The Secularization of the MLK, Jr.

This month at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, the faithful met to worship the Almighty and discuss the latest battles for religious liberty in an increasingly secular culture.

When the Knights of Columbus’ Supreme Knight Carl Anderson spoke, he made a startling observation about the new Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. monument which has not been widely reported and is quite unique among monuments throughout our nation’s capital. Even though Dr. King was a Baptist minister and his history-altering speeches about civil liberties are saturated with references to natural rights and profound theological constructs, all 14 quotes carefully etched into his stone monument completely eschew references to God!

Mr. Anderson mocked those in authority who were given the difficult task of carefully combing through Rev. King’s archives trying to finding a few secular quotations.

In Dr. King’s famous letter from the Birmingham jail, which is full of religious references, he relied on the Catholic natural law tradition by citing Saint Augustine of Hippo, who said in On Free Choice of the Will that "an unjust law is no law at all." King went onto proclaim he and his peaceful supporters were “in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

There is no question about Rev. King’s adherence to scripture, and it was his fidelity to religious principles which lead him to a higher calling on this Earth. Instead of excusing injustice, King was in the front lines against oppression and inequality. And while Dr. King is no longer with us, his ability to look evil in the face and defend the inherent rights of all men is a model which all true Christians must follow.

So, with Rev. King and religion are inseparable, why are they so quick to hide Dr. King’s religiosity? We would expect this type of careful ideological manipulation of history in tyrannical states of the former Soviet Union, North Korea, or in the reeducation camps during the Vietnam War. But how does this happen in America?

Sadly, I believe this another example of how the secular left is winning the culture war. By driving religion out of the public square and re-writing the history books, the invaluable role religion has played in our country is being erased.

As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God." And ironically, by eliminating religion, the secular left is using the force of law to build its own type of warped, unholy church which is highly dogmatic and mandates participation under the threat of force.

Two generations have passed since the Great Society programs of the 1960s chipped away at the traditional family, setting government dependency where social ties and the empowerment of the market once stood. And now, with the Obama Administration’s openly hostile approach to religion, we have a government forcing institutions of faith to participate in acts against their own conscious, such as proving contraception and abortion services. All churches in Obama’s America are subservient to the whims of government bureaucrats which are exercising power far outside the limits of our Constitution.

It was his Christian religion which animated and informed Dr. King. If alive today, he would not approve of efforts to change the core of his moral message, nor would he accept the secular forces which have reshaped his image for political reasons.

His "Beyond Vietnam" speech in 1967 was basically a call to Marxism and a smear against America and personal freedom.

I think King started out as a Christian preacher. I'm not completely sure that he ended as one. He seemed to be on the verge of becoming a political rabble-rouser like Jesse Jackson.

There is no question about Rev. King’s adherence to scripture...

Ummmm, I'm not sure what wishful-thinking-drug this author has been smoking, but there certainly are HUGE questions about MLK's adherence to scripture, and even if one can rightfully call him a Christian--in a creedal, meaningful sense of the word.

God uses all kinds of people, and certainly King deserves primary credit for the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s in the USA. Just as Jefferson cannot rightly be called a Christian (as he denied the divinity of Christ) and Lincoln too, up until the last year or so of his life denied being a Christian--the social and political greatness of Christian virtues in a man does not make him necessarily a Christian.

MLK denied, in writing while in seminary, essentials such as the Virgin Birth and Jesus' atonement for sin. At one point he was going to convert to Corretta's preferred faith of Unitarianism...but, for civil-rights-strategic reasons (blacks wouldn't follow a unitarian) he became Baptist. There's no way, for example, he could of said the Nicene Creed (or the Apostles Creed), honestly.

Also different lapses in character can be seen--making it hard to consider such a person an active Christian.

King was surely a great man--who did much for America. He was not however...a great Christian man.

“If he were alive today, I’m convinced that he’d stand side by side with Jackson, Sharpton, and all the other America black racists.”

Maybe yes and maybe no. But the point of the article is the systematic dismantling of (the Christian) religion, thereby rendering gov’t the one to be worshiped.

