Martin Luther King, Jr. is widely hailed as a hero today…

An icon.

Out of 365 days in the year, he even has an entire day devoted to him as a National Holiday.

So he’s a big deal of course.

And each year, especially at church, much is made of how he was not only a social rights justice warrior but a Christian Pastor!

The “Reverend” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I’d never really thought too much more about it, but a reader sent me a video recently claiming that King did not believe in the divinity of Jesus or the Resurrection from the dead. He also did not believe in the Virgin birth or in a literal hell.

Wow….those are some wild claims!

But because this is a reader who I know and trust, I decided to research it myself…..

And what I found out is a bit shocking to say the least.

There are some conflicting reports supporting both sides, so I will show you everything I found.

First, here is the video I was sent:

But I wanted to research those claims for myself — were they really true?

Short answer?

As best I can tell, mostly yes.

As I said, very disturbing.

I started with ChatGPT to see what it would tell me.

First I got this:

King’s teachings and speeches often reflected themes from these Gospels, such as love, justice, and equality. He frequently drew upon the teachings of Jesus, particularly the Sermon on the Mount (found in the Gospel of Matthew), which includes teachings on nonviolence, love for one’s enemies, and the pursuit of justice. These principles deeply influenced his approach to the Civil Rights Movement.

Sorry folks, but the major “theme” of the Bible is Jesus Christ, and his death and resurrectino.

This is a good time to remind everyone what 1 Corinthians‬ ‭15:12‭-‬16‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ says:

[12] Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? [13] But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. [14] And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. [15] Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. [16] For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen.

Without Jesus’ death and resurrection the rest is irrelevant!

We don’t follow just a “good moral teacher”.

He’s either God and he either rose from the dead, the first of many, or he isn’t.

So reflecting on themes of “love, justice and equality” is great, but it is NOT preaching the Gospel.

But that’s only where we start.

Let’s keep going…

It appears he was greatly influenced by his time at Crozer Theological Seminary, which is known for teaching a “liberal Christian theology” — which I would describe as NOT Christianity at all.

Sorry folks, Jesus wasn’t just metaphorical — he was (and is) 100% real.

Fully God, Fully Human.

Not just a metaphorical ideal….

Not just a guy who promoted themes of love, equality and justice.

Yes, he did all of those things, but it’s his death and resurrection that are the game-changers and set him apart from other “good teachers” who have walked this Earth.

About King’s time at Crozer and his development of a “liberal Christian theology”:

Martin Luther King Jr.’s beliefs about the resurrection of Jesus Christ are a subject of some debate, largely due to the evolution of his views over time and the complexity of his theological perspective. King was deeply influenced by both traditional Christian teachings and liberal Christian theology.

During his time at Crozer Theological Seminary and later at Boston University, King studied under professors who introduced him to liberal Christian theology, which often interprets the Bible in a more metaphorical and less literal way. In some of his academic writings, King appeared to question or reinterpret certain traditional Christian doctrines, including the physical resurrection of Jesus.

But even all of that doesn’t really tell us what we want to know.

I wanted to dig into what King said and wrote himself, directly.

We need to go to the source!

So I started by trying to find speeches/sermons of King preaching about Jesus.

Spoiler alert: there aren’t many.  And the ones you can find only give passing mentions.

I’ll end this article with one such example, which actually presents the counter-argument that King DID preach and agree with the Divinity of Jesus Christ, but more on that in a minute.

I asked ChatGPT to give me specific examples of where King wrote or spoke about Jesus Christ and this is all it could give me (my Editor’s Notes added below in red):

1. “Eulogy for the Martyred Children” (1963): In this eulogy for the four girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, King spoke of the redemptive power of unmerited suffering, a theme closely related to the Christian narrative of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.  Sorry folks, the “Redemptive Power” is in Jesus Christ, not in a general “unmerited suffering”.  Good message, but bad theology.
2. “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” (1968): In what would be his final speech, King spoke metaphorically of having seen the “Promised Land,” a reference that echoes the resurrection theme of triumph over death and the hope of a better future, similar to the Christian belief in eternal life through Christ. Sorry again, but simply referencing the Promised Land does not echo the Ressurection of Jesus Christ.  That’s a huge stretch.
3. Sermons at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and Ebenezer Baptist Church: As a pastor, King frequently delivered sermons that referenced the life and teachings of Jesus. While the primary focus was often on Jesus’ teachings about justice, love, and nonviolence, the context of these sermons was grounded in the broader Christian narrative that includes the resurrection. I did find one of these videos that I’ll share down below.
4. “Our God is Marching On” (1965): In this speech, also known as the “How Long, Not Long” speech, King expressed a deep faith in the moral arc of the universe bending towards justice, a belief influenced by the Christian narrative of resurrection as a victory over injustice and death.  “Moral arc of the Universe” sounds pretty new-age to me.

