Special guest lecturer City Council member Jim Francis. Vic Allen is the Worship Associate. Jessica Kuiper is our pianist.

This presentation will involve the congregation in attempting to resolve a dilemma each United Statesian faces, but a dilemma that few people accept as real.

On the one hand, Martin Luther King’s 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail expresses eloquently the essence of democracy, the essence of religion, and the proper relationship between these human-made concepts in a democratic-republic.  The United States honors Dr. King and his words with a national holiday.

And yet… The eight clergymen who wrote and published the essay that prompted King’s letter better represented the post-Revolution views of men such as George Washington and Sam Adams.  Disobedience to law opens the door to the destruction of a democratic-republic. 

Which is it to be?  Allegiance to a republic or allegiance to “liberty and justice for all,” i.e., equality?