In an April 4, 1967, speech in Manhattan's Riverside Church, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stunned the civil rights community by saying his faith compelled him to speak out against the Vietnam War.

"I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice," King told a group called Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.

In his speech, King said the war was brutalizing innocent Vietnamese, teaching America's youth to use violence to solve political disputes, and derailing the war on poverty.

The speech ignited criticism across the political spectrum. Fellow activists said King's criticism of the war would anger a powerful civil rights ally - President Lyndon Johnson - and brand the rights movement as unpatriotic.

As America honors King's birthday, with the Iraq conflict providing a new backdrop, religious leaders again find themselves questioning the boundaries of their missions as pastors. Many of those who oppose the war say they are reluctant to follow King's example for fear of offending members of their congregations, many of whom have sons and daughters in uniform or are military veterans.

"When I'm in church, it's difficult to stand before your congregation and criticize the war," said the Rev. Charles Coverdale, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Riverhead, who lost friends in the Vietnam War and who now opposes the Iraq war. "You're talking about people who have tragedy right on their doorstep."

Across the region, on the 20th anniversary of King's birthday being declared a national holiday, few area religious leaders are using the pulpit to speak out against the Iraq war. Personal views aside, many say they feel out of step with the sentiments of their congregants, or don't feel their churches are the appropriate venues to talk about the war, which has claimed more than 2,200 American lives and as many as 31,000 Iraqi civilians.

One of Coverdale's congregants has a daughter serving in Kuwait. The soldier brother of his choir director suffered a battlefield injury in Iraq.

"A lot of clergy have mixed feelings about the war, just as many in their congregations do," said the Rev. Thomas Goodhue, director of the Long Island Council of Churches.

Eugene McCarraher, a Villanova University assistant professor who studies political dissent among religious leaders, said clergy members historically have been reluctant to voice opposition during wars.

"My sense is a lot of clergy are uneasy about the war but are afraid of the disapproval or even the reprisal of their congregations," McCarraher said.

"The preachers who get the most attention and are the most vocal are those who support the war," he added.

While locally, ministers have stayed relatively quiet, several prominent national religious leaders have spoken out forcefully against the Iraq war.

In 2003, Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, wrote that the White House had not "made the case that they have pursued all reasonable avenues other than war."

Last November, 95 current and former bishops from the United Methodist Church signed a letter repenting for their "complicity" in the "unjust and immoral" war in Iraq. President George W. Bush is among its 11 million members.

"As a religious leader, I need to continue to lift up where injustice is happening," Bishop John R. Schol, one of the signatories, said Friday. He said he shares King's belief that religious leaders should not be silent about war.

Some area churchgoers say they want their pastors to take the lead in discussing the war.

Dorothy Lewis, of Riverhead, whose daughter, Felicia Hobson, is a first lieutenant in the Army National Guard in Kuwait, said it is proper to honor King by speaking out against the war.

"Martin Luther King's birthday is about civil rights, but it's also about nonviolence," Lewis said.

But the decision by some church leaders to speak against the war has led to dissension within some congregations.

After Hanson criticized the U.S. invasion, several members of St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Merrick left the congregation in protest, said the Rev. Perry Kirschbaum.

Kirschbaum, who said he has avoided speaking about the war in Iraq, said a guest pastor in his church riled the congregation by challenging America's involvement.

"Apparently it rubbed some people the wrong way while they are still dealing with 9/11 and moving on with their lives," Kirschbaum said. "I know that at least my congregation at this time is very tender and wishes that it not be talked about."

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

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