In the Union Tribune there was an article about Martin Luther King, Jr., which included an interview with Vincent Harding, a professor at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, a Methodist seminary.

Harding said that King's detractors like to point out that he was a human being, that he had faults, human foibles. He was certainly not a saint, Harding points out. He made mistakes in judgment. He put his marriage to the test. He also suffered from human frailties, like anxiety and depression.

But Christianity proclaims a God who came to us as we are, accepted us as we are, forgave us and gave us new life, and thus revealed that we do not have to be righteous in order to be loved by God. We don't have to have a pure life in order to follow Jesus. We just have to be faithful.

He comes to us as he came to his disciples, and says to us, "Follow me." To "follow me" means, identifying with the poor and the oppressed, loving the sinner, and living sacrificially for others in this world, taking up your cross. That is the sole qualification for everybody to be his disciple - that you will take up your cross.

Martin Luther King understood that, I think, probably better than anybody else in our time. Like all historical figures, he will be interpreted from different perspectives. But the way he would want to be interpreted is that he was a "servant of Christ."