[Moore] was telling us that Martin Luther King spoke with true biblical authority

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7071713/FBI-tapes-Martin-Luthe…

Secret FBI tapes that accuse Martin Luther King Jr of having extramarital affairs with ‘40 to 45 women’ and even claim he ‘looked on and laughed’ as a pastor friend raped a parishioner exist, an author has claimed.

The civil rights hero was also heard allegedly joking he was the founder of the ‘International Association for the Advancement of P***y-Eaters’ on an agency recording that was obtained by bugging his room, according to the sensational claims made by biographer David Garrow - a Pulitzer prize-winning author and biographer of MLK.

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all…

…But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church…When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows…

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: “Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother.” In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: “Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.” And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

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? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?”

There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.”’ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically .

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

“Letter From A Birmingham Jail”

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

I am not sure why I need to understand “Southern Slavery As It Really Was” by a Paleo-Confederate who is not only a serial plagiarist but who also deliberately married off a young woman to a convicted pedophile and then washes his whole hands of the matter and declares his innocence, or who attacked a family in his church for having the gall to report one of his seminary students to the police when he was found sexually assaulting their own daughter.

But I am certain that Wilson writes well and tells people soothing words, so it must just be me.

I can be thankful that MLK Jr. was used to confront hatred and bigotry in America without having to point out his many and serious flaws in the same breath.

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

[Jay]

I can be thankful that MLK Jr. was used to confront hatred and bigotry in America without having to point out his many and serious flaws in the same breath.

Similar sentiment to what I can say about Trump, Reagan, JFK, or even Samson. I can be thankful for the good many have accomplished, without having to talk about their serious flaws at the same time, even if I do have to recognize that they were flawed, and keep everything in context.

Dave Barnhart

But I am certain that Wilson writes well and tells people soothing words, so it must just be me.

No, it’s not just you. A lot of people are troubled by Wilson. Do you think Wilson ever makes good points? What are some examples of things you think he is right about, or things he makes a good contribution about?

IMO, it is not just that he writes well. It is that he makes points that people often haven’t considered and often refuse to interact with, perhaps because they take the accepted line. They write it off as “That’s just Wilson being Wilson.” I think that is to the detriment of conversation. Wilson, unlike many, is not afraid of being politically incorrect if he thinks he has a point to make.

I can be thankful that MLK Jr. was used to confront hatred and bigotry in America without having to point out his many and serious flaws in the same breath.

The point is whether or not that is okay. Historically, that has been widely accepted. But now, a large segment of society believes that almost anything done in the past disqualifies one from any sort of honor (statues, street names, school names, etc.) The question is whether they will be consistent when it comes to one of their heroes.

But I have to chuckle that immediately preceding this paragraph was a statement about Wilson’s past which leads to me wonder why you had to point out “his many and serious flaws in the same breath.” Is it possible to say anything good about Wilson without reminding people of these flaws that you see?

No, it’s not just you. A lot of people are troubled by Wilson. Do you think Wilson ever makes good points? What are some examples of things you think he is right about, or things he makes a good contribution about?

IMO, it is not just that he writes well. It is that he makes points that people often haven’t considered and often refuse to interact with, perhaps because they take the accepted line. They write it off as “That’s just Wilson being Wilson.” I think that is to the detriment of conversation.

Larry,

These are all good points. I guess my objection is that Wilson has an entire freight train’s worth of baggage attached to him, and some of it is disqualifying to elders (1 Timothy 3:2). Some of it can be charitably written down as an accident (plagiarism), and some of it can’t. So I don’t understand why people use him as a reputable source on just about anything or look for his guidance/commentary. I used to read Wilson and linked to his blog, but now I regret that I did.

Wilson, unlike many, is not afraid of being politically incorrect if he thinks he has a point to make.

And I understand (and can appreciate that to a certain extent), but he’s also demonstrated a willingness to fight and quarrel over many other things, including insignificant matters. Calling Nadia Bolz-Weber a “cunt” on his blog a few weeks ago, for example, or endlessly using the term “nubile” to describe young women when he knew it was offensive to at least some of his audience. That’s before we get into the fiascos with Sitler and Wight. I mean, he styles himself as a “one of those grenade launching Protestants”. That speaks to me as someone who has crossed over from “speaker of hard truths” to “pugnacious and quarrelsome”, and, as such, is someone to be marked and avoided (2 Timothy 2:24; Romans 16:17), not celebrated and passed around because he “speaks truth” or whatever.

If I could, I’d pull his blog off the internet entirely, and I fear that people like Wilson because he fights, not because he makes good points - again, which he has done on occasion in the past. That’s why it makes me nuts when sites like SharperIron link to him.

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

Jay,

The reason why he is cited is because of what he says. And it is interesting how little people want to interact with his arguments. Consider your example of Nadia Bolz-Weber. You obviously read him more than I do because I never saw him say that. It is interesting that he predicted your response. It is not a word I would use, but it reminds of something that Tony Evans (I believe, or perhaps someone else) said when using a particular word generally considered to be profanity to describe a situation and commenting that “Some of you are more upset that I used that word than you are about” whatever problem he was mentioning. His point with the particular word used seems to be to highlight exactly what she claimed, using a word that would be more striking to highlight the issue. Again, it’s not a word I would use, but it’s a common rhetorical tactic that has merit. In general, I am in favor of being nicer rather than uglier. But perhaps we have become too nice and unwilling to point out the obvious about foolishness.

It seems to me that you are willing to grant King more leeway on far more serious issues than you are Wilson and others.

Larry,

I will grant that I haven’t read Wilson’s article and don’t have the entire context of what was said.

I will not, however, agree with you or Wilson that this is acceptable speech for any Christian, much less a pastor. It continues to concern me that Wilson can deliberately provoke people by sinning and then handwaves us into believing that it is either necessary or acceptable, because reasons. Most surprisingly, we are dumb enough to buy it!

If I used that word to describe any woman at work, in an environment that is not populated by Christians and has minimal exposure to Christ, I would be reprimanded and possibly even fired. Why is my workplace harder on this sin than a bunch of people who should be familiar with what the Scriptures teach us about how to interact with unbelievers? Does Ephesians 5 or James 3 suddenly go out of the Bible because Nadia Bolz disagrees with Biblical doctrine? Or because Douglas Wilson, in all his wisdom, decided that he needed to use the word in order to make a point?

I think not.

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

It is not a word I would use, but it reminds of something that Tony Evans (I believe, or perhaps someone else)

It was from Tony Campolo.

“I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a ****. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said **** than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.”