Megan Mulls It Over

This is Part 2 of my four-part series on aspects of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s philosophy that I find problematic. If you have not done so already, I recommend reading the following posts before this one so that you will have maximum context:

Will a Historically Accurate Jedi Please Stand Up? (published September 2, 2018)
The Right and the Left Need to Rediscover Malcolm X (published September 16, 2018)

This post will focus on Dr. King’s admiration of Mahatma Gandhi, an admiration that I believe was excessive. All of the Dr. King quotes that I use in this post are taken from a sermon that he delivered on Palm Sunday 1959. (FYI – this sermon does not contain all of his quotes on Gandhi, but it illustrates why I feel the way I do about this topic better than any other single document or speech that I have encountered.)

I acknowledge that what I write in this post may sound harsh to some of you. But I hope my readers will understand that the negative feelings I have about this sermon are coming from a place of hurt rather than malice. The era in which we live is one where many of us are begging our pastors for leadership and truth. And so I find it very painful to see a pastor giving his spiritual children a stone instead of bread, particularly a pastor who is so often the subject of unconditional admiration in our society.

I am not disputing that there is much to admire about Dr. King, nor am I questioning his sincerity. It is also far “above my pay grade” to make a judgment about how faithful a Christian he was. I am merely questioning the language that he uses when speaking of Gandhi and non-Christian religions.

I do commend Dr. King for being upfront at the beginning of the sermon about the fact that it is basically going to be a Gandhi praise-fest (emphasis is mine):

“…ordinarily the preacher is expected to preach a sermon on the Lordship or the Kingship of Christ…But I beg of you to indulge me this morning to talk about the life of a man who lived in India. And I think I am justified in doing this because I believe this man, more than anybody else in the modern world, caught the spirit of Jesus Christ and lived it more completely in his life.”

If your pastor starts a sentence with “I think I am justified in doing this,” I would recommend using very careful discernment when deciding how to interpret what follows those words. They sound to me like something that more often calls for a “Pride goeth before a fall, so tread carefully!” rather than a “Preach on, for the spirit of the Lord is upon you!”

Never one to tread carefully, either when he was right or when he was wrong, Dr. King goes on to say (again, emphasis is mine):

“…here was a man who was not a Christian in terms of being a member of the Christian church but who was a Christian. And it is one of the strange ironies of the modern world that the greatest Christian of the twentieth century was not a member of the Christian church.”

I am not opposed to a Christian acknowledging the virtues of a non-Christian. But I think that saying that a non-Christian “was a Christian” and especially “the greatest Christian of the twentieth century” is way over the line, particularly when said by a Christian pastor to his flock. That “greatest Christian” descriptor is one that I wouldn’t even use to describe a canonized saint. And what exactly gives Dr. King the authority to decide who deserves that label?

I believe that a Person of the Trinity can inspire and work through a person of any faith or no faith at all. But Dr. King’s language about the Christian-ness of Gandhi begs a question:

If a non-Christian can be such a great Christian, what reason is there for anyone to recognize Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of the world?

(And yes, Reverend, “anyone” in that question includes your own parishioners.) 

Dr. King decides to wait until the closing prayer of his sermon to drop the biggest bombshell yet (emphasis is mine):

“O God, our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the fact that you have inspired men and women in all nations and in all cultures. We call you different names: some call Thee Allah; some call you Elohim; some call you Jehovah; some call you Brahma; and some call you the Unmoved Mover; some call you the Archetectonic Good. But we know that these are all names for one and the same God…”

I realize that Elohim is a name for the one true God, but I also think including His name in a Christian service might run the risk of conflating Christianity with Judaism (and thus minimizing the need for Jesus). As far as Allah, I would walk out on any (non-Arabic speaking) Christian service where the pastor included this name in a prayer, but I also acknowledge that Islam is monotheistic and has a high regard for Jesus. (Some of my readers are probably thinking, “Yeah, they have a ‘high regard’ for Him, but they don’t understand who He is.” To which I would respond: “Neither do the vast majority of Jews, so please don’t be so quick to write off the Muslims.”)

And now let’s talk about the last three names: how in the world did they end up on there? I’m sure Brahma was included primarily as a hat-tip to the star of the sermon, but is anyone else bothered that Dr. King seems to be implying that monotheism and polytheism are just two sides of the same coin?

As far as the “Unmoved Mover,” it is my understanding that Aristotle’s unmoved mover is essentially like the “watchmaker” of deism. He serves as a sort of “first cause” for the universe and life, “setting it in motion” and then not intervening in human history. I am sure that Dr. King studied Aristotle in much greater depth than I have, so he would have been aware of this. I do not understand how he thinks that a “hands-off” deity is compatible with Christianity. Aristotle was pre-Christian, of course, so we can’t fault him, but what is Dr. King’s excuse?

And what in the world is the “Archetectonic Good”? After a couple of Google searches, I THINK it is something like Plato’s “forms,” but I am in no way certain. I definitely don’t think that my own understanding is a yardstick by which everyone else’s should be measured. Nevertheless, if I don’t find evidence that Dr. King’s audience had degrees in philosophy, I am going to keep wondering if just maybe he was trying to show off his own degrees when he included this one in his list.

Please note that I am not opposed to interreligious dialogue or acknowledging the positive aspects of non-Christian religions. What I am opposed to is a Christian pastor using a Christian pulpit to declare that “All religions are the same, and every god is God.”

Then, in the irony to end all ironies, Dr. King follows that prayer with, no joke, an altar call. His exact words are:

“We open the doors of the church now. Is there one who will accept the Christ this morning just as you are? Who will make that decision as we stand and sing together?”

Hmm…don’t you think that’s a little bigoted, Dr. King? Why aren’t you asking them if they want to accept Brahma this morning? Or the unmoved mover? (Unmoved mover can’t get no love, but he really doesn’t care because he’s unmoved in more ways than one.)

Although I am very concerned about the spiritual impact that this sermon might have had on Dr. King’s audience and posterity, I don’t think it was a total wash. Shortly before he hits bottom with that closing prayer, he throws in the following (emphasis is mine):

“For in a day when Sputniks and Explorers are dashing through outer space and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war.”

The sounds you heard right after that quote were a mic drop from Dr. King in 1959 and me initiating the “slow clap” in the present. (Fun fact: this parallels how I feel about Chelsea Manning’s campaign platform. The “Military Industrial Complex” and “Mass Surveillance” sections are golden nuggets buried under a pile of rubble. It appears that Dr. King and Candidate Comrade Manning shared the problem of sometimes failing to play to their strengths.)

Speaking of comrades, the next installment of this series will focus on my belief that Dr. King “gave away the farm” to LBJ and espoused socialism (or something very close to socialism). I hope that you will stay tuned.

Verso l’alto,
Megan