As we consider the inauguration of a new president and the prospect of an unchecked authoritarian regime, many Christians are warily seeking the rationale for a life of faith in a changed political and social environment. We are testing our religious convictions for their durability in heavy weather. We are sorting through and sharpening our models for Christian witness in the world. It is the perennial spiritual exercise.

My own Christian American model is crafted from the prophetic power of the Hebrew prophets, the ministry of Jesus, and the lodestar I have forever known as “the gospel.” Gospel means the good news of God’s grace and love toward the world and all its people. Gospel is more than a model or even a criterion for political judgments. It is a reality that exists in the heart of God. For those with eyes to see, it shapes and saves people on earth. Gospel guides the way things are meant to be.

Traditionally, the memoir was the province of the “great man” who embodied the achievements of his age and helped steer the course of historic events, who now, with some leisure on his hands and in need of cash, has agreed to write about it. The chief purpose of the memoir was to provide an insider’s perspective on external events, such as wars, treaties, and scientific explorations.

Sooner or later, it was a letter he would have to write. You can be abused, rejected, or taken for granted only so long before you write the proverbial “Dear John” letter. It is not a bill of divorcement King is sending to its recipients, because the White church and the Negro church have never been married. There has been the occasional pretense of love, but never the real thing. No one wanted it to end like this. Not King who tirelessly preached (and pretended) that Blacks and Whites are “brothers.” And not the recipients of his famous Letter, who, like the church bodies they represented, pretended to the same brotherhood.