By Timothy
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From http://www.redmoonrising.com/AmericanBabylon/christandcomm.htm
How Should A Christian View Communism?
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (Amos 5:24).
Few issues demand a more thorough and sober discussion than that presented by Communism. For at least three reasons every Christian minister should feel obligated to speak to his people on this controversial theme.
The first reason recognizes that the widespread influence of Communism has, like a mighty tidal wave, spread through Russia, China, Eastern Europe, and now, even to our own Hemisphere. Nearly one billion of the peoples of the world believe in its teachings, many of them embracing it as a new religion to which they have surrendered completely. Such a force cannot be ignored.
A second reason is that Communism is the only serious rival to Christianity. Such great world religions as Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Mohammedanism are possible alternatives to Christianity, but no one conversant with the hard facts of the modem world will deny that Communism is Christianity's most formidable rival.
A third reason is that it is unfair and certainly unscientific to condemn a system before we know what that system teaches and why it is wrong.
Let me state clearly the basic premise of this sermon: Communism and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible. A true Christian cannot be a true Communist, for the two philosophies are antithetical and all the dialectics of the logicians cannot reconcile them. Why is this true?
I.
First, Communism is based on a materialistic and humanistic view of life and history. According to Communist theory, matter, not mind or spirit, speaks the last word in the universe. Such a philosophy is avowedly secularistic and atheistic. Under it, God is merely a figment of the imagination, religion is a product of fear and ignorance, and the church is an invention of the rulers to control the masses. Moreover, Communism, like humanism, thrives on the grand illusion that man, unaided by any divine power, can save himself and usher in a new society--I fight alone, and win or sink,
I need no one to make me free;
I want no Jesus Christ to think,
That He could ever die for me.Cold atheism wrapped in the garments of materialism, Communism provides no place for God or Christ.
At the center of the Christian faith is the affirmation that there is a God in the universe who is the ground and essence of all reality. A Being of infinite love and boundless power, God is the creator, sustainer, and conserver of values. In opposition to Communism's atheistic materialism, Christianity posits a theistic idealism. Reality cannot be explained by matter in motion or the push and pull of economic forces. Christianity affirms that at the heart of reality is a Heart, a loving Father who works through history for the salvation of his children. Man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of all things and humanity is not God. Bound by the chains of his own sin and finiteness, man needs a Savior.
Second, Communism is based on ethical relativism and accepts no stable moral absolutes. Right and wrong are relative to the most expedient methods for dealing with class war. Communism exploits the dreadful philosophy that the end justifies the means. It enunciates movingly the theory of a classless society, but alas! its methods for achieving this noble end are all too often ignoble. Lying, violence, murder, and torture are considered to be justifiable means to achieve the millennial end. Is this an unfair indictment? Listen to the words of Lenin, the real tactician of Communist theory: "We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, lawbreaking, withholding and concealing truth." Modem history has known many tortuous nights and horror-filled days because his followers have taken this statement seriously.
In contrast to the ethical relativism of Communism, Christianity sets forth a system of absolute moral values and affirms that God has placed within the very structure of this universe certain moral principles that are fixed and immutable. The law of love as an imperative is the norm for all of man's actions. Furthermore, Christianity at its best refuses to live by a philosophy of ends justifying means. Destructive means cannot bring constructive ends, because the means represent the-ideal-in-the-making and the-end-in-progress. Immoral means cannot bring moral ends, for the ends are preexistent in the means.
Third, Communism attributes ultimate value to the state. Man is made for the state and not the state for man. One may object, saying that in Communist theory the state is an "interim reality," which will "wither away" when the classless society emerges. True--in theory; but it is also true that, while it lasts, the state is the end. Man is a means to that end. Man has no inalienable rights. His only rights are derived from, and conferred by, the state. Under such a system, the fountain of freedom runs dry. Restricted are man's liberties of press and assembly, his freedom to vote, and his freedom to listen and to read. Art, religion, education, music, and science come under the gripping yoke of government control. Man must be a dutiful servant to the omnipotent state.
