Africa, Asia
Jan 19 2009

Creating King’s beloved community

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By Paco Wertin, CFCA chief executive officer

No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution. The world in which we live is geographically one. The challenge that we face today is to make it one in terms of brotherhood.

ñ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968

I see and feel a kinship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and CFCA as we celebrate his birthday.

He believed in the beloved community, in which all people can share the wealth of the earth and that obstacles like poverty, racism and war can be overcome if we learn to resolve conflict non-violently, together.

I find an echo of that in the words of CFCA president and co-founder, Bob Hentzen:

“Building community is essentially an effort to reestablish the basic freedom of God’s humble people. In striving to build a community in the style of Jesus, we can expect opposition and persecution. We want to promote a new view of globalization, one in which we put into international motion a true sharing of the resources of God’s creation. We want the resources and goods of this earth to favor unity, not separation.”

This community is based on new relationships forged between those who have and those who do not have what is necessary to live. The first step is overcoming obstacles. Obstacles can be lack of nutrition, lack of access to health care, education and skills development, and lack of community and hope. The next step is having choices. Having choices means freedom. So free from the obstacles, we can be free for creating community.

CFCA communities in India and Africa express their desire to overcome all that is in the way of forging these new relationships by singing “We Shall Overcome” at their gatherings.

We join them in that song and deep in our heart, in kinship with Dr. King, we pray:

With you, O God, we are a liberating force of love in our world today.

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