John MacArthur, Christianity Today and MLK: Was Martin Luther King Jr. a Christian?

Justin Peters

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Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Justin Peters. I hope that this finds you and your family doing well today.

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I want to thank you so much for joining me. Martin Luther King Jr. All of us should be very grateful for the needed and overdue societal changes that God in his providence used

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Martin Luther King Jr. to help bring about and enact in this country, the United States of America.

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But was he a Christian? He was a preacher, but was he truly a

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Christian? So a few weeks ago, John MacArthur was doing a live Q &A session at his church,

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Grace Community Church, and a question was asked to him about T4G and the

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Gospel Coalition. And John MacArthur answered that question, and he talked about, he kind of lamented the fact that TGC hosted the

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MLK50 conference back in 2018, which lauded Martin Luther King Jr.

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as a Christian, a true believer. But John MacArthur said that MLK Jr.

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was not a Christian at all, and that caused quite a firestorm on social media.

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Articles were written rebuking John MacArthur for that. And I want us to look at one of the more prominent articles that was written by a man named

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Justin Giboney at Christianity Today. And so we're going to look at the article, but we're also going to look at Martin Luther King Jr.

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We're going to look at his theology, his beliefs, and we're also going to talk about some of the personal integrity and character issues related to Martin Luther King Jr.

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Now, to help me in this discussion, I have employed the aid of two good friends of mine,

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Virgil Walker and Daryl Harrison, both of whom have done enormous amounts of research into Martin Luther King Jr.

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And so they are going to help us in this discussion. So without any further delay, here's my interview with Virgil Walker and Daryl Harrison as we talk about Martin Luther King Jr.

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And consider the question, was he a Christian? Well, Daryl, Virgil, brothers, good to see y 'all.

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It is a joy to have you on my YouTube channel. And folks, Daryl and Virgil and I have been friends for the last number of years.

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We've spoken at a number of the same conferences together and I've come to really treasure and value their friendship and very much like minded and brothers from another mother, as they would say.

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So, brothers, welcome to my channel. Thank you all so much for coming on. Thanks for having us, man.

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Justin, thanks, man. Glad to be with you. Yeah, my honor, my honor. So, brothers, tell us, just give us a brief little bio sketch of each of you and like who you are, what your titles are, what you do, and maybe even talk about the

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Just Thinking podcast, anything like that. So I guess we'll go in alphabetical order.

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Daryl, you first. Yeah, so, Justin, first of all, man, thanks for having us on. We love you, man.

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We love you. Just want to say that to everybody who's watching how much we love you, man, your work for on behalf of Christ and his kingdom.

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So thank you, brother, for having us on again. So, yeah, Daryl Harrison, co -host of the

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Just Thinking podcast, along with my partner in crime here, Virgil Walker. So current role right now on the pastoral staff at Redeemer Bible Church here in Gilbert, Arizona.

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So been on pastoral staff here since January of twenty twenty four. So about three months prior to that, spent the previous five years on staff at Grace to You, which is the media ministry of Dr.

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John MacArthur. Just want to say hello to all my friends and my dear friends back in Southern California at Grace Church and at Grace to You.

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So I'm originally from Atlanta, which is where Burge is based out of now, Metro Atlanta. So originally from Atlanta, married my wife,

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Melissa. We have three adult children, Yasmin, Colin and Naomi. They all reside back in Georgia, which is where all of our family is.

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And yeah, that's about it. I'll I'll turn it over to Virgil. Glad to be with you,

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Justin. It's a joy as always, man. I am Virgil Walker. Again, half a half of the dynamic duo of the

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Just Thinking podcast. I am the vice president of ministry relations here at G3 Ministries.

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I provide executive oversight for all of our conferences, workshops, overseas tours and the like.

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And I get to get the opportunity to engage in ministry relationships, partnerships and donor relations.

