Martin Luther King Was a Crusader but Was He a Christian?

Much of America is excited about the MLK movie titled “Selma”; however, there is discussion, debate, and some say distortion, if not dishonesty, about the role Lyndon Johnson played in some of King’s activities, especially the 54-mile march from Selma to the Alabama capital of Montgomery that led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Let me state clearly that I have little to no respect for Johnson or King and I’ve made that judgment based on their lives, not because Johnson was a Democrat and King was a Black. One’s political party or one’s race is not an issue that concerns me. I am concerned about truth and history, and specifically whether King actually was only a crusader but not a Christian.

I resent historians and media who refuse to deal with truth whether it is about Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton or Obama. Or, about preachers whether it be Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, Bennie Hinn–or King. It is astounding that many conservatives refuse to acknowledge the historical record but emphasize only a small but commendable portion of a hero’s life. Therefore, they don’t feel cowardly in their very selective stand.

For the record, Johnson was a thief, liar, and foul-mouthed fornicator. The best thing he did for America was not run for reelection. That is not to say that he did not accidently accomplish some good during his stint in office. Moreover, it is a fact that Blacks were often intimidated and refused voting rights in some southern states and it is good that that has been corrected. However, one should not then leap to the conclusion that it is discrimination to demand that everyone prove citizenship when voting. That is not discrimination but common sense. Nor is it wrong to reject any ploy that permits a person to vote multiple times in various districts or makes it easy to commit voter fraud. In our desire to do good, we must not do stupid.

King was a social worker who used the ministry to accomplish his mission and let me be clear that there were many wrongs that needed to be righted. Most of the young people who faced the white bullies with dogs and clubs were heroes. Some of them even lost their lives to white thugs. King was an opportunist who accomplished some good. However, because King was black and was killed by a white racist who should have been executed within a few months of his crime, most media and academia refuse to research, recognize, and report the truth about King. I do so because I don’t worship anyone and try to hold everyone to the same standard.

Many reading this, including most conservatives, will be offended at the suggestion that King might not have been a Christian. But then a person is not a Christian because he professes to be or because he belongs to a “Christian” Church or because he is baptized. According to the Bible, one becomes a Christian when he or she exercises faith in the atoning death and resurrection of Christ. King, according to his own words was not a believer!

We can know much about a person if we study what he has written, and I have spent many hours reading King. His seminary papers are very revealing as to what he believed and what his motives were. The King papers are courtesy of the King family and those papers prove that he was not only an unbeliever but far from being a scholar! Since no one else will do so, I will try to set the record straight.

I can live with my motives and I hope you can live with the truth. Some of this information is from my eBook Martin Luther King, Jr.: Judged by His Character Not His Color available at amazon.com with documentation. Please note that I will not deal with King’s philandering, plagiarism, politics, or partying.

Today, my main interest is to look at the evidence for proof of King’s salvation, not whether he was an accomplished community organizer and admired civil rights leader.
King received his B.D. from Crozer Seminary then started to work on his Ph.D. at Boston University. All the following information is from that time period.

King’s seminary and university papers show his taking a scalpel to excise the core doctrine of Christ’s physical resurrection from the Bible and from history: “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.” No, it is King who is found wanting after being weighed in the balances. Of course, King was aware that all four Gospels clearly teach the physical resurrection of Christ as do many of the epistles, but that is not good enough for King: the resurrection of our Savior is “found wanting.” Furthermore, there are scores of carefully documented books that support Christ’s physical resurrection. Any scholar would know that.

Regarding the virgin birth King wrote: “it seems downright improbable and even impossible for anyone to be born without a human father.” Of course, it is improbable but improbable does not mean impossible, especially with God! King further wrote: “First we must admit that the evidence for the tenability of this doctrine is to [sic] shallow to convince any objective thinker.” King was not objective and in my opinion not a deep thinker.

In a paper at Crozer titled “The Humanity and Divinity of Jesus,” his professor rebuked him suggesting that it would be good if he proofread his papers before turning them in! He was given a B+ by his professor. In this paper he misspelled “Samaria,” “learned,” “agonizing,” “omniscient,” “omniscience,” “reliance,” “orbit,” “warmest,” “intimacy,” “inadequate,” and others. That was graduate work! I would have given him a D, if he rewrote the paper maybe a C.

King wrote, “They realized that if they wanted to get an objective standard of reference they would they would [sic] have to go beyond the pages of the old [sic] testament [sic] into the path that lead [sic] to that locked door.” King was favoring the position that the Old Testament is not a reliable historical record. King was like all unbelievers who jump at the opportunity to denounce, deny, and denigrate the Word of God and praise, promote, and protect paganism.

King concludes his paper dealing with archeology and the Old Testament: “If we accept the Old Testament as being ‘true’ we will find it full of errors, contradictions, and obvious impossibilities–as that the Pentateuch was written by Moses.” Surely he blushed to write about errors since his papers and books are riddled with errors or all kinds. When he purloined pages from other authors he also stole their mistakes!

In one of King’s papers at Crozer on the “Light on the Old Testament from the Ancient Near East,” I discovered eight spelling, punctuation, and composition mistakes in nine consecutive lines! Maybe I will do another column on his astounding number of mistakes.
No, the “contradictions” were in King’s life, not in the Scripture and he clearly denied the deity of Christ, His virgin birth, His resurrection, and the veracity of Scripture. By any objective standard King was not a Christian. Therefore, on January 15 I will be working as usual then have dinner with friends at our favorite Chinese restaurant. After all, because it is also my birthday, the dinner of steak, shrimp, and Peking duck is free.

You can honor King as a crusader if you please, but not as a legitimate Christian leader. A Christian he was not.

http://bit.ly/1iMLVfY  Watch these 8 minute videos of my lecture at the University of North Dakota: “A Christian Challenges New Atheists to Put Up or Shut Up!”

The God Haters

Angry Atheists, Shallow Scholars, Silly Scientists, Pagan Preachers & Embattled Evolutionists Declare War Against Christians

by Don Boys, Ph.D.

Angry Atheists, Shallow Scholars, Silly Scientists, Pagan Preachers, and Embattled Evolutionists are, of necessity, attacking the Bible for if they can denounce, deny, distort, and denigrate it, they will win more converts to atheism. They have been waging this war for a few years and most of us have ignored their books, television interviews, and university debates because they have just been more of the typical dog and pony shows that the most fanatical God haters have created for centuries. They want a fight, and while I consider atheists to be unimpressive fools, I’m willing to take them on. No quarter asked or given.

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