Yesterday marks the beginning of Black History Month. It is a time when we celebrate the various achievements in this country of those whose recent ancestry were treated as property by the corrupt, deprived the right to vote through underhanded legislation, proclaimed cursed by lineage from bad theology, and at one point prohibited the right to earn an education or even read. Frederick Douglass said it best in his autobiography,
“Of course he forbade her to give me any further instruction, telling her in the first place that to do so was unlawful, as it was also unsafe; “for,” said he, “if you give a n***** an inch he will take a mile. Learning will spoil the best n***** in the world. If he learns to read the Bible it will forever unfit him to be a slave. He should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it. As to himself, learning will do him no good, but a great deal of harm, making him disconsolate and unhappy. If you teach him how to read, he’ll want to know how to write, and this accomplished, he’ll be running away with himself'“ — Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Pg 57.
These sentiments of course were heinous. God, through our prophet Ellen G. White, had this to say about the evils of slavery.
“I saw that the slave master will have to answer for the soul of his slave whom he has kept in ignorance; and the sins of the slave will be visited upon the master” (Early Writings. Pg 276).
This of course was brought to a necessary end by Abraham Lincoln via both the Civil war and the emancipation proclamation. Lincoln himself understood the inherent value resident in all of humanity regardless of color, and perceived the divine displeasure for such a long standing breach in national and Christian principle when he penned these words:
“Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.” — Second Inaugural Address, 1865
Since that time, we have reached several markers of success and accomplishment that prove our equality with all that are made in the image of God. There is now no field of study or profession requiring meaningful erudition where we are not at some level represented. For what it’s worth, we have at all levels of our governmental system, had someone there. To date, we have had a black president, a black Vice President, a black Supreme Court Justice, black Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Head of the DOJ, Surgeon General, Senator, Congressmen, Mayor, and Circuit court Judge, District Attorney, and the list goes on.
All of this is wonderful and should be celebrated, if for nothing else than to give God glory for what He has wrought in such a relatively short time. Nevertheless, As a Seventh-Day Adventist Christian I am becoming more and more concerned that the celebration has transitioned from appreciation of what God has done, to veneration of the people God used to bring about progress. Today, I would like to have a meaningful discussion, from a Christian perspective, about said veneration.
Nehushtan
We are told in the Exodus narrative that God allowed fiery serpents to plague the children of Israel because of their continual murmuring and uprising against Moses and Himself (Numbers 21:4-9).
But as we read further in Scripture we discover that what was meant for good was being used for evil. What was used by God to bring forth deliverance is worshiped as God and bringing about degradation. So much so that God used Hezekiah to remove this and other idolatry from the midst of God’s people (2 Kings 18:1-4). And now, though some millennia removed from both stories, we are faced with the same situation. Only this time, the object receiving undue veneration is not a molten image, but a man. A man with streets named after himself all over the country. A man whose birthday is immortalized in the holiday calendar. A man so gifted in oratory ability, that his speech before the Washington monument is listed by Time Magazine as among the 10 greatest speeches of all time. That man of course is Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King’s Theology
For quite some time now,(really around the time that BLM rose to prominence) I had been hearing various rumblings that these sentiments being voiced in the streets, taught in the schools and reinforced by the media were, in part at least, nothing more than the metathesis of Dr. King's philosophy. Needless to say, I was more than a little incredulous. How could someone who stated (on camera!) that they wanted their people to be judged by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin be the author of such wildly anti-Christian rhetoric?
So naturally, I, having just the right mixture of curiosity and suspicion, went to my trusty Tor browser. I surmised that if any of this was true, surely it was hidden away by the government and such evidence would only be found on the dark web. But to my shock, not only was I able to get there with a simple Google search, the information I was looking for was a matter of public record. In Stanford University archives, I was able to find all of Dr. King’s written works. But after some investigation, the shock was replaced by horror and anger.
The allegations I was hearing were not only legitimate but overshadowed by evidence for an even broader indictment. Dr. King, according to his own words, was not a Christian.
One of the major issues that we are constantly in battle against in the church is fanaticism. And among the most prevalent are unbiblical views of the God-Head. Today there is contention about the Holy Spirit. But in the days of the Apostles it was about Christ. Docetists were early on teaching that Christ didn’t come in full humanity like ours. This explains the apostle John's words:
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:1-3).
Naturally, it is also antichrist in spirit to claim that Jesus was anything but God. The same apostle starts out his Gospel this way:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:1-3).
So for a moment, imagine what goes through my head when reading Dr. King’s words penned while at Crozier theological SEMINARY,
“The orthodox attempt to explain the divinity of Jesus in terms of an inherent metaphysical substance within him seems to me quite inadequate. 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 his failures. So that the orthodox view of the divinity of Christ is in my mind quite readily denied”—Martin Luther King Jr. The Humanity and Divinity of Jesus.
Dr. King, in no uncertain terms, just denied the divinity of Christ. This is seriously problematic. In every Bible based Christian denomination there is no question that Jesus is God. And any intimation or declaration to the contrary amounts to grounds for removal from the Church. The reasons being are explained above by John. How can we name our buildings, street corners, and even our children after a man who, again, rejected the divinity of Christ, and at the same time call ourselves Christians?
The Ends Justify the Means
Now I already know many of you reading this will say that since God used this man so greatly to the benefit of black progress, surely we can forgive and forget. Let me be clear. We can celebrate the progress and not venerate the person. It is that very “ends justifies the means” attitude that was behind “two weeks to slow the spread” and vaccine mandates because “people are dying”.
The Bible says “Divers weights are an abomination unto the LORD; and a false balance is not good” (Proverbs 20:23). God will judge us if we can stand with such an erect back and preach against the pagan origins of Christmas, Easter, Sunday worship and the MASS, and yet justify this man who, were he someone else, would be disfellowshipped from the church for such statements. And all because his movement benefited us.
Moving Forward
As Christians, we believe that the kingdom which we are subjects of, is not of this world. And that we are looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. While we thank God for all of the progress and opportunities that have been afforded us in these last days, we must remember that our chief allegiance is to God and his word, rather than any man or any culture for that matter. People and culture are not evil in so much that when there is an intersection between them and God’s Word we are sure to choose the latter.
Feel free to enjoy Black History Month in so much that you can glorify God while doing so. But while you do be sure to ask yourself this Question:
Is Christ your King? Or is King your Christ?
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David Donaldson