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And so I love what I get to do here. It's a joy to do that. I'm married to Miss Tomika Walker, and she's she's that captures a smile on Daryl's face because like most who have had a chance to engage my dear bride, you definitely experienced

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Tomika. She's an experience. She's a joy to be around. And those who know those who know her know exactly, exactly what

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I mean. I've got we got three kiddos. Two of them are back in Omaha, Nebraska. In fact, today, actually,

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Justin, as we're recording this on March the 12th is actually my daughter's birthday.

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And so excited for her. She just turned 25. She's there in Omaha with my first born son,

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Princeton, and then a son who came with us here to on the trek from Omaha to this new role here at G3 here in Douglasville, Georgia.

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His name is Price, and he's still still with us there. Other than that, man, I do do a lot of things, not the least of which is the podcast, a lot of writing.

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Daryl and I've written a lot on the on the topic I know you're wanting to cover. And so we're excited to be with you.

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Thank you so much, brothers. Thank you. It is a joy to have you. So, all right, well, let's get down to brass tacks here.

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So what started all of this, the genesis of this video a few weeks ago, as of this recording,

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John MacArthur was doing a Q &A session, live Q &A session at his church on a Sunday evening.

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And the question was asked him kind of dealing with T4G and the

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Gospel Coalition. That was the broader context here that MacArthur was engaging.

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So I want to play that clip right now for people to hear that. So but within that context, he also mentioned something about MLK, Martin Luther King Jr.

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So let's listen to this, watch this clip here, and we'll come back on the other side. Yeah, so there are some major organizations that have been around for the last at least 10 years.

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One was the Gospel Coalition, started out with noble intent to bring different people together, leaders, pastors, theologians around the gospel.

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It was very much like T4G, Together for the Gospel, that had that conference.

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We had as many as 10 ,000 people. I was a part of that every year at these huge conventions, and it was

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Together for the Gospel. But both of those organizations, well,

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T4G is basically non -existent. They bought into the deceptiveness of the woke movement and the racial baiting that was going on a couple of years ago, and it literally put them out of existence.

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I was thinking the other day how interesting it was that the last panel discussion that I was on at a

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T4G event was to honor R .C. Sproul, who had died, and I spoke at his funeral.

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This was, I think, 2017 or 2018. So the

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T4G guys wanted to honor him with a panel, and we spent an hour and 15 minutes.

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And it was just beautiful tributes to R .C. from all of us who knew him so very, very well.

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And the strange irony was a year later, they did the same thing for Martin Luther King, who was not a

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Christian at all, whose life was immoral. I'm not saying he didn't do some social good, and I've always been glad that he was a pacifist or he could have started a real revolution.

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But you don't honor a non -believer who misrepresented everything about Christ and the gospel in an organization alongside honoring somebody like R .C.

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Sproul. OK, brother, so we just heard John answering that question.

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Again, the broader context, he was talking more about T4G and the gospel coalition than he was MLK. But the brief little comment there about MLK, when he said that MLK Jr.,

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Martin Luther King Jr., was not a Christian at all, whose life was immoral, that sparked a rather furious backlash and article from Christianity Today, which is led by, of course,

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Russell Moore. But this particular article was written by a man named Justin Giboney, and Justin Giboney is the head of the

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AND campaign. But let me read to you a quotation from this article and I'll get y 'all to respond.

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So Justin Giboney writes, MacArthur cast these condemnations casually with an apparent air of self -righteousness that suggests his theological expertise is paired with an infantile understanding of neighborly love.

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And just dripping with condescension here. But he says,

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Deep knowledge of systematic theology, unfortunately, can exist alongside a desperate need for remedial instruction on the greatest commandments and a failure to, quote, distinguish good from evil, including

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King's good work of peace and justice informed by scripture and motivated by the gospel. I spoke at MLK 50, and I don't recall seeing any speakers who weren't unambiguously orthodox.

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MacArthur's accusations aren't only too lightly made, they are plainly slanderous.

