In honor of the great Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I would like to present to you this very small excerpt from his wonderful sermon entitled “Transformed Nonconformist,” based on Romans 12:2 which reads, “Be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
"Do not conform is difficult advice in a generation when crowd pressures have unconsciously conditioned our minds and feet to move to the rhymed drumbeat of the states quo. Many voices and forces urge us to choose the path of least resistance, and bid us never to fight for an unpopular cause and never to be found in a pathetic minority of two or three.
"Even certain of our intellectual disciplines persuade us of the need to confirm. Some philosophical sociologists suggest that morality is merely group consensus and that the folkways are the right wats. Some psychologists say that mental and emotional adjustment is the reward of thinking and acting like other people. Success, recognition and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.
"In spite of this prevail tendency to conform, we as Christians have a mandate to be nonconformist. We are called to be people of conviction, not conformity; of moral nobility, not social respectability. We are commanded to live differently and according to a higher loyalty.
“When an affluent society would coax us to believe that happiness consists in the size of our automobiles, the impressiveness of our houses, and the expensiveness of our clothes, Jesus reminds us, “A man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses...When we, through compassionless detachment and arrogant individualism, fail to respond to the needs of the underprivileged, the Master says, “Insomuch as you have done it unto one of the least of theses my brothers and sisters, you have done it to me.”
Dr. King taught us that everywhere and at all times, "the love ethic of Jesus is the radiant light of hope revealing the ugliness of our stale conformity." Therefore, let us go now, not to be conformed to this world, but to be Christlike in the world; inviting others to “come and see” the one who gave his life for all for the salvation of all.
"Do not conform is difficult advice in a generation when crowd pressures have unconsciously conditioned our minds and feet to move to the rhymed drumbeat of the states quo. Many voices and forces urge us to choose the path of least resistance, and bid us never to fight for an unpopular cause and never to be found in a pathetic minority of two or three.
"Even certain of our intellectual disciplines persuade us of the need to confirm. Some philosophical sociologists suggest that morality is merely group consensus and that the folkways are the right wats. Some psychologists say that mental and emotional adjustment is the reward of thinking and acting like other people. Success, recognition and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.
"In spite of this prevail tendency to conform, we as Christians have a mandate to be nonconformist. We are called to be people of conviction, not conformity; of moral nobility, not social respectability. We are commanded to live differently and according to a higher loyalty.
“When an affluent society would coax us to believe that happiness consists in the size of our automobiles, the impressiveness of our houses, and the expensiveness of our clothes, Jesus reminds us, “A man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses...When we, through compassionless detachment and arrogant individualism, fail to respond to the needs of the underprivileged, the Master says, “Insomuch as you have done it unto one of the least of theses my brothers and sisters, you have done it to me.”
Dr. King taught us that everywhere and at all times, "the love ethic of Jesus is the radiant light of hope revealing the ugliness of our stale conformity." Therefore, let us go now, not to be conformed to this world, but to be Christlike in the world; inviting others to “come and see” the one who gave his life for all for the salvation of all.
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