Martin Luther King - MKL

[Neto]

I cannot now recall how I ended up seeing this article, because I do not normally ever look at the periodical Christianity Today, but this showed up this afternoon, SOMEWHERE where I saw it. I gather that MLK would have been 95 years old on last Friday.

The article title: The Half-Truths We’ve Told About MLK

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/20 ... histo.html

I saw some probing questions and thoughts in this article, such as the way in which first the "Liberals", then the "Conservatives" "appropriated" him to support their causes.

It is also interesting to see the 'Evangelical' perspective on some of the issues King was vocal about - especially how positions that they (Evangelicals) consider 'liberal' are considered 'conservative' by anabaptists.

(If the article is behind a pay-wall, I copied it into a Word doc. I do not subscribe to CT, and was blocked from reading a second full article after first opening this one. That's why I think it might be behind a pay-wall, and why I copied all of it off before closing that browser page.)

[joshuabgood]

I cannot now recall how I ended up seeing this article, because I do not normally ever look at the periodical Christianity Today, but this showed up this afternoon, SOMEWHERE where I saw it. I gather that MLK would have been 95 years old on last Friday.

The article title: The Half-Truths We’ve Told About MLK

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/20 ... histo.html

I saw some probing questions and thoughts in this article, such as the way in which first the "Liberals", then the "Conservatives" "appropriated" him to support their causes.

It is also interesting to see the 'Evangelical' perspective on some of the issues King was vocal about - especially how positions that they (Evangelicals) consider 'liberal' are considered 'conservative' by anabaptists.

(If the article is behind a pay-wall, I copied it into a Word doc. I do not subscribe to CT, and was blocked from reading a second full article after first opening this one. That's why I think it might be behind a pay-wall, and why I copied all of it off before closing that browser page.)

Thoughtful article

[Ken]

I dunno.

His basic argument is that conservative White evangelicals different with King on more than just race. They differed with him on theology and politics as well. Which seems to be to be blindingly obvious. King wasn't just some single-issue civil rights leader. He was a progressive political leader as well.

For example, when he was assassinated in Memphis, he was actually there in support of a sanitation workers strike not some purist civil rights issue. He was supporting strikers (largely but not entirely Black) who were striking for better wages and working conditions in the wake of two sanitation workers being crushed to death by a malfunctioning garbage truck. And at that time working conditions and wages were so bad that the families of many sanitation workers were relying on welfare and food stamps to feed their families. In other words, standard-issue social justice issues of the sort that southern white conservatives (evangelical or not) were reflexively opposed to.

I think the proper way to view MLK is to imagine the course of history without him. Had he not emerged as the leader who kept the civil rights movement together and on a peaceful path of nonresistance. There were plenty of younger (and older) Black leaders who were advocating for far more aggressive and violent methods of resistance to white segregationist rule. People like Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, etc. Vast numbers of them were WW2, Korea, and later Vietnam vets who most definitely knew their way around military weaponry and tactics.

One only needs to look at the middle east and Palestine to imagine the course that history might have taken without MLK. Or conversely, imagine the course that peace in the middle east might have taken had the Palestinians had a leader like MLK preaching nonviolence instead of Arafat during the first decades of that conflict.

[barnhart]

I have differences with the article but affirm the basic thesis that white conservative evangelicals like him now that he can't speak back and his message is more easily manipulated.

I question the assumption that Evangelicalism and religious Liberalism do not overlap. The writer says that King was not an evangelical because did not accept the entire sin problem is individual. This is a rather tight reading of Evangelicalism and eliminates anyone who believes sin is individual in nature but also has a collective or structural component as the prophets frequently affirm.

In the end my analysis of King does not fall in any of the three sited categories. I see him as a founding father of the nation but not as a pastor, his faith was not literal or fundamental enough for me to accept as a pastoral leader.

[Ken]

It does seem rather myopic to criticize MLK for not being a a White evangelical conservative. He was not any of those things.

But then neither were a majority of Americans at that time either. In the 1950s and 1960s there were far more mainstream Protestants and Catholics than there were white conservative evangelicals. And I would argue that MLK did a much better job of reaching a wide audience of Christians from all walks of life and denominations than did any southern White conservative evangelical minister.

[Neto]

I think that the real "What If" would be What if he was not shot & killed that day. History WITH MLK. I would guess that there would not be a Martin Luther King day tomorrow. People like martyrs more than living human beings. Not that he might not have achieved great things, but that the exaggerated after-death achievements attributed to him are out-sized for any one person. I think that more was done in his name than he could have done. Mostly simply because he was a human being, and instead his image and message has been manipulated or changed to fit the perceived needs of each period of time since his death, and that this has been done by both "liberals" and 'Conservatives" should come as no surprise. I hope this doesn't sound overly cynical. I just mean it as a representation of the way public figures and historical events are later "shaped" to fit the "need of the times".

[RZehr]

Such as George Floyd.

[Ken]

I think that the real "What If" would be What if he was not shot & killed that day. History WITH MLK. I would guess that there would not be a Martin Luther King day tomorrow. People like martyrs more than living human beings. Not that he might not have achieved great things, but that the exaggerated after-death achievements attributed to him are out-sized for any one person. I think that more was done in his name than he could have done. Mostly simply because he was a human being, and instead his image and message has been manipulated or changed to fit the perceived needs of each period of time since his death, and that this has been done by both "liberals" and 'Conservatives" should come as no surprise. I hope this doesn't sound overly cynical. I just mean it as a representation of the way public figures and historical events are later "shaped" to fit the "need of the times".

Very likely true. We like our martyrs. Both alternative histories are instructive.

One can easily say the same thing about JFK as well. Had he served out a normal 2-term presidency from 1960 - 1968 I doubt his legacy would be anywhere near as rosy. Those were turbulent times. And those who argue that JFK wouldn't have gotten us mired in Vietnam are very likely wrong. He was a cold warrior like most of the rest of his generation.

[steve-in-kville]

One can easily say the same thing about JFK as well. Had he served out a normal 2-term presidency from 1960 - 1968 I doubt his legacy would be anywhere near as rosy. Those were turbulent times. And those who argue that JFK wouldn't have gotten us mired in Vietnam are very likely wrong. He was a cold warrior like most of the rest of his generation.

Don't even get me started on JFK. I've read so many books and watched numerous docs on the Kennedy family.... its a wonder I'm not more of a conspiracy theorist than I am

[Grace]

Such as George Floyd.

George Floyd was no martyr. Watch the documentary ‘The Fall of Minneapolis’.

But off topic, so I won’t say more