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So, guys, so Justin Giboney accuses John MacArthur of slander, and I might add that slander is a very serious sin listed in Romans 1, which marks the lives of unbelievers.

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So this is a pretty serious accusation. Is John MacArthur guilty of slander, as Justin Giboney asserts?

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If you want to kick us off. Yeah, I'll start by saying the short answer first and just say no, absolutely not.

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I think MacArthur's position is informed not by some infantile idea, as Justin Giboney asserts, but on the basis of MLK's own writings, what

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Martin Luther King, Jr. said himself, based upon his own admissions, the fact that he did not believe in the deity of Christ, that's documented, that he did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ, that's documented.

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He did not believe in the virgin birth, that's documented. He did not believe in hell, that's documented.

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All of those are documented, not based upon some innuendo, some idea, some novice trite thought process or some lack of desire to affirm

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King in some way. Those are King's words that anyone can read for themselves.

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I've written about it and added links so that people can see what King actually said about these things.

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And so slander by no means, Giboney may have said he's an error, but to lay the charge of slander is absolutely beyond the pale.

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Furthermore, if you go back to what Giboney asserts, I don't know who's editing

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Christianity today, but let's just start with the fact that anytime you can get away, even in an opinion piece by using words like an infantile understanding,

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I think of all the things that you would say about MacArthur, the last thing that you would ever say about him is that he had an infantile understanding of the subject matter that he would engage in from the pulpit.

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You may disagree with that, but the fact that an editor allowed that kind of language into the piece speaks volumes about the agenda that is there, not only with Giboney, but also with Christianity today.

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I'll finally land the plane here and simply say that Giboney says that the need for remedial instruction on the greatest commandment and a failure to distinguish good from evil, including

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King's good work of peace and justice informed by the Scriptures and motivated by the

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Gospel, I think perhaps Giboney's ears were clogged at the point at which if he would have paid attention, even in the short clip,

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I did hear MacArthur confirm or affirm that there were some great civil rights things that King did, and he attributed those good things to him, but also laid the charge on the basis of King's own theology that he was not a

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Christian. And so that whole section, I mean, and that's just one section. I mean, we could go line by line through this piece and absolutely shred it to pieces.

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At the end of the day, his own language kind of leaves, lets us know that he has an agenda when you write infantile understanding, when you talk about someone who needs remedial instruction, of all the things that you might say about MacArthur, those two things would not be a part of any sentence or paragraph that you would write related to him.

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Right. I mean, it's like Justin Giboney just couldn't even veil the disdain that he has for John MacArthur, which

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I found absolutely appalling. But Darrell, help us here, brother. What are your thoughts on this?

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Yeah. Yeah. Just to add to what you and Virgil have already said, I think Giboney's arrogance is representative of a lot of social justicians who always think that they have the higher ground than anyone else.

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I think the consternation over ML King as a man, as a theologian, as a representative of the church is really rooted in what

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I believe is the misunderstanding that the majority of professing Christians have who believe that salvation comes by works.

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I think that is at the root of all the consternation that you're seeing demonstrated when a person like MLK is objectively critiqued, objectively critiqued because they're within their paradigm of what a

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Christian is, what Christianity is, what salvation is. Is a a a paradigm of of the good person versus the bad person.

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So they see King as a good person who did, quote unquote, and I'm saying good with air quotes, who is a good person who did good works, who helped a lot of people.

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And isn't that a good thing? So they translate all that, quote unquote, good into a solitariology whereby they can say, well, how dare you criticize this man?

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I mean, he's tantamount to being a saint. You know, the only thing left to do for MLK is to beatify this man.

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So so so I think that's at the root of what people like Giboney are trying to argue here.

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And when you look at Giboney's use of the word slander in terms of MacArthur, you know, slander is a legal term.

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Yes. But the loose as loosely as Giboney apparently defines that term,

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I could just as well assert that he's slandered MacArthur in this paragraph we've been talking about earlier when he accuses

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MacArthur of having a of number one of of casting these condemnations towards MLK casually with an apparent error of self -righteousness paired with an infantile understanding of neighborly love.

