Are Christian Schools at Odds with Social Justice?

Martin Luther King Jr. at a press conference for the 18th Ecumenical Student Conference in Ohio. Bola Ige of Nigeria is on the right. Dec. 27, 1959. Photo courtesy of Ohio University Digital Collections, Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections.

On Dec. 30, 1959, over 3,000 Christian students gathered in Athens, Ohio, at the 18th Ecumenical Student Conference. Participating youth leaders and activists developed methods of engaging with social and political transformations at the turn of the 1960s. One of the key speakers was a 30-year-old Baptist preacher who emphasized a religious as well as civic prerogative for students, claiming: “whenever a crisis emerges in history, the church has a role to play.” While the specific crisis Martin Luther King Jr. referred to was the fight for civil rights in the segregated American South, he urged Christian students to challenge injustice undergirding all systemic discrimination, oppression, and racism at home and abroad.

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