Agape is the ancient Greek word for unselfish love. In contemporary terminology,agape means God-love or the love of God operating within humans. This latter conception of agape provides the foundation for universal human rights in Dr. Martin Luther King’s beloved community, a term first theorized by philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce early in the twentieth century. Morally, it requires people to act with a view to how their actions or inactions will affect others. In this way, each is morally required to act for the good of all, and to refrain from harming others. Conversely, all are morally required to admonish those who contravene the moral requirements of the beloved community.
As King explained it, there are three kinds of love: eros, philia, and agape. Eros, according to King, is aesthetic love. It is used to denote a strong romantic or sexual desire for another. Shakespeare’s Romeo had an erotic love for Juliet. Alternatively, philia is brotherly love. It is used to denote a reciprocal brotherly love between humans—Romeo and Mercutio had a philanthropic love for one another. Agape is God-love. It represents an unconditional, unselfish love for others. Unlike those acting from eros or philia, those acting from agape draw no distinctions between friends and foes, rich and poor, attractive and unattractive, and young and old. Rather, they exhibit agapic love for each with the purpose of creating and preserving community among all. In this light, the Samaritan who assisted the Jewish stranger on the road to Jericho was “good.” For King, community, or, rather, the beloved community, requires each to exhibit agapic love for all, irrespective of race, sex, sexuality, mental or physical capability, social status, age, religion, or nationality.
One consequence of this canon is that agape morally requires all to admonish those who transgress against the moral requirements of the beloved community. By “admonish,” King means that all are morally required to reprove transgressors in love. Those who admonish others are prohibited from attempting to humiliate, dehumanize, or destroy transgressors.
They are prohibited from displaying bitterness, anger, or hatred for transgressors. Conversely, they are required to approach all transgressions with understanding and compassion. They are required to focus on changing the transgressors’ spirits with the hope of winning them over and reincorporating them into the beloved community. In King’s beloved community, each has moral claims or rights to assistance and to noninterference from all. All have moral duties to reprove those who transgress against the moral requirements of the beloved community.
Lastly, it would be a mistake to think of King’s beloved community as a utopian ideal. After all, in the “Letter from the Birmingham City Jail,” he vehemently criticized Christians for failing to assist him in his efforts to establish the beloved community. More importantly, in his speech at Syracuse University, he articulated the practical steps that are needed for humans to construct the beloved community. According to King, legislation, education, and morality are all needed for humans to establish the beloved community. Legislation is needed to provide the innocent with state-backed protections against those who would discriminate against and/or physically harm them. Education is needed to change the minds of those who would discriminate against and/or physically harm the innocent. Changes in the minds of racists, sexists, and others would occur by illustrating the fallaciousness of reasoning that depends on accidental qualities such as skin color, sex, religion, and so on. And, morality is needed to change the hearts of those who would discriminate against and/or physically harm the innocent. Changes in the hearts of racists, sexists, and others would occur through the tireless, agape-filled efforts of those working toward establishing the beloved community.
King’s beloved community requires the establishment of “a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation” (King 1986, 632-633). To achieve such a community, individuals must accept and act according to the demands of agape and reprove those who fail to do likewise.