All of this is contrary, not only to the Christian doctrine of God, but also to the Christian estimate of man. Christianity insists that man is an end because he is a child of God, made in God's image. Man is more than a producing animal guided by economic forces; he is a being of spirit, crowned with glory and honor, endowed with the gift of freedom. The ultimate weakness of Communism is that it robs man of that quality which makes him man. Man, says Paul Tillich, is man because he is free. This freedom is expressed through man's capacity to deliberate, decide, and respond. Under Communism, the individual soul is shackled by the chains of conformity; his spirit is bound by the manacles of party allegiance. He is stripped of both conscience and reason. The trouble with Communism is that it has neither a theology nor a Christology; therefore it emerges with a mixed-up anthropology. Confused about God, it is also confused about man. In spite of its glowing talk about the welfare of the masses, Communism's methods and philosophy strip man of his dignity and worth, leaving him as little more than a depersonalized cog in the ever-turning wheel of the state.
Clearly, then, all of this is out of harmony with the Christian view of things. We must not fool ourselves. These systems of thought are too contradictory to be reconciled; they represent diametrically opposed ways of looking at the world and of transforming it. We should as Christians pray for the Communist constantly, but never can we, as true Christians, tolerate the philosophy of Communism.
Yet, something in the spirit and threat of Communism challenges us. The late Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, referred to Communism as a Christian heresy. He meant that Communism had laid hold on certain truths which are essential parts of the Christian view of things, although bound to them are theories and practices which no Christian could ever accept.
II.
The theory, though surely not the practice, of Communism challenges us to be more concerned about social justice. With all of its false assumptions and evil methods, Communism arose as a protest against the injustices and indignities inflicted upon the underprivileged. The Communist Manifesto was written by men aflame with a passion for social justice. Karl Marx, born of Jewish parents who both came from rabbinic stock, and trained, as he must have been, in the Hebrew Scriptures, could never forget the words of Amos: "Let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." Marx's parents adopted Christianity when he was a child of six, thus adding to the Old Testament heritage that of the New. In spite of his later atheism and antiecclesiasticism, Marx could not quite forget Jesus' concern for "the least of these." In his writings, he champions the cause of the poor, the exploited, and the disinherited.
Communism in theory emphasizes a classless society. Although the world knows from sad experience that Communism has created new classes and a new lexicon of injustice, in its theoretical formulation it envisages a world society transcending the superficialities of race and color, class and caste. Membership in the Communist party theoretically is not determined by the color of a man's skin or the quality of blood in his veins.
Christians are bound to recognize any passionate concern for social justice. Such concern is basic in the Christian doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. The Gospels abound with expressions of concern for the welfare of the poor. Listen to the words of the Magnificat: "He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away." No doctrinaire Communist ever expressed a passion for the poor and oppressed such as we find in the Manifesto of Jesus which affirms: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord."
Christians are also bound to recognize the ideal of a world unity in which all barriers of caste and color are abolished. Christianity repudiates racism. The broad universalism standing at the center of the gospel makes both the theory and practice of racial injustice morally unjustifiable. Racial prejudice is a blatant denial of the unity which we have in Christ, for in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, Negro nor white.
In spite of the noble affirmations of Christianity, the church has often lagged in its concern for social justice and too often has been content to mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. It has often been so absorbed in a future good "over yonder" that it forgets the present evils "down here." Yet the church is challenged to make the gospel of Jesus Christ relevant within the social situation. We must come to see that the Christian gospel is a two-way road. On the one side, it seeks to change the souls of men and thereby unite them with God; on the other, it seeks to change the environmental conditions of men so that the soul will have a chance after it is changed. Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and yet is not concerned with the economic and social conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is the kind the Marxist describes as "an opiate of the people."
Honesty also impels us to admit that the church has not been true to its social mission on the question of racial justice. In this area it has failed Christ miserably. This failure is due, not only to the fact that the church has been appallingly silent and disastrously indifferent in the realm of race relations, but even more to the fact that it has often been an active participant in shaping and crystallizing the patterns of the race-caste system. Colonialism could not have been perpetuated if the Christian Church had really taken a stand against it. One of the chief defenders of the vicious system of apartheid in South Africa today is the Dutch Reformed Protestant Church. In America slavery could not have existed for almost two hundred and fifty years if the church had not sanctioned it, nor could segregation and discrimination exist today if the Christian Church were not a silent and often vocal partner. We must face the shameful fact that the church is the most segregated major institution in American society, and the most segregated hour of the week is, as Professor Liston Pope has pointed out, eleven o'clock on Sunday morning. How often the church has been an echo rather than a voice, a taillight behind the Supreme Court and other secular agencies, rather than a headlight guiding men progressively and decisively to higher levels of understanding.