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And so he doubles down on the infantile understanding by saying by suggesting that King has a rudimentary understanding of these biblical doctrines and principles.

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Now, John MacArthur is going to be eighty five years old in June of twenty twenty four. I don't know how how old

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Giboney is, but he's not eighty five. So the infant here is not John MacArthur.

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OK, just chronologically speaking, the infant here is not John MacArthur. Let me just say that. But based on Giboney's construct of.

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Of slander, I could just as easily argue that he slandered MacArthur here.

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But this this is the arrogance. This is the hubris of social justice warriors who who who think that they they are the only ones carrying the flag of what is right there.

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They're the only one carrying the flag of virtue. They're the only one carrying the flag of anything that's redemptive about human nature.

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And what I found when it comes to MLK is always an emotional.

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A reaction to even to objective criticism by people who pretty much see this man as some type of Moses figure that has yet to lead us out of yet another promised land.

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So so they can't they can't stand. They cannot tolerate even a modicum of objective critique.

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And when I say objective, I mean by sources that are outside of my own opinion of the man.

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Right. This is where Virgil and I come in, because we have written extensively on MLK, citing sources outside of ourselves.

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Yes. To establish and support our argument that that MLK was not a

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Christian in the biblical definition of the word. He was not even a preacher in the biblical definition of the word.

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He wasn't a pastor in the biblical definition of the word. Anyone can stand up and be a good orator in a pulpit.

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And King was that he was probably one of the most brilliantly gifted communicators of the 20th century.

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Yeah. If not all of human history. So but that doesn't make you a pastor. That doesn't make you a preacher.

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That makes you a good speaker. That makes you an orator. That may make you eloquent. OK, but that doesn't make you theologically correct.

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So there's a lot of. Really, I believe there's a forensic lens that we need to place upon MLK and look at this man in terms of what the

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Bible says, as opposed to, you know, whatever affinity for or appreciation for someone like Gibney might have to where he gets all consternated when someone like a

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John MacArthur has the temerity to say that King was not a

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Christian. I would I would challenge him to look at King more objectively than he does now.

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Yes. Well said, brother. Well said. Speaking of looking at King objectively, y 'all have both written extensively on King.

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You've done one or more podcasts on King multiple, I believe. So, Virgil, you said a moment ago that King denied many of the fundamental tenets of historical

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Christianity. Can you all flesh those out for us? What. So when we when we say that Martin Luther King was not a

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Christian, what what was his theological framework? What did he affirm? What did he deny?

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Yeah, he denied the deity of Christ. He wrote in a paper during his time in seminary, and I'll quote from the paper.

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It's in the article is you could find it at G3men .org. It's titled

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Truth Behind MLK's Social Gospel, The Truth Behind MLK's Social Gospel. But this is

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King writing on the humanity and the divinity of Christ. He writes this, quote,

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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 Christ is divine in any ontological sense is actually harmful and detrimental so that the orthodox view of the divinity of Christ in my mind is readily denied, end quote, as it as it pertains to the resurrection.

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He says this King writes this, quote, This doctrine, the resurrection upon which the

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Easter faith rests, symbolizes the ultimate Christian conviction that Christ conquered death from a literary, historical and philosophical point of view.

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This doctrine raises many questions. In fact, the external evidence for the authenticity of this doctrine is found wanting, end quote, right there.

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If we just stop there, he denies the deity of Christ. He denies the bodily resurrection of Christ.

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We can stop there and say the person who holds those positions is not a

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Christ follower, is not a Christian. Now, they may they may used they may use

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Christ. They may use religious language. They may use they may use

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Christian language in an effort to support their social justice ends.

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But from a standpoint of what they believe and whether or not their belief is orthodox and Christian, it absolutely is not.

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In addition, he denied the virgin birth, the second coming and literal hell. I won't go into all of those quotes, but they're all available.