Hopefully this is the high water mark for the secularization of our culture.

In one of the few interviews about his religious beliefs, he denied belief in the Virgin Birth (which was a sort of litmus test in those days to see if you were a “liberal” or a “conservative” in matters of theology).

Ergo, he was not a “fundamentalist”.

He was more a philosopher in the mode of Gandhi.

Nevertheless, he was a great figure, as was Jefferson, etc., though not necessarily a Christian saint.

(Lincoln, btw, experienced a conversion just before Gettysburg; and went from being an agnostic to
a believer.)

nor would he accept the secular forces which have reshaped his image for political reasons.

I doubt this completely. He'd be one more black racist "preacher" without a congregation. I totally disagree! These "quotes" were put together by the generation that he spawned: godless, racist, eschewing Christianity (Quanza, bizarre first names instead of Christian names, the embracing of muslimism), the total ignoring of what the muslim Negro slave sellers did to them in Africa, and the ignoring of what over 660,000 Americans died for to release them from bondage.

Jesus' simple words "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" have totally been forgotten by most "blacks." Hence the flash mobs, the vigilante nasty attacks on "whitey," and the willingness to take tax payers' money as fast as it's printed.

Sorry, but "Saint" MLK who cheated on his wife and aligned himself with communism deserves these secular quotes. They are from the godless secular generations that he spawned.

And King really didn’t create or strategize the main events of the civil rights movement. That was a guy by the name of James Bevel (see my http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2853189/posts FR thread here), who was also a womanizing minister, but in his case it was with his own daughter. But yes, both King and Bevel were Christian ministers who had a deep abiding trust in their faith, and used it extensively in their movement. For the statue (who is that white man?) to leave off any mention of Christianity is a bald-face attempt to erase the inner-core of Dr. King’s writings.

He was already secular. He was a thoroughgoing liberal Protestant who rejected all supernatural dogmas and subscribed to all the liberal theories about the Bible and religion.

To him the only purpose religion could serve was as a tool to be used to advance secular concepts of "social justice."

Just once I wish a Black conservative would say all this.

I’ve never had any use for this philandering, adulterous, communist. If he were alive today, I’m convinced that he’d stand side by side with Jackson, Sharpton, and all the other America black racists.

He would.

Interestingly enough, Ralph David Abernathy went on to join the Moral Majority . . . and was disowned by his old civil rights colleagues for "changing."

exactly

there are still a few here but when i started here ..90% of freepers absolutely bowed at the knee of King like he was a some God.

Many public GOP folks and a few conservatives are still stupid over him...he’s like a third rail...nobody will touch the memory of the lying socialist serial philanderer preacher

so silly...he was a charlatan with a few choice words which is all stupid white people today choose to remember

and look where it got all of us....crackers on the run basically like little ducks scurrying along from their own guilt and shame and overall a fear of being called racist

that particular fear is now the greatest emotional fear there is...it has supplanted what was formerly a righteous fear of God.

“...he was a great figure, as was Jefferson, etc., though not necessarily a Christian saint.”

That was my point. I’m fascinated by how naive Christians are and how quickly we want to claim someone as ours who is great. I had an evangelical pastor insist to me that MLK was a devout, born-again, bible-believing, evangelical Christian. I did my homework and discovered in no uncertain terms, his beliefs had more in common with THE most liberal mainline leaders of today, or Ghandi, than basic Christianity, let alone evangelicalism.

King differed in even more basic ways from Christian essentials than the virgin birth too, both in doctrine, and more importantly even in his personal morality. It is proven, for example (and admitted, by the school in question, and historians...) that his doctoral thesis was plagiarized. Up to the night he was murdered too, fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy has written, he regularly used prostitutes.

So again, yes, King was a great leader who God used to bring much good to America. A great example of a Christian leader though? No.

I was aware of Lincoln’s conversion, my point was that most of the (public) good he did...preceded his personal faith.

God uses all kinds for our good. Men don’t have to be actual Christians to be used mightily to promote Christian virtues.

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