The judgment of God is upon the church. The church has a schism in its own soul that it must close. It will be one of the tragedies of Christian history if future historians record that at the height of the twentieth century the church was one of the greatest bulwarks of white supremacy.
III.
In the face of the Communist challenge we must examine honestly the weaknesses of traditional capitalism. In all fairness, we must admit that capitalism has often left a gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty, has created conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few, and has encouraged small-hearted men to become cold and conscienceless so that, like Dives before Lazarus, they are unmoved by suffering, poverty-stricken humanity. Although through social reform American capitalism is doing much to reduce such tendencies, there is much yet to be accomplished. God intends that all of his children shall have the basic necessities for meaningful, healthful life. Surely it is unchristian and unethical for some to wallow in the soft beds of luxury while others sink in the quicksands of poverty.
The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspires men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. It can make men so I-centered that they no longer are Thou-centered. Are we not too prone to judge success by the index of our salaries and the size of the wheel base on our automobiles, and not by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity? Capitalism may lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the theoretical materialism taught by Communism.
We must honestly recognize that truth is not to be found either in traditional capitalism or in Marxism. Each represents a partial truth. Historically, capitalism failed to discern the truth in collective enterprise and Marxism failed to see the truth in individual enterprise. Nineteenth-century capitalism failed to appreciate that life is social, and Marxism failed, and still fails, to see that life is individual and social. The Kingdom of God is neither the thesis of individual enterprise nor the antithesis of collective enterprise, but a synthesis which reconciles the truth of both.
IV.
Finally, we are challenged to dedicate our lives to the cause of Christ even as the Communists dedicate theirs to Communism. We who cannot accept the creed of the Communists recognize their zeal and commitment to a cause which they believe will create a better world. They have a sense of purpose and destiny, and they work passionately and assiduously to win others to Communism. How many Christians are as concerned to win others to Christ? Often we have neither zeal for Christ nor zest for his kingdom. For so many Christians, Christianity is a Sunday activity having no relevancy for Monday and the church is little more than a secular social club having a thin veneer of religiosity. Jesus is an ancient symbol whom we do the honor of calling Christ, and yet his Lordship is neither affirmed nor acknowledged by our substanceless lives. Would that the Christian fire were burning in the hearts of all Christians with the same intensity as the Communist fire is burning in the hearts of Communists! Is Communism alive in the world today because we have not been Christian enough?
We need to pledge ourselves anew to the cause of Christ. We must recapture the spirit of the early church. Wherever the early Christians went, they made a triumphant witness for Christ. Whether on the village streets or in the city jails, they daringly proclaimed the good news of the gospel. Their reward for this audacious witness was often the excruciating agony of a lion's den or the poignant pain of a chopping block, but they continued in the faith that they had discovered a cause so great and had been transformed by a Savior so divine that even death was not too great a sacrifice. When they entered a town, the power structure became disturbed. Their new gospel brought the refreshing warmth of spring to men whose lives had been hardened by the long winter of traditionalism. They urged men to revolt against old systems of injustice and old structures of immorality. When the rulers objected, these strange people, intoxicated with the wine of God's grace, continued to proclaim the gospel until even men and women in Caesar's household were convinced, until jailers dropped their keys, and until kings trembled on their thrones. T. R. Glover has written that the early Christians "out-thought, out-lived, and out-died" everyone else.
Where is that kind of fervor today? Where is that kind of daring, revolutionary commitment to Christ today? Is it hidden behind smoke screens and altars? Is it buried in a grave called respectability? Is it inextricably bound with nameless status quos and imprisoned within cells of stagnant mores? This devotion must again be released. Christ must once more be enthroned in our lives.
This is our best defense against Communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and who through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days when Christians must evince wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not call everyone a Communist or an appeaser who recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers to the problems of these turbulent days. We must not engage in a negative anti-Communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against Communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice and righteousness. After our condemnation of the philosophy of Communism has been eloquently expressed, we must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, injustice, and racial discrimination which are the fertile soil in which the seed of Communism grows and develops. Communism thrives only when the doors of opportunity are closed and human aspirations are stifled. Like the early Christians, we must move into a sometimes hostile world armed with the revolutionary gospel of Jesus Christ. With this powerful gospel we shall boldly challenge the status quos and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed."
