Pulitzer Prize winning author Taylor Branch, in Parting the Waters, writes:
"Some of [Dr. Martin Luther] King's most stinging speeches were to members of his own Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, saying 'You spend more money on liquor at your annual convention than you contribute to the NAACP. I know ministers who are more concerned about the wheelbase on their Cadillac than they are on the spiritual base to their commitment to this world."
Branch thinks King's favorite parable was in Luke 16:19-31. We read:
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
The rich man in this parable didn't go to hell because he was rich. He went to hell because he didn't notice the humanity of the man who was begging at his gate.
Lazarus was more important to God than the rich pastor's Cadillacs.