Then we also have this summary:

Martin Luther King Jr.’s questioning of the divinity of Jesus Christ is primarily found in his academic writings from his time as a student at Crozer Theological Seminary and later at Boston University. These writings reflect King’s engagement with liberal Christian theology and the intellectual exploration typical of a theological education.

1. Time at Crozer Theological Seminary (1948-1951): While at Crozer, King was exposed to liberal Christian theology, which often embraces a more critical and historical approach to the Bible and Christian doctrines. He studied under professors who introduced him to various theological perspectives, including the questioning of literal interpretations of biblical events and miracles.
2. Doctoral Studies at Boston University (1951-1955): King’s doctoral work at Boston University further deepened his engagement with theological scholarship. Here, he encountered the works of theologians like Friedrich Schleiermacher, Albrecht Ritschl, and Walter Rauschenbusch, who influenced his thinking.
3. Specific Writings:
   • In his papers and essays during these years, King critically analyzed traditional Christian doctrines, including the divinity of Jesus. He explored the historical Jesus, separating the mythological elements from the historical ones.
   • One of King’s papers, “The Humanity and Divinity of Jesus,” written at Crozer, illustrates this phase of his theological development. In this essay, King grapples with various interpretations of Jesus’ nature, discussing the historical and theological perspectives that question the traditional view of Jesus as divine.
4. Evolution of Views: It’s important to note that these writings represent King’s academic and theological explorations as a student. They may not fully represent his later beliefs as a minister and civil rights leader. In his public ministry, King often spoke of Jesus in terms consistent with traditional Christian views.
5. Access to Writings: These writings are part of the academic record and can be accessed for study. They are often referenced in scholarly works on King’s theological development and are housed in archives, such as the Martin Luther King Jr. Archive at Boston University or the King Center.

But we still have to go deeper.

It appears that most of the claims that King denied the Divinity of Jesus Christ come from his writings in Seminary, so I went to those sources.

Let’s start with a paper he wrote titled “The Humanity and Divinity of Jesus”.

From Standford University, here is what King himself wrote in 1949/1950 and why many are skeptical of his belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ:

The orthodox attempt to explain the divinity of Jesus in terms of an inherent metaphysical substance within him seems to me quite inadaquate. To say that the Christ, whose example of living we are bid to follow, is divine in an ontological sense is actually harmful and detrimental. To invest this Christ with such supernatural qualities makes the rejoinder: “Oh, well, he had a better chance for that kind of life than we can possible have.” In other words, one could easily use this as a means to hide behind behind his failures. So that the orthodox view of the divinity of Christ is in my mind quite readily denied. The true significance of the divinity of Christ lies in the fact that his achievement is prophetic and promissory for every other true son of man who is willing to submit his will to the will and spirit og God. Christ was to be only the prototype of one among many brothers.

The appearance of such a person, more divine and more human than any other, and standing in closest unity at once with God and man, is the most significant and hopeful event in human history. This divine quality or this unity with God was not something thrust upon Jesus from above, but it was a definite achievement through the process of moral struggle and self-abnegation.10

So according to King, Jesus was not divine by nature but became that way by “moral struggle and self-agnegation.”

Also from that same paper King writes:

Where then can we in the liberal tradition find the divine dimension in Jesus? We may find the divinity of Christ not in his substantial unity with God, but in his filial consciousness and in his unique dependence upon God. It was his felling of absolute dependence on God, as Schleiermaker would say, that made him divine. Yes it was the warmnest of his devotion to God and the intimatcy of his trust in God that accounts for his being the supreme revelation of God.

So King appears to say Jesus did not start of Divine but almost earned “Divinity” by the way he lived.