Our hard challenge and our sublime opportunity is to bear witness to the spirit of Christ in fashioning a truly Christian world. If we accept the challenge with devotion and valor, the bell of history will toll for Communism. and we shall make the world safe for democracy and secure for the people of Christ.--
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http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/king.htm
Was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A Christian?
for so did their fathers to the false prophets.
Luke 6:26
Preface.
Given the subject of this article--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.--there is something that I want to establish here. I'm Black and there are some things that I'm glad about as a Black person. I'm glad that I don't have to sit in the back of the bus when I choose to ride one. I'm glad that I was able to attend the University of my choice. I'm glad that my husband can work in a good career. I'm glad that when we stay at a hotel we don't have to enter through the back door. I'm glad that we can eat at whatever restaurant we want to and that we don't have to stand in the kitchen to eat our food. I'm glad that I don't have to look for a "colored" sign when I need to relieve myself or when I want a drink of water. I'M GLAD ABOUT THESE THINGS. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a part in bringing these things about.
BUTI am not defined by my color (though there are those that would choose to define me so). I am defined by Who my Father is. I am a blood-bought, born-again, sanctified, walking-with-the-Lord child of God. THAT is who I am. I serve the ONLY wise God and Saviour Jesus Christ. I don't serve myself anymore. My life is all about Jesus. It wasn't always, but it is now. If there be any good thing that springs forth from my life it comes from Jesus Christ my Sinbearer, my Saviour, and my Master. The only thing that matters in this life is what a person does with Jesus Christ--they will either humble themselves under His mighty hand, or they will be ground to powder. Did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. humble himself under His mighty hand or is Martin Luther King, Jr. in hell right now?
What made me question the salvation of Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Early this year (1998), my little sister asked me to look up some stuff on the 'net for a paper she was doing on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As I surfed, the Lord put a thought in my mind, "Did this man ever testify of Me?" I thought to myself, "Mmmmm. The world loved this man. If he was preaching the gospel, the world would have hated him." I started looking up Martin Luther King's writings. As I read, I realized that he was a stranger, a foreigner to me. Whenever he mentioned Jesus, it was along with mere mortals like Socrates or Ghandi. In his jailhouse letter, King lumped all religions into the same class. I could not find one "sermon" where he preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified. What I saw is that this man "preached" a social gospel using Black churches as his springboard.
King's philosophy is rather reminiscent of the Catholic Liberation Theology in South America. After several hours of reading of him on the 'net, I told my husband that this man was not our brother in Christ. Someone who called himself "Reverend" and preached in churches was obviously not saved. For 32 years, I'd heard great and favorable things about Martin Luther King, Jr. His name was, and is, synonymous with civil rights. But in 1998, the Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that "Reverend" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was nothing short of an heretick. It was a strange revelation.
Well, all these months have passed and I thought my meditation on this was over--I was wrong. The Lord wanted me to see something else. Last night, my husband gave me some papers that my sister wanted me to have. It was the stuff that I had printed out for her on Martin Luther King, Jr. I didn't need that stuff back but the Lord wanted my mind to go back to this subject. Lo and behold, yesterday (it is about 3:30 am now) 10-7-98, I was surfing the 'net for information on King Charles I (son of King James VI & I) when I came upon an article for Martin Luther King, Jr. I clicked on the link, and amazingly, I was taken to Stanford University's repository for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s writings--they are on line. Their repository is a work in progress, but there is more than enough there for any human being to see that Martin Luther King, Jr. denied the most basic tenets of the Christian faith.
Since this article was written, the Stanford repository of Dr. King's writings has been moved at least twice and I noticed that it's contents were/are being sold by Amazon. The following links to Stanford may no longer work.
(1/19/03) "In your web document "Was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A Christian?" (http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/king.htm), the links to King's papers are broke -- but they are still at Stanford -- they changed the pathnames a little bit: Edit the links' partial pathnames as follows and they will work: From: ... /publications/papers/vol1/ ... To: ... /publications/papers/vol1/ ..."
Let's get specific.
Under the fair use copyright laws , I will be quoting from the Stanford website and some of Dr. King's writings. I will in no way be exhausting his revealing comments but will include links to the materials cited so that the interested reader can further investigate this matter. You will see what I mean when I call the man a liberal heretick.
