Intersections with Phil Allen, Jr.    

Episode: 015 “Remembering MLK: Saving the Soul of America’”

Airdate: January 17, 2021

Length: 1:07:33

Guests: Hak Joon Lee

Hak Joon Lee, Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, joins us on this episode of Intersections with Phil Allen Jr. Dr. Lee takes us on journey as we celebrate and reflect on the relevance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy celebrate this MLK day. He begins with his own personal story on how, as he says, “a Korean man came to be interested in Martin Luther King” and become a King scholar. He shares a compelling story of a supernatural encounter with God that convinced him of this calling.

Listen to Lee as he helps us truly understand King and the Civil Rights Movement as many people have chosen to sanitize King and reduce him to a couple of positive, non-threatening lines from his speeches like “I Have a Dream.” But King’s firm, prophetic voice has to be relevant today in the direction this nation is headed in. He points out the sobering reality of US America’s trajectory of violence, greed, misinformation, rise in suicide, depression, and racial injustice. According to Lee, what we can learn from King is the urgency to save the “soul of America.”

It was pain and the desire to have a group’s collective dignity honored that drove the Civil Rights movement. Do we find ourselves in that place today? Can we tap into the pain we feel today to be a catalyst for social movement as our predecessors did? Can we do this on a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural level to fight against social injustice? Can the US church be awakened to be a part of or even lead this movement?

Listen in as we reflect on King, honor King, and learn about King.

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Phil Allen, Jr. is a Los Angeles-based pastor, social justice activist, filmmaker and author. Allen’s book Open Wounds explores the murder of Nate Allen—Phil Allen’s grandfather—in the Jim Crow era of South Carolina and how that traumatic event resonated through generations of his family. Open Wounds – which is based on the Allen-produced documentary of the same name – will be published February 9, 2021. Allen is a Ph.D. student studying Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.