Whoa, hold on there partner...
“... an American man who promotes peace, and preaches about Jesus Christ.”
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King Denied the Bodily Resurrection, Virgin Birth, and Deity of Jesus Christ
In the same sketch, “An Autobiography of Religious Development,” King wrote that, although he accepted the teachings of his Sunday school teachers until he was about twelve,
this uncritical attitude could not last long, for it was contrary to the very nature of my being. I had always been the questioning and precocious type. At the age of 13 I shocked my Sunday School class by denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus. From the age of thirteen on doubts began to spring forth unrelentingly.
While it is widely believed that Martin Luther King, Jr. was committed to the “Christian religion,” he was far from it. He denied some of the most fundamental components of historic Christianity. He repudiated the doctrine of the deity of Jesus, and he rejected the concept that the Lord was raised bodily from the dead. King disdained the New Testament affirmation of Christ’s virgin birth, asserting that the early Christians devised a mythological story to account for the moral uniqueness of Jesus of Nazareth. His theology has been profusely documented in The Christian News Encyclopedia.
1. In his paper “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,” MLK thought that in order to understand the true meaning of orthodox creedal doctrines—like the divine Sonship of Jesus, the virgin birth, and the bodily resurrection—the literal element needed to be stripped away in order to uncover the true experiential foundation beneath it.
* MLK believed that doctrine of Jesus’ deity developed due to Greek philosophical influence and because the early church saw him as the highest and the best
* MLK believed that the “virgin birth” was unscientific and untenable; like divine Sonship, this doctrine developed as a way for the early church to indicate how highly they valued the uniqueness of Jesus.
* MLK believed that the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus was an attempt by the pre-scientific early church to symbolize the experience that they had with Jesus.
2. Read in light of the above, it is clear to me that in the paper, “The Sources of Fundamentalism and Liberalism Considered Historically and Psychologically,” MLK is self-consciously identifying himself with classical theological liberalism and rejecting the doctrines of fundamentalism.
* MLK praised theological liberalism. In addition to the denial of the doctrines of divine Sonship, the virgin birth, and the resurrection, MLK points out that there is also a denial of Scriptural inerrancy and the doctrine of the fall.
* MLK scorned theological fundamentalism. MLK seems not to believe in the direct creation of the world by God, man as being in the image of God, the historical account of Adam and Eve, the person of the Devil, the Fall, hell, the Trinity, the substitutionary atonement, and the Second Coming.
3. In his paper, “A Study of Mithraism,” MLK suggests that the doctrines of the early church grew out of the Greek mystery religions and cults which flourished at that time.
4. In an interview with Time Magazine, MLK seems to indicate that it was at Crozer Theological Seminary (the setting for the term papers quoted above) that he saw that the ministry was a framework by which he could express his philosophy of social protest.
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/mlk_jr-exposed.htm
I think this is a twisting of the faith of MLK jr.
Your argument deals with a paper King wrote in 1949...which he seems to repudiate in his 1954 sermon, “Rediscovering Lost Values”.
King was not always a born again Christian. He became a preacher as a vocation. But, his experiences with death threats, and bombed churches which killed little girls; being beaten and imprisoned, having dogs set on him; straightened out his thinking, and set his eyes on Jesus! He speakes about the long night he spent as he realised that he couldn’t depend on anyone, but Jesus to save him!
Here is another quote from a letter he wrote from Prison, that his followers should heed:
“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
quote:
“I have been arrested five times and 1960 put in Alabama jails. My home has been bombed twice. A day seldom passes that my family and I are not the recipients of threats of death. I have been the victim of a near fatal stabbing. So in a real sense I have been battered by the storms of persecution. I must admit that at times I have felt that I could no longer bear such a heavy burden, and have been tempted to retreat to a more quiet and serene life. But every time such a temptation appeared, something came to strengthen and sustain my determination. I have learned now that the Master’s burden is light precisely when we take his yoke upon us.”