**EXAMPLE ONE**In his paper entitled,
"What Experiences of Christians Living in the Early Christian Century Led to the Christian Doctrines of the Divine Sonship of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Bodily Resurrection"We see by the very TITLE that he believed that EXPERIENCES, not scripture, dictated the BASIC, vital, critical doctrines of
In his paper he went on to question, practically deny, each of these tenets of the Christian faith. How can you be a Christian and deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ? YOU CAN'T BE! Yea such an one is an heretick! Unsurprisingly, Martin Luther King, Jr. did not believe that the BIBLE is infallible or that it is to be taken literally (you can best believe he does now but it is everlasting too late for him). Below is an excerpt of this paper concerning these critical doctrines--
- the deity of Jesus Christ
- the virgin birth
- the resurrection
But if we delve into the deeper meaning of these doctrines, and somehow strip them of their literal interpretation, we will find that they are based on a profound foundation. Although we may be able to argue with all degrees of logic that these doctrines are historically and philolophically untenable*, yet we can never undermind the foundation on which they are based.A King quote from this same paper about the Sonship of Jesus--
*According to Webster's, untenable means that cannot be held, defended, or maintained. philology is scholarship or the study of literary texts to determine their authenticity or meaning. So in other words, the divinity, resurrection and virgin birth are undefendable based on the historical facts! Read on...
The first doctrine of our discussion which deals with the divine sonship of Jesus went through a great process of development. It seems quite evident that the early followers of Jesus in Palestine were well aware of his genuine humanity. Even the synoptic gospels picture Jesus as a victim of human experiences. Such human experiences as growth, learning, prayer, and defeat are not at all uncommon in the life of Jesus. How then did this doctrine of divine sonship come into being?Next, King on the virgin birth--
We may find a partial clue to the actual rise of this doctrine in the spreading of Christianity into the Greco-Roman world. I need not elaborate on the fact that the Greeks were very philosophical minded people. Through philosophical thinking the Greeks came to the point of subordinating, distrusting, and even minimizing anything physical. Anything that possessed flesh was always underminded in Greek thought. And so in order to receive inspiration from Jesus the Greeks had to apotheosize him.
...As Hedley laconically states, "the church had found God in Jesus, and so it called Jesus the Christ; and later under the influence of Greek thought-forms, the only begotten Son of God."
First we must admit that the evidence for the tenability of this doctrine is to shallow to convince any objective thinker. To begin with, the earliest written documents in the New Testament make no mention of the virgin birth. Moreover, the Gospel of Mark, the most primitive and authentic of the four, gives not the slightest suggestion of the virgin birth. The effort to justify this doctrine on the grounds that it was predicted by the prophet Isaiah is immediately eliminated, for all New Testament scholars agree that the word virgin is not found in the Hebrew original, but only in the Greek text which is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for "young woman." How then did this doctrine arise?And finally, King on the resurrection--
A clue to this inquiry may be found in a sentence from St. Justin's First Apology. Here Justin states that the birth of Jesus is quite similar to the birth of the sons of Zeus. It was believed in Greek thought that an extraordinary person could only be explained by saying that he had a father who was more than human. It is probable that this Greek idea influenced Christian thought.
A more adequate explanation for the rise of this doctrine is found in the experience which the early christians had with Jesus. The people saw within Jesus such a uniqueness of quality and spirit that to explain him in terms of ordinary background was to them quite inadequate. For his early followers this spiritual uniqueness could only by accounted for in terms of biological uniqueness. They were not unscientific in their approach because they had no knowledge of the scientific. They could only express themselves in terms of the pre-scientific thought patterns of their day.
The last doctrine in our discussion deals with the resurrection story. This doctrine, upon which the Easter Faith rests, symbolizes the ultimate Christian conviction: that Christ conquered death. From a literary, historical, and philosophical point of view this doctrine raises many questions. In fact the external evidence for the authenticity of this doctrine is found wanting. But here again the external evidence is not the most important thing, for it in itself fails to tell us precisely the thing we most want to know: What experiences of early Christians lead to the formulation of the doctrine?Read this paper for yourself here.
The root of our inquiry is found in the fact that the early Christians had lived with Jesus. They had been captivated by the magnetic power of his personality. This basic experience led to the faith that he could never die. And so in the pre-scientific thought pattern of the first century, this inner faith took outward form.
