Pinning down this MLK guy.

So, Martin Luther King Jr.  The name alone conjures up images of grand ideas, pivotal history, and notions of all that is best in the United States of America.  When Christians want an example of a fellow follower of Jesus that fought bravely for noble causes, it’s just a matter of time until you hear MLK’s name.  In this respect, he’s squarely in the category of the legendary “founding fathers” of the U.S.A. as a valuable name to claim for “our side.”  It seems like everyone wants those rare, awe-inspiring names that other people respect to share their own opinions on big, important questions, as if their worldview is somehow vindicated by the agreement of a long-dead historical figure.

Can we atheists claim MLK as one of our own?  We can’t claim Thomas Paine; he was a deist.  Similarly, can’t claim Thomas Jefferson.  Susan B. Anthony is debatable.  We could make a case for Charles Darwin or Albert Einstein, but, c’mon, they’re scientists; of course they’re awesome.

The answer, obviously, is no, no we can’t.  MLK was clearly a theist; he was a reverend, for Pete’s sake.  He claimed Christianity.  That’s not necessarily the end of the question, though.

In 1949, MLK wrote a paper titled, “What Experiences of Christians Living is the Early Christian Century Led to the Christian Doctrines of the Divine Sonship of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Bodily Resurrection.”  Quite the explanatory title, eh?  Many believers would be shocked at the statements in it:

Although we may be able to argue with all degrees of logic that these doctrines are historically and philolophically untenable*, yet we can never undermind the foundation on which they are based.

The first doctrine of our discussion which deals with the divine sonship of Jesus went through a great process of developement . . . How then did this doctrine of divine sonship come into being? . . . We may find a partial clue to the actual rise of this doctrine in the spreading of Christianity into the Greco-Roman world. . . . Through philosophical thinking the Greeks came to the point of subordinating, distrusting, and even minimizing anything physical. Anything that possessed flesh was always underminded in Greek thought. And so in order to receive inspiration from Jesus the Greeks had to apotheosize him.

(Regarding the virgin birth) First we must admit that the evidence for the tenability of this doctrine is to shallow to convince any objective thinker. To begin with, the earliest written documents in the New Testament make no mention of the virgin birth. Moreover, the Gospel of Mark, the most primitive and authentic of the four, gives not the slightest suggestion of the virgin birth. The effort to justify this doctrine on the grounds that it was predicted by the prophet Isaiah is immediately eliminated, for all New Testament scholars agree that the word virgin is not found in the Hebrew original, but only in the Greek text which is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for “young woman.” How then did this doctrine arise? A clue to this inquiry may be found in a sentence from St. Justin’s First Apology. Here Justin states that the birth of Jesus is quite similar to the birth of the sons of Zeus. It was believed in Greek thought that an extraordinary person could only be explained by saying that he had a father who was more than human. It is probable that this Greek idea influenced Christian thought.

The last doctrine in our discussion deals with the resurrection story. This doctrine, upon which the Easter Faith rests, symbolizes the ultimate Christian conviction: that Christ conquered death. 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.”

In each case, MLK ultimately concludes that there is a significant underlying spiritual reality behind each of these seemingly irrational doctrines, so we certainly have no basis for insisting that he was not a Christian . . .

Unless, of course, we were fundamentalist Christians.  I’d wager that a good number of Christians of a more traditional, literalistic bent would not hesitate to declare that if you don’t believe in Jesus’ literal virgin birth, divinity, and resurrection, you cannot be a Christian.  I strongly disagree; I think we could even potentially make an argument for the existence of an atheist Christian who does not believe in a literal god but who advocates and upholds the teachings of Jesus in every other way, to the exclusion of all others.  It’s strange, I think that it’s pretty irrational, I’d argue about one of those conclusions for a good long time, but I don’t think that the concepts of ‘atheist; and ‘Christian’ must necessarily be mutually exclusive in the way that ‘atheist’ and, for example, ‘theist’ are.

Again, if we are going to include the acceptance of specific supernatural assertions as being necessary to consider oneself a Christian, we wouldn’t have to go far to exclude MLK.

Another paper, again from 1949, describes what MLK considers to be “fundamentalism,” of which he does not speak highly, to say the least.  Particular attention should be paid to the last paragraph:

When the fundamentalist comes to the nature of man he finds all of his answers in the Bible. The story of man in the garden of Eden gives a conclusive answer. Man was created by a direct act of God. Moreover, he was created in the image of God, but through the workings of the devil man {was} lead into disobedience. Then began all human ills: hardship and labor, the agony of childbirth, hatred, sorrow, suffering, and death. The fundamentalist is quite aware of the fact that scholars regard the garden of Eden and the serpent Satan and the hell of fire as myths analogous to those found in other oriental religions. He knows also that his beliefs are the center of redicule by many. But this does not shake his faith–rather it convinces him more of the existence of the devil. The critics, says the fundamentalist, would never indulge in such skeptical thinking if the devil hadn’t influenced them. The fundamentalist is convinced that this skepticism of scholars and cheap humor of the laity can by no means prevent the revelation of God.

Others doctrines such as a supernatural plan of salvation, the Trinity, the substitutionary theory of the atonement, and the second coming of Christ are all quite prominant in fundamentalist thinking. Such are the views of the fundamentalist and they reveal that he is oppose to theological adaptation to social and cultural change. He sees a progressive scientific age as a retrogressive spiritual age. Amid change all around he was {is} willing to preserve certain ancient ideas even though they are contrary to science.

Again, as far as I’m concerned, MLK claimed Christianity, so he’s a Christian.  Still, how many Christians would read that last paragraph and conclude that the author could not possibly be a “believer”?

Moreover, MLK obviously had a thing for ethics and social justice, for which he is rightly known.  In all his writings, he basically never appeals to the Bible or the direct will of God for his moral position.  In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he explains his opinion of the morality of the “Natural Law,” but then he immediately defines the Natural Law in explicitly humanistic terms:

An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

He goes on to give and explain examples of specific injustices wrought by segregation.  True, the “Natural Law” is traditionally understood as a theistic morality, but MLK defines it completely differently.

So MLK was indeed a Christian.  He claimed Christianity.  We can’t claim him for the atheist camp.  We can, however, claim him as a liberal.  We can certainly claim him, perhaps most importantly, as a skeptic and a humanist.