Dr. King on the Unity of Love and Power
Some years ago, I discovered that my students were deeply motivated by scholarly analysis connecting restorative justice to Christian (most directly Mennonite) traditions.  This spurred me to developed a summer conflict management class that focused on reading the work of Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our goal was to identify and examine ‘King’s Way.’  What was the path—what are the attitudes and skills and perspectives—that Dr. King lived and taught to help us more productively address the conflicts in our lives?

I learned quite a lot from my students that summer.  And the following analysis from Dr. King has stuck in my mind ever since.  I keep coming back to it and thought others might benefit from reflecting on these ideas from one of America’s most thoughtful leaders.

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

Dr. King reinforces this idea from Where Do We Go From Here? (his final book—a great read) in other texts as well.  He is emphasizing, in my view at least, the importance of rejecting 'either/or' thinking, rejecting the simplistic suckers choice trap we encounter in the dualistic framing of conflicts.  He reinforces this idea in a sermon about toughmindedness and tenderheartedness, the qualities of a serpent and a dove respectively.

“To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean and selfish. To have dovelike qualities without serpentlike qualities is to be sentimental, anemic, and aimless….  We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.

The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.”

Dr. King is highlighting the importance of embracing the paradox of the Prince of Peace, engaging with love, and learning what Tupac calls the ‘skills it takes to be real,’ so that we might become both toughminded and tenderhearted, both serpent and dove, both powerful and loving.  Not either/or...both/and.