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This is not you don't have to do a lot of heavy lifting in order to in order to determine what

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King believed. And, you know, the idea and I know you'll go here in a bit, but the idea that that he came to some, you know, clairvoyant, definitive difference in his mind or a change of mind or heart in his latter years is absolute folly.

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It is absolute folly. No one can produce a shred of evidence to refute that King refuted these early claims or that he stood in an orthodox position on these issues in any way, shape or form.

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And I know people go to the kitchen conversation that he had in that conversation and in many others, not to mention multiple sermons, which we have access to.

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If anything, King is one of the most documented people that we have information on in modern times.

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And at no time will you and will anyone I dare anyone to find

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King preaching an orthodox gospel about the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

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You will not be able to find it. King's life. I'm sorry, the life of Christ, the death of Christ are always metaphors for some social justice plan or initiative.

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And that's and that's what you have with King. That's right. That's right. Darrell, I want to and Virgil, this was not a one off, right?

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You mentioned this was you quoted from his paper in seminary. So what year would that have been, roughly, if you know that off the top of your head?

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We're talking to the 50s. I can pull it up and tell you, yeah, early 50s, probably. But yeah, it was 1950.

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The paper was written up 1950. All right. And Darrell, so I want to read to show that this was not a one off.

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Darrell, I'm going to read a quote quotation here from a sermon that Martin Luther King Jr.

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preached entitled A Walk Through the Holy Land Easter Sunday sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on March 29th, 1959.

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And to Virgil's point here about the crucifixion and resurrection being metaphorical, I'm going to read this and Darrell, get your thoughts.

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King said in his sermon, quote, and I'll provide the link below, everybody can see this. And he tried to synthesize the

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Greek doctrine of the immortality of the soul with the Jewish Hebrew doctrine of resurrection.

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And he talks, as you remember when you read it, about a spiritual body, spiritual body.

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Whatever form, that's important right now. Darrell.

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Yeah, man, I'm speechless. Right. I'm speechless at this.

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And listen, I'm going to try to communicate this in a way that doesn't sound disjointed.

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But as I'm listening to you, Justin, recite that section, I'm thinking about the the style of preaching that is is currently and has historically been the case for the majority of predominantly

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Black churches, where you hear the same type of sermon that you just quoted from from King, that's narratology.

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Now, we know now I say narratology as being distinct from narrative because we know that one of the genres of biblical content is narrative.

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There are narratives in the Bible. So you can describe certain certain segments of the

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Bible, sections of the Bible as narrative. But what I'm talking about is narratology. So King was a narratologist.

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This is why I make a distinction between defining King as a preacher versus a storyteller.

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What you just cited for us was King being the storyteller. When he integrates and I'm going to get back to the resurrection issue for a second.

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But when he when he tries to contextualize his theology of the resurrection by commingling

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Paul with Plato and making the resurrection a philosophy and not a theology, that's problematic right there.

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But you don't get today as we sit here in twenty twenty four in the predominantly

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Black churches like those churches that King pastored, you don't get expository preaching so that you can exegete, you can pick apart and you can examine forensically the various parts of King's belief system that you just cited in those few sentences right there.

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So that notwithstanding, I just want to mention that that's a problem in the Black church today.

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Yeah, you got people in the pulpit who are telling stories. They're not preaching and let alone are they not preaching.

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They're not preaching expository. So that's a fundamental problem right there. So I think we need to start right there.

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Now, to this matter of where King, as you were reading that, Justin, matter of fact, when you read the first sentence where King says, whatever you believe about the resurrection this morning isn't important.

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I'm thinking in my head, stop right there. Stop right there.

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Stop right there. Now, King and listen. What what version

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I do on the Justinian podcast is we don't do this intentionally, but we make people mad because we refuse to veer away from the

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Orthodox truth of scripture. We do. But we put our flag on the sufficiency of scripture. But that very first sentence there,

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Justin, I'm asking myself if Martin Luther King were here today sitting on this interview, I would ask him, don't don't you think that sounds a little bit hypocritical?

