The Spiritual Nature of the King Years - Part I

There are 16 parts to this series. The author, David Tolson, is a friend of mine. More important than that he is a scholar, a gentle man, fierce and convinced in the conviction of his purpose and destiny!! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

A friend once asked me who the most significant person in the twentieth century was. It was his position that Albert Einstein trumped all others because of his theory on relativity. The applications of Einstein’s theory are breathtaking, and it is quite possible that there would be no modern society as we know if it were not for E=MC². To a mathematician, the equation has a certain elegance; to an engineer the equation advanced theoretical physics and was the catalyst of many great inventions; to the multinational corporation it permitted its CEO to bark instructions out to his staff over a global network; to the small businessperson it had a trickle-down affect as he/she benefited from the commerce that was created at the top of the economic/business food-chain; to the hard working citizen, though its impact may have been transparent, it opened unprecedented opportunities for employment, leisure and entrepreneurship; and to the couch potato it permitted one to remotely surf through anyone of more than 500 channels over satellite/cable/FIOS television. 

For purposes of this article, I’d like to ask/answer the question differently: What was the most significant event of the twentieth century? Notwithstanding the detonation of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki; or sending men to the moon and returning them safely to the earth; or creating a global, electronic network, it is my position that the modern world as we know it was created by the defiance of four spiritual men: Mahatma Gandhi; the Ayatollah Khomeini; Pope John Paul II; and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I say “spiritual men,” not in the sense that these men were inspired by the same spirituality that may drive you or me, but in the sense that they believed that a power beyond their ability, real or perceived, would aid them in reaching their destiny. 

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