**EXAMPLE TWO**Next in line is his paper,
"The Sources of Fundamentalism and Liberalism Considered Historically and Psychologically"
Herein, "Reverend" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. calls the garden of Eden a myth in line with "other oriental religions" and says that science and the Bible are at odds. He is scornful of "fundamentalism" and uncritical of liberalism. In this paper, King ascribes doctrines to "fundamentalists" that are so basic that you'd think they'd be ascribed to everybody who even thought about naming the name of Christ --
"...doctrines such as a supernatural plan of salvation, the Trinity, the substitutionary theory of the atonement, and the second coming of Christ are all quite prominant in fundamentalist thinking."Here's a further excerpt of this paper--
"The use of the critical method in approaching the Bible is to the fundamentalist downright heresy. He sees the Bible as the infallible word of God, from the dotting of an "i" to the crossing of a "T". He finds it to be a unity and a coherence of parts; "the New Testament is in the old contained, and the Old Testament is in the new explained."13 Upon this first proposition (the infallibility of the Bible) all other fundamentalist views depend. They argue that if the Bible is true--that is, so divinely inspired as to be free from error--then all other truths follow inevitably, because they are based upon what the Bible actually says in language clear and unmistakable.Read this paper here.
"When the fundamentalist comes to the nature of man he finds all of his answers in the Bible. The story of man in the garden of Eden gives a conclusive answer. Man was created by a direct act of God.14 Moreover, he was created in the image of God, but through the workings of the devil man {was} lead into disobedience. Then began all human ills: hardship and labor, the agony of childbirth, hatred, sorrow, suffering, and death.15 The fundamentalist is quite aware of the fact that scholars regard the garden of Eden and the serpent Satan and the hell of fire as myths analogous to those found in other oriental religions. He knows also that his beliefs are the center of redicule by many. But this does not shake his faith--rather it convinces him more of the existence of the devil.16 The critics, says the fundamentalist, would never indulge in such skeptical thinking if the devil hadn't influenced them. The fundamentalist is convinced that this skepticism of scholars and cheap humor of the laity can by no means prevent the revelation of God.\[Footnote:] Sores, op. cit., p. 54.\17
"Others doctrines such as a supernatural plan of salvation, the Trinity, the substitutionary theory of the atonement, and the second coming of Christ are all quite prominant in fundamentalist thinking. Such are the views of the fundamentalist and they reveal that he is oppose to theological adaptation to social and cultural change. He sees a progressive scientific age as a retrogressive spiritual age. Amid change all around he was {is} willing to preserve certain ancient ideas even though they are contrary to science."
**EXAMPLE THREE**King says Christianity grew out of mystery religions in his paper entitled,
"A Study of Mithraism".
Here's an excerpt--
It is not at all surprising in view of the wide and growing influence of these religions that when the disciples in Antioch and elsewhere preached a crucified and risen Jesus they should be regarded as the heralds of another mystery religion, and that Jesus himself should be taken for the divine Lord of the cult through whose death and resurrection salvation was to be had.Did you spot King's lies about the apostle Paul? Read this paper here.
It is at this point that we are able to see why knowledge of these cults is important for any serious New Testament study. It is well-nigh impossible to grasp Christianity through and through without knowledge of these cults. That there were striking similarities between the developing church and these religions cannot be denied. Even Christian apologist had to admit that fact. For an instance, in the mystery-religions identification between the devotee and the Lord of the cult was supposed to be brought about by various rites of initiation; the taurobolium, or bath of blood; the eating of flesh of the sacrifical beast and the like. Now there was something of this in Paul too, for he thought of the believer as buried with Christ in baptism and as feeding upon him in the eucharist. This is only one of many examples that I could give to prove the similarity between the developing Christian Church and the Mystery Religions.
This is not to say that a Saint Paul or a Saint John sat down and copied these views verbatim. But after being in contact with these surrounding religions and hearing certain doctrines expressed, it was only natural for some of these views to become a part of their subconscious minds. When they sat down to write they were expressing consciously that which had dwelled in their subconscious minds.1 It is also significant to know that Roman tolerance had favoured this great syncretism of religious ideas. Borrowing was not only natural but inevitable.
One of the most interesting of these ancient cults was Mithraism, which bore so many points of resemblance to Christianity that it is a challenge to the modern student to investigate these likenesses and learn more about them.