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Now, and the reason I would ask it is because everywhere. So he has interspersed throughout this sermon that you referenced,

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Justin, he has it. King has interspersed throughout this sermon. The virtues of Christ as a person.

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You know how he is to be admired, he was a moral example, he was a standard that we should look up to, that we should try to model and exemplify and emulate.

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And at the same time, you're going to tell me that it doesn't matter what you think about the resurrection. So my question is, why did

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King put any credence whatsoever or validity into Christ at all if he was just a man who when he died, he stayed dead?

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Right. Why should I pay attention to anything the king has to say about Jesus?

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I don't know. Wrong or right. If if Jesus Christ was just another man who when he died, he stayed dead.

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That's right. What of what significance is he to me today? Right now, he's nothing.

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So when he when King says whatever you believe about the resurrection this morning isn't important, the form that you believe in, that isn't the important thing.

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Now, when something is resurrected and what what what are the form matters? Otherwise, how can you even call it a resurrection?

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Right. So if King, if Christ rather, if King says that the form in which

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Christ was resurrected isn't important, I mean, Justin, forgive me, brother, but the more we exegete these comments that King made, the more my mind just wants to explode, trying to juxtapose them because he says one thing and then the next thing he says, he contradicts the thing that he just said.

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So but again, somebody is going to watch this interview and they're going to say, wow,

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Darryl, you're pretty hard on King. Well, listen, I'm looking at I say some of this in light of first John four, three, where John says, well, anyone who denies that Jesus Christ came to the flesh.

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OK, you need to run from them. Amen. All right. Now, to me, you can't ignore.

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So King, on the one hand, he's acknowledging that Jesus came into the flesh, came into the earth in the flesh. But again, we have to ask the question, why does that matter to you,

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MLK? Why does it matter that Jesus came in the flesh? You know who else came in the flesh?

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Muhammad came in the flesh. OK, but Muhammad wasn't Muhammad was a pre -eternal.

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Right. Muhammad was incarnate. He wasn't God in the flesh. So you can't just sit here and say, well, you know,

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King King taught about Jesus. King preached about well, the question is, what did he preach?

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Which Jesus? Which which which Jesus are you talking about? That's right. Yes. You know, so I think the more we flesh this out,

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I think I think your viewers and your listeners are going to get a clear picture. That the the the king talked about Jesus, he did not talk about the

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Jesus that was the Christ. That's right. That is a very, very crucial point to make here.

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He talked about Jesus as a good teacher, a good moral example, but he never talked about Jesus as the

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Christ, a Christ, a Jesus that was not resurrected is not the Christ.

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Because he's not a savior, he's not a messiah at that point. There is so much more we can say about this, brother, but I'll just wrap up right there.

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That's right. There's a lot of different Jesus's out there, if you will. There's the

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Mormon Jesus, the Jehovah's Witness Jesus. There's the, you know, Jesus of Islam. There's a lot of different and this you're right.

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This this Jesus that he preached is just as much a different Jesus as is the

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Jesus of Islam. Right. And this is this is this is the this is the precursor,

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Justin, to the Jesus of black liberation theology is what this is. This is this is the

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Jesus of James Cone's. This is this is this is the precursor Jesus to, you know, to all those who would who would embrace social justice, to those who would embrace critical race theory.

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This is that Jesus. This is a Jesus who does not save. This is a Jesus who does not exist.

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This is a Jesus who is not real. And so it is it is clear why MacArthur said, knowing that that the

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Jesus of Martin Luther King was not the Jesus of the Bible, it was easy for for for John MacArthur and anyone else who's who's clear about these issues to say they were not they were not a

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Christ follower. This Jesus that that they're preaching, that they're teaching, that they're talking about is incapable to save.

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Yeah, that's right. And yeah, and just if I could just just dovetail on what Verda just said there is absolutely right.

