How Did Your Growing Up Influence Your Faith and World View?

This coming week we begin our 8 month class, meeting once a month, titled “What is God Calling You to in Your Life Right Now?” (What can we learn from participants in the Civil Rights Movement?)

In this first session the question we will discuss is this: “What did you learn from your family, church, and community as you were growing up about what God is like?”

Of course, our first influences in our spiritual journeys, for better or for worse, come from our parents.  This was true of Martin Luther King, Jr. as well.

His mother was Alberta Williams King:  She had attended Spelman College and obtained a teaching certificate from Hampton University.  She was also the organist at Ebenezer Baptist Church.  According to Martin, she never accepted segregation.  She taught her children to feel a sense of “somebodiness” and that “You are as good as anyone.”  She explained segregation as a “social condition” rather than a “natural order.”  [Clayborne Carson, The Autobiorgraphy of Martin Luther King, Jr., 3-4]

Daddy King, as Martin often called him, graduated from Morehouse College. He was a “very strong, self-confident man.”  He was a sharecroper’s son from Stockbridge, Va., 18 miles south of Atlanta.  He decided early on that “I ain’t going to plough a mule anymore.”  So off to college he went.  He was a man of “real integrity, deeply committed to moral and ethical principles.”  He was president of the NAACP of Atlanta, and refused to ride the city buses after witnessing a brutal attack on a group of black riders.  As pastor of Ebenezer he had great influence in the ‘Negro community.’”  For the first 25 years of his life MLK felt that if he had a problem he could always call Daddy and things would get solved. [Ibid., 4-5]

In summary, Martin says, “It is quite easy for me to think of a God of love mainly because I grew up in a family where love was central and where lovely relationships were ever present. It is quite easy for me to think of the universe as basically friendly mainly because of my uplifting hereditary and environmental circumstances.  It is quite easy for me to lean more toward optimism than pessimism about human nature mainly because of my childhood experiences.” [Ibid.,2-3]

In my blog of August 2, 2012  I described the incident whereby, at the age of 6, Martin lost one of his best playmates because the white boy’s father had told his son that he was no longer allowed to play with Martin.

Martin relates what happened next.  He asked his parents about this over dinner that night and this was the first time he was made aware of the existence of a “race problem.”  His parents then told him of some of the insults they had borne over the years.  Martin: “I was greatly shocked, and from that moment on I was determined to hate every white person.  As I grew older this feeling continued to grow.  My parents would always tell me I should not hate the white man, but that it was my duty as a Christian to love him.  The question arose in my mind:  How could I love a race of people who hated me and who had been responsible for breaking me up with one of my best childhood friends?  This was a great question in my mind for a number of years.” [Ibid, 6]

As you look back on your growing up, what did you learn about God and the world?  Do you still see it exactly that way?  In what ways has your world view changed?