**EXAMPLE FOUR**Did King repent and change before he died? The following was spoken the night before he died. The speech is entitled, "I See The Promised Land" and was delivered April 3, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. He had not abandoned his heretickal notions:
"As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, 'Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?'-- I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I WOULD MOVE ON BY GREECE, AND TAKE MY MIND TO MOUNT OLYMPUS. AND I WOULD SEE PLATO, ARISTOTLE, SOCRATES, EURIPIDES AND ARISTOPHANES ASSEMBLED AROUND THE PARTHENON AS THEY DISCUSSED THE GREAT AND ETERNAL ISSUES OF REALITY."You see what I mean? It is in line with his other speeches that puts King's humanistic "Christianity" in the same category as everything else. He USED "Christianity" as a springboard for his social gospel. The "promised land" for King was not heaven, it was social equality! Read this speech (it isn't a sermon) here.
The answer to our question.
The "Reverend" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was no Christian. Period. He was an heretick. Below is a quote from Time Magazine (January 3, 1964)--King was Time Magazine's 1963 Man of the Year.
(King speaking) "I had doubts that religion was intellectually respectable." At Morehouse, King searched for "some intellectual basis for a social philosophy." He read and reread Thoreau's essay, "Civil Disobedience," concluded that the ministry was the only framework in which he could properly position his growing ideas on social protest.
At Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pa., King built the underpinnings of his philosophy. Hegel and Kant impressed him, but a lecture on Gandhi transported him, sent him foraging insatiably into Gandhi's books. "From my background," he says, "I gained my regulating Christian ideals. From Gandhi I learned my operational technique."
Thank you for your article on "was Martin Luther King Jr a Christian". I surfed into your site with that very question from google. After reading the first chapter of Yancey's "Soul Survivor" I decided I wanted to know more about MLK. I watched a video from the library, but it wasn't much help. I bought a biography on tape that included audio clips, and started listening to it. Very quickly the question came to my mind - was he a Christian? He preaches a lot about God, but he doesn't seem to think much of Jesus. It seemed almost impossible that a Baptist Preacher would not believe the Bible or that Jesus was God, but I wasn't so sure about MLK. So I surfed and found your article and confirmed my suspicions. How strange - and thanks. I'm white and thankful for all he did for America, but sad that he was not a Christian -- especially for his church members. Yours in Christ,
Your article on Martin Luther King Jr. was very enlightening. I have a friend here at work who was doubting the man that many of his friends follow, and he asked me to do some research. I am not taking your word for it from the web, I read some of the articles at Stanford.edu and that proved well, his disbelief. Many preachers would not join up with him and they were made fun of, verbally abused and called cowards. For non-violence, they sure strong armed people to join their movement, oh but if they had of convinced people to join the Lords Army, what a difference they could have made. Black America (I use that term as a whole) would be different if those people had of gotten saved and not marched because they wanted rights. There wouldn't be the drug problems, the alcohol and the precious bastard children cursing the day they were born. White America would be a different place had MLK spread a Gospel message through America, many would have hated him even more, but many would have been saved if he had of preached the Gospel. What a shame, what a waste.
It reminds me of the day that I watched Dale Earnhardts funeral on the TV and there were 15 Million Americans watching and 6000 in attendance that day. But did that Reverend preach, did he warn of Hells fire, and God's wrath, NO he said that if you "Ever want to see Dale, just wait until you get to heaven". Well friend, you and I both know that the only way to heaven is through the blood of Jesus, not because you were good, or had a movement that did "apparent" good. He had a chance to reach "White America" with the Gospel and he also failed. Why! Because he had a targeted message, his message was meant for a "White America" with a shallow tale of being a "good boy". So instead of "preach the Gospel to every creature" he tried to tone down his message for "white people".
Plow, Plow, Plow, be instant "in season, out of season". There is no Black Heaven, or White Heaven, but there are millions who will perish and burn forever and ever. Thank you for exposing him as the heretic he is. That shows great truth and courage in this apostate hour.
T M
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Keywords: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is nothing wrong with doing both or marching for rights and fighting against sin or moral ills at the same time.
ReplyDeleteDr. King wasn't perfect as none of us are. I do agree with the things that Dr. King got correct like opposition to injustice and the right of people to not follow unjust laws.
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