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Inauguration Day, MLK, & America’s Golden Age

Inauguration Day, MLK, & America’s Golden Age

Last updated on: January 20, 2025 at 6:54 pm by Paul Louis Metzger

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Inauguration Day, MLK, & America’s Golden Age 2025-01-20T18:54:13-08:00 Paul Louis Metzger

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Martin Luther King Jr. addresses a crowd from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where he delivered his famous, “I Have a Dream,” speech during the Aug. 28, 1963, march on Washington, D.C.; Taken on 28 August 1963; Public Domain.

Inauguration Day: America’s Golden Age?

President Trump claimed today that the “golden age of America begins right now.” No doubt, his supporters were ecstatic and celebrated his statement while other Americans were less enthusiastic, perhaps even greatly troubled. No matter who would have won the election, such claims on Inauguration Day would have received very mixed reactions in a deeply divided country.

MLK’s Dream: Beyond Our Grasp

Today also pays tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I don’t recall MLK ever claiming during the Civil Rights era that the golden age of America had begun. Nor do I think he would have ever made such claims. His “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the Lincoln Monument on August 28, 1963 (and referenced at length today at Trump’s inauguration), spoke of a future reality beyond our grasp.

MLK’s Nationalistic Nightmare

Moreover, MLK’s “I Have a Dream,” along with his April 4, 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” message, make clear that a golden age of America could never begin when nightmare scenarios of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism are so prominent, and when nationalism, that is, “America First,” takes center stage.

In “Beyond Vietnam,” he declared,

“Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. Because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them. This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls ‘enemy,’ for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.”

Later, in the same message, he cried out,

“A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind.”

MLK made a similar claim in a Christmas sermon just months before his death. His equitable and global values are what led U.S. political leaders to name this day in his honor many years ago.

A Golden Age? A Truly Global Age

From King’s vantage point, America’s golden age could never begin if it is not also the world’s golden age. King’s vision of this global age would have featured the Jewish and Christian Scriptures’ call to welcome and advocate for the orphan, widow, and alien in their distress (Deuteronomy 10:18; James 1:27). May that far away golden age dawn and may the church and the nations of the world make every effort to hasten that day.

About Paul Louis Metzger

Paul Louis Metzger, Ph.D., is Professor of Theology & Culture, Multnomah Biblical Seminary, Jessup University; Director of The Institute for Cultural Engagement: New Wine, New Wineskins; and Author and Editor of numerous works, including Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church (Eerdmans, 2007) and More Than Things: A Personalist Ethics for a Throwaway Culture (IVP Academic, 2023). You can read more about the author here.

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