Evangelicalism and Martin Luther King, Jr.

This. https://t.co/s9kxt5BpxR

— ᴾʰᶤˡ ᴶᵒʰᶰˢᵒᶰ (@Phil_Johnson_) November 10, 2017

What the church needs is “Roy Moore bad, MLK good” and “MLK bad, Roy Moore good” people to teach them about moral judgment

— Charles Finney (@chuck_finney) November 10, 2017

Dr. King has been dead for 49 years. Why on earth is that ACCC warning about him? What possible good can this do? Do these people not realize that they are in effect flipping the bird at our black brothers and sisters?

The reasons for the ACCC’s concerns are stated in their resolution. Whatever you may think of the ACCC, they have a point worth debating: Many Evangelicals seem to be ignoring or downplaying MLK’s theology (and other aspects of his life) in an attempt to make amends for past segregationist views. We can admire MLK’s personal courage in fighting segregation without ignoring his bad theology and personal life. Contrary to popular perception, black churches are not unanimous in their support of MLK. Also: We don’t know whether the accusations about Judge Moore are true or not. It’s very easy today to make such accusations and ruin lives without any due process of law. “Presumed innocent until proven guilty” applies to everyone except those accused of sexual crimes. Be careful.

…but the ACCC really simply reverses the error; instead of over-emphasizing King’s accomplishments, they over-emphasize his sins, and in doing so, are picking a fight with our black brothers and sisters. Can’t we be smarter about this at times?

MLK questioned the physical resurrection, the virgin birth, verbal inspiration, and more. It makes a lot of difference. As far as “smarter”: When would be a good time to raise concerns? How should that be expressed? Sensitive topics like this are always difficult to address and please everyone. Someone will always criticize (as we see here).

It seems like warning about someone like Thomas Jefferson or Ben Franklin and the dangers of America’s founding documents because they were Deists. The contribution MLKJ is honored for is not theological. Most wouldn’t recognize what he preached one way or the other.The laudable influence was in desegregation.
This shouldn’t be too hard to grasp given the current state of politics and the options we are faced with. Support on one issue does not equal wholesale affirmation. how many people voted for Trump here? Who would want him teaching theology (though I hear his commentary on “Two Corinthians” is gold :) )?

To Bert’s point earlier, issuing a resolution like this makes the ACCC look like a white supremacist kind of organization—which I don’t believe they are, but it’s just not wise. Where are people being influenced by MLK’s theology? Why is this a pertinent matter in our current context? The obvious cons outweigh any possible pros here.

Piper, by the way provided a nuanced view of MLK:

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/martin-luther-king-changed-my-worl…

Between that racially appalling world and this racially imperfect one strode Martin Luther King. We don’t know if the world would have changed without him, but we do know he was a rod in the hand of God. Leave aside his theology and his moral flaws. He was used in the mighty hand of Providence to change the world so that the most appalling, blatant, degrading, public expressions of racism have gone away.

MLK was used by God in a way analogous to how God used Cyrus & Nebuchadnezzar

• The Lord said of Cyrus: “Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall fulfill all my purpose” (Isaiah 44:28)
• And of Nebuchadnezzar: “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant” (Jeremiah 25:9)

As Piper rightly said: MLK’s morals were suspect (I’m not sure how much I believe the FBI files on him) and certainly his theology was way off; but he did for the black race what white evangelicals and fundamentalists should have done, but did not!

The ACCC resolution is a waste of time.

Another way of viewing King’s apparent heterodoxy is this; he want to white liberal institutions outside of the fundagelical orbit, and at the time among the strongest defenders of segregation in the South were fundamentalists and evangelicals—that problem was the senior thesis of one of the guys that led me to Christ. So where do you think he’d end up with that? Even if he was more evangelical than those documents indicate, it would take a very strong man to go against the flow at the institutions he was attending—Doc Clearwaters writes about that in his autobiography.

And those FBI allegations? Lot of anonymous sources—reminds me a lot of those “authoritative” reports from the Washington Post and the New York Times that never seem to lead to anything, unless they’re an obvious intentional leak from the Mueller investigation.

Overall, though, my take is that however flawed a messenger King was, he was showing “our tribe” a very ugly side of ourselves that had somehow remained a blind spot. For that I am incredibly grateful, and because of that I really hate to see people pointing to his real and alleged flaws 49 years after his death.

I agree the ACCC resolution is ridiculous. I am not aware of any theological conservative who has embraced MLK’s theology. That being said, I think we need to be careful interpreting MLK and even desegregation through providence and assigning meaning to it. I recently read Trueman’s, “Histories and Fallacies” and I thought he had some good stuff on this. Here is one quote for those who are interested:

“The second problem with providential explanations is that they claim to read God’s will off the surface of historical events in a glib and easy manner. In fact, what they really do is allow the historian to express his or her own particular philosophical or moral commitments in a way that is invulnerable to external criticism. Once the “God’s providence” card is played, the argument is over. The Christian thinker who hates abortion is confronted by the outrage of 9/ 11 and uses the events as an opportunity for reinforcing his or her own moral understanding of the nation. The connection between the terror attacks and the nation’s stand on abortion is not empirically verifiable; it exists solely in the mind of the interpreter. It is a gnostic connection to which others have no access. Indeed, another person sees it as a judgment on militarism and free trade. In each case, providence is wheeled in as a means of providing divine sanction for the interpreter’s own political views. The interpretation itself cannot be verified because it offers an explanation that enjoys only a highly speculative connection to the empirical events.”

“We’ve got to find an enemy. for one of this year’s resolutions..let’s go after someone who’s been dead for 49 years. Let’s ignore that his liberal theology and supposed immorality had no influence on his positive effect on society. Let’s ignore that he brought attention and change to a racist attitude that we had tolerated in silence (and sometimes promoted) for a century. He was an apostate and people we didn’t know didn’t and aren’t separating from him” declare a handful of old white men in a small local church.

If someone wants to be consistent shouldn’t we dismiss Jefferson’s Danbury Letter on separation of church and state because he was a Christ denier and supposed father of a number of children by Sally Hemmings. Shouldn’t we dismiss George Washington because he was a Mason and ran a whiskey distillery?

“Now get off my lawn!”

[TylerR]

The ACCC has been on a tear lately, issuing impotent resolutions from their irrelevant meetings. Not sure what on earth they’re doing, or what they think they’re accomplishing. Their feeble resolutions will warm the heart of those who are 60+, while making the rest of us laugh - just like we do when the crazed uncle comes over for Thanksgiving.

I’m offended. I’m 63 and am not warmed. But I agree on the irrelevancy. I have another word in mind but will exercise control. Several years ago I was invited to address a crowd that gathered in West Philly for the unveiling of a bust of MLK at the site where he had spoken to thousands back in the 60s. He had a dream for people living a nightmare.