Reflections on the Life and Work of Dr. James Cone

Click below for reflections on the significance of the life and work of Rev. Dr. James Hal Cone
https://www.facebook.com/epworth.baltimore/videos/612646342423733/

National Public Radio Interview on Dr. King's Assissination 4/4/18

Click here for my interview on National Public Radio on 4/4/18, on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with Tom Hall, Attorney Myesha Braden and Dr. Heber Brown
WYPR881FM/videos/10156353296138980/

A Word About St. Mary's Ecumenical Institute

Click here for a word about St. Mary's Ecumenical Institute
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDgt2e19bpc&feature=share

At the National Museum of Peace and Justice, Motgomery, Alabama, 4/20/18

Click below for a message from the National Memorial of Peace and Justice, Montgomery, Alabama https://www.facebook.com/anthony.hunt.7/videos/10215618303306424/ 

Stones of Hope Book Signing, 5/6/18

Scenes from Stones of Hope Book Signing on May 6, 2018

The Life and Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm excited to share that I'll be teaching "The Life and Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.” at Wesley Theological Seminary this summer, June 11-21, 6-9:00 pm. The course is offered for 2 graduate credits or 3 CEUs. If you're interested in delving deeper into a study of Dr. King’s life and legacy, and having fun doing it, I'd love to work with you. 

Click on link to see Video Preview 

https://www.facebook.com/anthony.hunt.7/videos/vb.1106286174/10215843713661542/?type=3

BELOVED COMMUNITY TOOL KIT

BELOVED COMMUNITY TOOL KIT

(by C. Anthony Hunt, Ph.D.) 

I.  Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Beloved Community

In the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., at least seven features of beloved community can be identified.

1. Beloved community is shaped by a recognition of racial (and other social) injustices. W.E.B. DuBois posited in 1903 in the Souls of Black Folk that “the problem of the 20^th Century is the problem of the color line.”  In the years preceding and through the era of the Civil Rights movement, race/racism remained the prevailing social concern of the time, as is reflected in the title of sociologist Gunnar Myrdal’s 1944 study or race relations in America – “The American Dilemma – The Negro Problem”.

2. Beloved community is engaged in action and reaction rooted in agapic love.  Through the practices of peace-making, community-building and nonviolence it offers alternatives to established Church (or churches) orders that have placed the cultural idol of religion over Christ.

3. Beloved community provides Christians the best chance walk with Christ in agapic love. The walk toward beloved community requires that we walk in with genuine love, respect, and humility, so that I may see a glimpse of the world someone else wants to share with us.

4. A separation of secular and religious life in atmospheres that are inherently hostile to the Gospel is not possible, necessitating the formation of beloved community.  Instead of trying to prove others wrong, it beckons us to clothe ourselves with the One who gave ultimate service and offer people space where they can find a lived gospel experience.

5. Beloved community is sometimes the last hope for a relationship between God and persons, the oppressors and the oppressed.   There exists in beloved community a creative and holy tension, a commitment to remain in community even when the ties that bind are stretched to snapping. We do this because we understand that we cannot exist without one another. Our individual communities will not survive without beloved community.

6. Beloved community is not beholden to the categories and limitations of earthly pressures, no matter how dire, because it is contingent upon relationships based in unconditional love and upon God’s imperative.  In beloved community we, like those who marched and sat-in with Dr. King, prepare ourselves for what may come. We learn the laws of humankind, and where we feel that the Gospel requires us to take a stand contrary to the law, we faithfully choose Christ’s example. When we see human beings being treated unjustly, we, like King, defy whatever State mandate that, in the following of it, renders us complicit.

7. Beloved community is that which brings together the totality of all persons, both individually and collectively, and provides for them a genuine identity in a disingenuous world.   We require some venue through which we can experience and develop the integrated self and community. We understand, as Josiah Royce argued, that the virtues of humankind cannot be perfected in solitude.  Only in beloved community can we find ourselves, to stop being individuals and to start being people.