Ideas worth practicing.

1809–1865

Abraham Lincoln

The courage to grow and act

Lincoln’s public position on slavery changed over time. His presidency included the Emancipation Proclamation and support for the Thirteenth Amendment. The useful lesson here is the willingness to reconsider a position and act on it.

That history is larger than one president. Enslaved people, abolitionists, soldiers, lawmakers and many others helped bring slavery to an end. Lincoln’s own record also contains racial prejudice and limits that should not be erased.

1929–1968

Martin Luther King Jr.

Equal dignity, put into action

King’s commitment to nonviolence called for active resistance to injustice. It joined the demand for equal dignity with disciplined organizing, protest and a refusal to treat opponents as beyond humanity.

Nonviolence here is not passivity. King developed and practiced it with other organizers and communities, drawing on religious commitments and the example of Gandhi.

FIRST-CENTURY JUDEA & GALILEE

Jesus of Nazareth

Compassion beyond familiar boundaries

Jesus was a first-century Jewish teacher. In the Gospel of Luke, the Good Samaritan story attributes to him a teaching about responding to a stranger’s suffering with practical care.

This page considers the human historical setting and teachings attributed to Jesus in Gospel literature. Those accounts are religious texts, not modern transcripts. Theological beliefs about Jesus are distinct from the historical and ethical focus here.