Martin Luther King, Jr.

This is a three-day weekend for many in America, because of the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.

Among all the good he did for civil rights, I always thought it was wonderful that he was portrayed as a Christian and a Baptist preacher. I always suspected that our secular society downplayed his other Christian teachings in favor of his speeches and sermons concerning civil rights. I mean, our politically correct culture does not want to hear much about Jesus Christ being Lord and Savior and faith in Him being the only way to eternal life with God!

With today's technology of the internet, I figured I would be able to find many of Dr. King's sermons online. I thought it would be cool to go back and find some excerpts from sermons he preached about accepting Jesus Christ as Savior, or of repenting of sins and asking forgiveness, or a "Ye Must Be Born Again" type of sermon. You know, typical "Baptist" types of messages. I thought surely I would be able to find many such references from a high-profile person who had a pulpit ministry for many years.

Alas, after researching and reading for the past hour plus, I have not found one "Jesus" quote from King to use for this blog post!

I'm not sure what to make of it, yet, but on the surface it does not seem that Dr. King was overly concerned about preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was more interested in a social gospel of equality for all.

But, I was not alive during those days when Martin Luther King, Jr. was doing so much for mankind, and my purpose here is not to put him down. I was just surprised that I couldn't find any "Hell-fire and brimstone" Baptist messages from him! I've not done enough research to really decide what his theology was all about, but I must admit that I am discouraged about what I have discovered.

Anyway, I did find a pretty neat message that Dr. King preached. He was pretending that he had a letter written from Apostle Paul to the modern church in America. I thought it was very creative and had some great insights. I decided to omit some of the "social gospel" references in this message and just quote some of the paragraphs that spoke to me. At least it is a way for me to honor Dr. King on his day.

It is entitled "Paul's Letter to American Christians" and the date they gave for it was November 4, 1956. For it to make sense you have to remember that the parts I've quoted are the words that King is imagining that Paul would be writing to America:

"....But America, as I look at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk about "improved means to an unimproved end." How often this is true. You have allowed the material means by which you live to outdistance the spiritual ends for which you live. You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture. Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but through your moral and spiritual genius you have failed to make of it a brotherhood. So America, I would urge you to keep your moral advances abreast with your scientific advances.

I am impelled to write you concerning the responsibilities laid upon you to live as Christians in the midst of an unChristian world. That is what I had to do. That is what every Christian has to do. But I understand that there are many Christians in America who give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: "everybody is doing it, so it must be alright." For so many of you Morality is merely group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. How many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way.

But American Christians, I must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Or, as I said to the Phillipian Christians, "Ye are a colony of heaven." This means that although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God's will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.

I understand that you have an economic system in America known as Capitalism. Through this economic system you have been able to do wonders. You have become the richest nation in the world, and you have built up the greatest system of production that history has ever known. All of this is marvelous. But Americans, there is the danger that you will misuse your Capitalism. I still contend that money can be the root of all evil. It can cause one to live a life of gross materialism. I am afraid that many among you are more concerned about making a living than making a life. You are prone to judge the success of your profession by the index of your salary and the size of the wheel base on your automobile, rather than the quality of your service to humanity.....

...Let me rush on to say something about the church. Americans, I must remind you, as I have said to so many others, that the church is the Body of Christ. So when the church is true to its nature it knows neither division nor disunity. But I am disturbed about what you are doing to the Body of Christ. They tell me that in America you have within Protestantism more than two hundred and fifty six denominations. The tragedy is not so much that you have such a multiplicity of denominations, but that most of them are warring against each other with a claim to absolute truth. This narrow sectarianism is destroying the unity of the Body of Christ. You must come to see that God is neither a Baptist nor a Methodist; He is neither a Presbyterian nor a Episcopalian. God is bigger than all of our denominations. If you are to be true witnesses for Christ, you must come to see that America.

But I must not stop with a criticism of Protestantism. I am disturbed about Roman Catholicism. This church stands before the world with its pomp and power, insisting that it possesses the only truth. It incorporates an arrogance that becomes a dangerous spiritual arrogance. It stands with its noble Pope who somehow rises to the miraculous heights of infallibility when he speaks ex cathedra. But I am disturbed about a person or an institution that claims infallibility in this world. I am disturbed about any church that refuses to cooperate with other churches under the pretense that it is the only true church. I must emphasize the fact that God is not a Roman Catholic, and that the boundless sweep of his revelation cannot be limited to the Vatican. Roman Catholicism must do a great deal to mend its ways...."

If you wish to read sermon in it's entirety, here is the site it came from:
http://www.mlkonline.net/christians.html

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!