Martin Luther King Jr. Day

I was hoping we could skip this thread this year. :BangHead: :BangHead: :tonofbricks:

 

:thumbsup: He is also a hero of mine. I have just seen where this thread goes before. And its not pretty.

 

I'm off every other Monday, but have to work this Monday; the forecast, though not close enough yet for day-accuracy, calls for ice and maybe snow on Sunday and Monday. The day doesn't have any attraction for me.

 

My wife and I will attend a prayer breakfast given by Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, as guests of my former parishioner who was one of the fraternity men who came up with the idea of the MLK memorial on the Mall. He received recognition during the recent groundbreaking.

One of the members of the church we now attend was Dr. King's typist when he wrote the Letter from the Birmingham jail. She has a fascinating story to tell about the scraps of paper and the margins of newspaper pages he used to write out, laboriously, that text and send it out to her for typing.

I always think back to the only two times I heard Dr. King in person -- the first when I was a seminarian at SBTS in Louisville, and he preached a chapel service; and the second when I was a campus minister at Berea College and took a group of students to a rally in Frankfort, KY, where he spoke. A most engaging and exciting speaker!

 

I want to say simply he did do some good things. He also did some immoral things. All of us are guilty of sin right? However I personally think he is overrated. I will always wonder what the FBI files will reveal if and when they are released.

 

It's hard to over-rate documented accomplishments that are facts of history.

 

Then will the same be said of Clinton and Bush? Will they get a whole day for themselves? Who else has a whole day dedicated to themselves. Read some of the work of Ralph Abernathy.

 

The FBI files would reveal a witch hunt...a common occurrence during that era.

I've been blessed to get to know one of the officials in charge in 1950's and 1960's Montgomery. He was a racist pig, and hated blacks. He has since come to know the Lord and a few weeks ago sat next to a black gentleman in our church. Praise God for changing lives!

I'm not a big fan of government taking lots of days off, period. They ought to work like I have to. But, I have no problem with our nation paying honor to Dr. King. He did two things that I think cause his work to be even more significant:

1. He accomplished his means through non-violence. Without King's input, the factions of the movement that encouraged more violent resistance would have had more say. God only knows how much worse it could have been.
2. He galvanized significant numbers from "two races." He was not just a "black leader." This hastened the process of equality under the law, IMO.

 

Those that have been revealed show that under Hoover FBI agents illegally bugged his him, his family and broke the law. It has also revealed that they tried to assassinate his character.

Yes, he was immoral. Overrated, not at all. Listen to his "I have a Dream" speech where he talks about not being judged by the color of a person's skin, but by the content of their character.

 

Did not Jesus say we shall know them by their fruits? So, you acknowledge that he was immoral, but then say he is not overrated? His immorality should be a warning sign for Christians to pay close attention to his preaching and message.

He was a good civil-rights leader, but was he a preacher of God's word? I can recall from some of his speeches hailing the 'universal brotherhood of man', a belief that is not Biblical.

- Andy

 

Yes, but you are also immoral. Just nobody is posting about it because you have not the accomplishment that Dr. King has.

 

Dr. King was honored for his civil rights work, not his career as a preacher.

That is the significance of his contribution, IMO.

I quite honestly haven't heard enough of his preaching and don't know enough of his church leadership to know how he was in that arena.

I'm not too impressed with his Montgomery AL church--Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church--but heck, it's been 40 or so years since he's been there, so that may not have a thing to do with MLK.

 

Bush did ...

 

We have more freedom because of the good Dr.

His non-violence and movement for civil rights gave all Americans more insurance against the tyranny of those who want to hijack the majority with its semi-fascism.

God bless Dr. Martin Luther Kings works and may they continue to insure freedom for all...In Jesus name amen.