There is a general understanding that Jesus laid down and set aside his divine powers while here on Earth to show how to live in full submission to God as a humanbeing.

That’s straight Bible right out of Philippians 2:6-7 speaking of Jesus:

“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

But King takes it too far by rejecting the very first part of that verse by not recognizing Jesus was always Divine from the beginning.

King’s theology prefers a Jesus to earned his way to Divinity through suffering and submission, themes that fit well with King’s social justice warrior messages.

From Discerning History, here is more research into King’s writings and beliefs:

Martin Luther King Jr’s theology was very liberal. In papers he wrote during his time at Crozer Theological Seminary he made his views clear. He said that the evidence for the Virgin Birth “is too shallow to convince any objective thinker.” He stripped the doctrines of the divine sonship of Christ, the virgin birth and bodily resurrection of all literal meaning, saying, “we [could] argue with all degrees of logic that these doctrines are historically and [philosophically] untenable.” In another paper he wrote:

[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 oppose[d] to theological adaption to social and cultural change. … Amid change all around he is willing to preserve certain ancient ideas even though they are contrary to science.

He did not believe these doctrines even though the Bible taught them. Instead he rejected them as superstition because they did not fit his notions of modern science. The doctrines he was rejecting are fundamental to Biblical Christianity.

After graduating from college, we do not see a radical change in King’s theology, or a repudiation of his former unorthodox views. Although he did not explicitly preach these liberal beliefs, his messages were still consistent with them. His message would fall under the banner of black liberation theology – he preached a form of Christianity that was reworked to apply to physical freedom of the slaves. The central theme of his Christianity was not Jesus Christ, the son of God coming to earth, it was the deliverance of the Israel from their slavery in Egypt. In his famous “mountaintop” speech, when he was listing the seminal events of history, he mentioned the Exodus, not Christ’s death and resurrection.

Liberation theology is a secularization of Christianity, using the Bible as a framework to speak to people’s longing for freedom. It is an abandonment of the message of the Bible. Instead of applying the full breath of scriptural to the hearers, it constructs a new theology to appeal to your worldly needs. This fits perfect with King’s denial of fundamental beliefs in the supernatural events scripture records. He didn’t need to believe them if he was just repurposing a few events from scripture to construct his own story of the world.

Then there is the fruit of your life.

The Bible tells us we will know people by what kind of fruit they produce.

On the one hand, King drove radical change for the better in this Country, bringing equality and justice drastically forward.

But also from Discerning History, we have this:

There is substantial evidence that Martin Luther King Jr.’s private life and character was unworthy of a minister of the Gospel, or even of a Christian. The FBI monitored him for many years, wrongly and unconstitutionally using their surveillance powers to get damaging information to discredit him for political purposes. This monitoring included following him on his travels around the country and placing recording devices in his hotel rooms. The FBI claimed to have evidence, both anecdotal and on audio recording of King committing adulteries on many occasions. They even went to the point of sending him an anonymous letter threatening him with the release of this information and encouraging him to commit suicide. The FBI records on King will remain sealed until at least 2027.

We do not have to take the word of the FBI to believe that MLK was not a man who lived a righteous life. Dr. Ralph Abernathy, a close friend of King’s, admitted as much in his book, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down. He wrote that even the night before his assassination, King had committed adultery with multiple women. The consensus among historians is that Martin Luther King Jr. was repeatedly unfaithful to his wife.

Now let me wrap this up by presenting some evidence for the other side of the argument — that King did in fact not only believe in the saving power of Jesus Christ and his divinity but also preached it.

From one of his more famous sermons from 1957 titled “Questions That Easter Answers, Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church” we get this from King:

Then comes Easter to answer the question. Easter comes out ringing in terms that we all hear if we seek to hear it, that the soul of man is immortal. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ we have fit testimony that this earthly life is not the end, that death is just something of a turn in the road, that life moves down a continual moving river, and that death is just a little turn in the river, that this earthly life is merely an embryonic prelude to a new awakening, that death is not a period which ends this great sentence of life but a comma that punctuates it to more loftier significance. That is what it says. That is the meaning of Easter. That is the question that Easter answers—that death is not the end. (Amen)

That’s pretty solid.

So how do we piece all of this together?

