|
In the "Reporter"
for Thursday, August 8, 2002, there is an article entitled "Black
convocation called model for good preaching,": "During business
sessions, delegates adopted nine resolutions. Among those actions, they
voted to:
|
"request
the LCMS Board of Directors to authorize a Black-ministry campaign,
in cooperation with the LCMS Foundation, to raise $250,000 by Sept.
1, 2003,
as a contribution to the proposed national memorial to Dr. Martin
Luther
King Jr. planned for Washington, D.C." |
Although
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a respected US civil rights leader and
the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, I have been
unable to find any evidence that he was actually a Christian himself. I
did find articles in which he rejects major (if I may use that word here)
Christian doctrines.
See the article "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" available at
The
Papers Of Martin Luther King Jr. Volume 1: Called to Serve,
January 1929-June 1951
Also, see "The Sources of Fundamentalism and Liberalism Considered
Historically and Psychologically" at
The
Papers Of Martin Luther King Jr. Volume 1: Called to Serve,
January 1929-June 1951
The following are quotations from the above article.
|
"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."
"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 prominent in fundamentalist thinking. Such are the views
of the
fundamentalist and they reveal that he is opposed 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." |
It is impossible for us to know whether Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
converted to Christianity on his death bed, but it does seem highly
unlikely that he did. While it may be appropriate for citizens of
the United States of America to erect a memorial in his honor, as has
already been done for Thomas Jefferson, who also was not a Christian,
there is no reason that a Christian church body, such as the Lutheran
Church--Missouri Synod should participate in the funding of such a
memorial.
Therefore, I believe that the LCMS Board of Directors should NOT authorize
a Black-Ministry campaign to raise money for a proposed national memorial
to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
|