On a Comparison Between the Words of Rev. King and a British Reporter

The BBC sent a reporter down to Mississippi to look at how the locals enacted religion in this most-religious state in this most-religious country. It ended on a fairly positive note, pointing out that though Republicans might be "overplaying" their religion-hand with their recent spate of seemingly religious motivated actions, religion still offers some impressive and touching effects at the grassroots level.

Early on, however, the reporter has a little passage that reminded me of an even more significant passage. The reporter said this, while describing the South's scenery:

Pristine Catholic cathedrals with long, pointy towers, cool and confident looking with wide lawns and copious car parks.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described the South like this, forty years earlier in his Letter:

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God?

Naturally, King put it better, but how striking it is that people are still visiting Mississippi, seeing the same kind of things, and asking the same kinds of questions, forty years later.