Here’s what I see, and this is just the opinion of a guy looking at all of this in hindsight and doing the best I can with the facts available, but I see a man who was heavily influenced in seminary by “liberal theology” which I would argue is not Christianity at all.

I see him grappling with these issues in Seminary and perhaps working through them.

I certainly see much evidence

I see evidence that as he grew in his career after Seminary, perhaps he shifted back to more traditional theology as he grew older.

Despite a lot of time searching, I was not able to find many times in which King directly preached about Jesus and his Resurrection.  I find passing references to him and usually only in the context of using Jesus as a bridge to spend most of his time speaking about race and social justice.

Bottom line, here’s what I see….I see a man whose primary interest in life was in race and social justice and equality.  It was through those lenses that he saw the entire world.  I see him mostly using Jesus and the “themes of Jesus” to push those causes.

In my estimation, that’s the reverse of what we are to do.  We are to be grounded and rooted in Jesus Christ and then through that foundation to go out and do everything else we are called to do.

A “Social Justice Gospel” is not “THE Gospel”.

Social justice and equality are worthy causes and King is rightly remembered as a hero of that movement, I just wonder how much more he could have done with Jesus truly at the center and foundation rather than being a tool used only to drive those causes forward.

RELATED:

DISRESPECTFUL: The New MLK “Embrace” Statue Dishonors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Oh my…how disrespectful!

Look, this is one of those articles I’m not going to tell you what I think, I’m just going to show you what a lot of other people think and show you pictures and video for yourself and let YOU decide.

Let’s start off with the background.

A giant bronze statue was commissioned in Boston to honor the late, great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nice, right?

Unfortunately, sometimes things sound better on paper than they do when finished.

The idea for the statue was to honor this famous photo:

The #MLK Embrace statue in Boston was inspired by this famous photo.

Did it miss the mark? pic.twitter.com/cb2bg5ohhV

— DailyNoah.com (@DailyNoahNews) January 14, 2023

https://twitter.com/Nikki_T/status/1614083344433561601

Unfortunately, they decided to cut off the heads and the result is, well, you decide…

#MLK Embrace Statue unveiled in Boston…

Why does it look like a giant _____? pic.twitter.com/RCOd4nElch

— DailyNoah.com (@DailyNoahNews) January 14, 2023

When it’s being described as “veiny” that’s when I think you’ve got some problems:

New "Embrace" MLK statue in Boston. The rear view looks kinda veiny. pic.twitter.com/IsXSFcWP8w

— Enola Emanon (@EnolaEmanon) January 12, 2023

🍆

Now, it could just be a bad angle, so let’s watch the full video:

Video of the Embrace MLK statue in Boston…

Is there any angle where this does not look pornographic? pic.twitter.com/Xn3wDwxR3x

— DailyNoah.com (@DailyNoahNews) January 14, 2023

Yikes, not much better….

I feel like we definitely need to tune in and get a “not White person” opinion here for full and balanced reporting:

Given that I am not White, I am safe from ANY charges of racism for saying the MLK embrace statue is aesthetically unpleasant. The famous photo should have been a FULL statue of the couple and their embrace. What a huge swing and miss in honoring the Dr & Mrs King. SAD! #bospoli pic.twitter.com/w8yqSjOfqs

— Rasheed N. Walters (@rasheednwalters) January 13, 2023

This is probably the most favorable angle:

“The Embrace” statue on the Boston Common. A memorial to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King. pic.twitter.com/xYYBhzhCvR

— Malcolm Johnson NBC10 Boston (@MalNBCBoston) January 14, 2023

Oh my:

This is the worst piece of public art I have ever seen.
Search "The Embrace" statue and see the various angles of this headless tribute to MLK Jr. & Coretta Scott King. It's .. so bad. https://t.co/D6OWCVbfo2

— Amazing Polly Isn't Here to Compromise (@FringeViews) January 14, 2023

Is it pornographic?

Opinions seem to vary depending on the angle you look at.

It’s either a giant rooster or a person’s head between two legs.

Either way, I think the quote from above was “aesthetically unpleasant”:

What is this?The EMBRACE? Why not a statue of MLK Jr. and Coretta standing? Does this look pornographic to anyone else? #Boston Did you approve this? #statues #art https://t.co/VZIF1LO8Gl

— Deb *the Tailor* (@DeborahTaylor01) January 14, 2023