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This is a Jesus of of today's speaking contemporarily Raphael Warnock, who ironically right now currently pastors

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Ebenezer Baptist Church in in downtown Atlanta. This is this is the the

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Jesus of Kelly Brown Douglas, who wrote a book titled The Black Christ. You know,

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Verda's exactly right. So in black liberation theology, you rob

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Jesus of so many of his incommunicable attributes as God in the flesh, as the second person of the

36:02

Trinity. You have to strip him of those things and reduce him down to a rebel, a revolutionary.

36:11

So you yes, out of the of his role as redeemer of all sinners.

36:16

And then he and then you strip him of that that divinity and then you make him like I like to say, you you you you you take his divinity off, you put on humanity and then that's all that he wears.

36:31

He only wears this humanity so that he's a revolutionary. He's a rebel, but he is never a redeemer.

36:37

And he in black liberation theology, he can't be a redeemer because in black the black liberation theology, salvation from your sins is not the salvation that they're trying to achieve.

36:48

They're trying to achieve economic liberation, political liberation, a political power, corporate power and things of that nature, which we're now seeing with the expansion of CRT, especially as it relates to DEI.

37:04

So Virgil is exactly right. The Jesus of this of the social justice movement to which

37:11

King himself in a paper he wrote while a student at Crozier Theological Seminary, the paper was titled

37:17

Preaching Ministry, said, and I quote, I am a staunch advocate of the social gospel, unquote.

37:25

King confessed to be an advocate of social gospel. But in the social gospel,

37:31

Jesus is none of who he himself said he is. That's right. That's right.

37:36

And and Darrell, to that point, to that exact point, I want to read another little excerpt from the same sermon.

37:42

And judging by the transcript here, if he had been preaching, well, probably just a minute or two after the first section.

37:52

So he continues with this. Per to your point. So this morning, let us not be disillusioned, let us not lose faith, for we've been crucified.

38:03

We've been buried in numerous graves, graves of economic insecurity, grave of exploitation, the grave of oppression.

38:12

We've watched justice trample over the true crucifix. And I'm here to tell you this morning,

38:19

Easter reminds us that it won't be like that always. It reminds us that God has a light that can shine amid all the darkness and he can bring all of the light of day out of the darkness of the midnight.

38:38

I see. Take it away. That would make a good Hallmark movie on Lifetime. That script that would that would fit really nicely into one of those little romance movies on the

38:50

Lifetime channel. But that's not that's not theology. That's not biblical theology, what you just read there.

38:56

I mean, again, so so what you have in that section there that you just read,

39:03

Justin, is you've got eisegesis going on, you've got narratology going on, you got a little homiletical stylization going on there.

39:16

But but again, as I'm looking at the same quote where King says, and so this morning, let us not be disillusioned, let us not lose faith.

39:24

I mean, lose faith. I mean, what is your what or who is your faith? They say Satan, you know. Yep. I mean, if Jesus isn't resurrected and King's already said that, just go ahead and discount the the the resurrection for with respect to what form

39:42

Jesus took or whether you even think it happened, go ahead and discount all that. So who when he says don't don't lose faith of faith in what faith in who?

39:54

You know, now you've got the narratology going on here where he says, you know, so often we've been crucified.

40:00

We've been buried in numerous graves, the grave of economic insecurity, the grave of exploitation, the grave of oppression.

40:06

Matter of fact, King used those same graves to support Planned Parenthood, by the way, because it was the grave of economic insecurity that he used as an excuse for why young black women should murder their babies.

40:18

So much so that Planned Parenthood awarded him their highest honor in 1966, the

40:24

Margaret Sanger Award. So now you've got all these metaphors. But the thing King doesn't realize, if economic security was a grave, you see graves you don't get out of.

