In his 1958 book, Stride Toward Freedom, Martin Luther King, Jr. argued that pastors must play a critical role in politics. While pastoring the Montgomery, Alabama, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, he wrote, “The important thing is for every minister to dedicate himself to the Christian ideal of brotherhood, and be sure he is doing something positive to implement it.

“He must never allow the theory that it is better to remain quiet and help the cause to become a rationaliza