Emphasis Preaching Journal

Christians have been made people who go against the grain. Martin Luther King Jr. so well described our rebellious, maladjusted way of life:

Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word. It is the word "maladjusted." Now we all should seek to live a well-adjusted life in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination... I call upon you to be as maladjusted as Amos who in the midst of the injustices of the day cried out in words that echo across the generation, "Let justice run down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." As maladjusted as Abraham Lincoln who had the vision to see that this nation could not exist half slave and half free. As maladjusted as Jefferson, who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery could cry out, "All men are created equal..." As maladjusted as Jesus of Nazareth who dreamed a dream of the fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man ("The Power of Nonviolence").