.

Can one truly say we honor and respect Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. if one denies the very existence of the God he studied, preached about and depended on? Was Rev. King a fool to believe in God or a life-long faker?  Was Bishop Tutu a fool to believe in God or a life-long faker?  They studied and followed the teachings of Jesus Christ.  They staked their very lives and their eternal souls on their faith.

It is easy to be disappointed in human institutions, like a church or civil government.  On any given day, a fellow human can disappoint us, but human failings do not invalidate truth.  A person's math error does not invalidate math's essential principles.  Go to the source.  These men of faith read the words of Jesus Christ and it inspired and empowered their life's work.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was trusting God to be on his side.  "The battle belongs to the Lord." This was how he could look at the life of Gandhi and the writing of Henry David Thoreau and use nonviolence to seek change.  It took faith in God.

Lorraine Potter-Cooper

Warwick