Martin Luther KingÆs ôThe World Houseö is a deeply probing, insightful commentary on our world. It accurately pegs the root causes of societyÆs problems and malaise, and just as accurately identifies the changes we need to make to relieve them. Although King discusses racial strife, poverty, and war, his argument rises above these issues to examine societyÆs ills in the light of the omniscient perspective of the Creator. King sees society as part of a continuum that started with Moses and continues past today; it transcends all boundaries and embodies the state of humanity as a whole. As he succinctly puts it, ôAll life is interrelated.ö His assessment of humanity from this vantagepoint is that its ageless problems derive from a failure to love one another and a lack of awareness that what hurts one of us hurts us all.
With uncanny accuracy, King pinpoints the causes for the ageless problems that society continues to face. We have technological advances, but we do not realize that we have a poverty of spirit that no technology can make up for. We engage in big talk about peace, but while we are doing so we are preparing for war. As King discerns and exposes each of our areas of self-deception, he urges us to recognize that we cannot pursue our individual goals while ignoring the well-being of others. ôWe must learn to live as brothers or we will perish as fools,ö he prophesied; he was right. Yet with characteristic narrow-mindedness and an obtuse outlook that denies our connection to anyone else, we proceed on our individual paths as though we can rise to the top by stepping on the heads of the impoverished and oppressed.
Although some people engage in phony pandering to the concept of racial equality, this is useless in forging the brotherhood that King aspired to. I once saw a woman in line at the grocery store making an obvious effort to demonstrate an equality she clearly did not feel. In an ex
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