40:35

Graves you don't you don't get out of. I would rather King, instead of using all these irrelevant metaphors,

40:43

I would encourage I would have encouraged him to read, I would encourage your listeners and viewers to read Justin, go out and find

40:49

Frederick Douglass's speech titled Self -Made Men, where Douglass, who was a slave.

40:55

Douglass, who was a slave, but 90 some odd years before King was assassinated, would have would have talked about how to get yourself out of these graves, graves being in air quotes, the grave of economic security, the grave of exploitation, the grave of oppression.

41:15

But apart from that sort of sociological, linguistic gymnastics, there is nothing again, there is nothing biblical in here at all.

41:27

Oh, as in terms of number one, why are you even here at church? Listen to the sermon.

41:32

Why are you even here? Right. Why should you even be here listening to me if all you're going to take away from this is again, oh, well,

41:41

I guess I just have to you know, I just got to keep plowing away on my own. You know,

41:48

I got to keep plowing away on my own because King has got you so focused. This this sermon right here, to tell you the truth,

41:56

Justin, was the first Living Your Best Life Now. This this this it was this sermon right here because he's telling these people, well, you're not living your best life.

42:05

You're not living your best life, but there's a light out there. OK, well, what is it? What is it?

42:13

Right. Everything's about the here and now. It's the here and now. It's all temporal. It's all temporal.

42:18

But that's what that's what Virgil was alluding to earlier. This is the salvation that this is the soteriology that black liberation theology teaches.

42:27

You know, what is your what is your what is your material quality of life look like?

42:33

Yeah, that's right. No, no emphasis on the eternal. No, everything's about the here and now.

42:40

Nothing about the soul, nothing about the state of your soul, nothing, nothing about you being in a right relationship with the

42:46

Lord, nothing at all about when you take your last breath. Where would you go to heaven?

42:52

No, nothing, nothing, nothing about why nothing about Matthew one twenty one, where the angel said that you will call his name

43:00

Jesus or he will save his people from their sins. Nothing about that.

43:06

Right. This this Jesus in some ephemeral way saves people from economic

43:14

I mean, the graves of economic oppression and injustice and economic insecurity and all those graves, but not sin, not sin.

43:24

Right. I think what you're witnessing even in this is that people are those who are listening to him have bought hook, line and sinker that that their their way, their road to salvation is through is through Dr.

43:40

King. OK, they can't think that it's through Jesus Christ. Because they've not been presented a biblical

43:46

Jesus. They are drunk on homiletics and have no desire to hear proper biblical hermeneutics.

43:55

I could even I could even in my mind here King saying saying this in that hole.

44:00

And so this morning, let us not be disillusioned. Let us not lose our faith.

44:08

So often we've been crucified. And see, I can hear I can see people because the current day idiots and I don't use that word lightly who get out and do this same fake homiletic, you know, it's cosplay is what it is.

44:33

It's 1960s cosplay today that a lot of these leaders engage in in an effort to sound like King with the hope that their words can move the masses in the same way that Kings did, because none of those people were actually connected to proper biblical hermeneutics.

44:53

They were drunk on homiletics, the manner in which the style in which the the way in which someone presented words and and and were and orated what they were going to share.

45:07

And if that sounds like King, then almost a lot of blacks, and it's sad to say, have a

45:14

Pavlovian response to this kind of kind of kind of sound and intonation.

45:21

And so they begin they begin to follow. But again, going back to Justin Gibney, I think his response was

45:30

Pavlovian as well in that, because if you think about the two, two and a half minute stretch of interview that you shared with us,

45:41

I'd say less than 30 seconds of it actually mentioned King. Yeah.

45:47

Right. Less than 30 seconds of it. And a sentence that he objected to required him grabbing his laptop and writing a you know, a thousand word article that gets published with with with some with someone very foolish who who who did not do a good job editing his work and exposing their own agenda and allowed it to get published.

46:15

No, no, no good editor would allow language like like the like. Well, let's remember now who's running

46:22

CT. I know. I know. Let's remember. So there's that.

46:27

There is that. Yeah. Yeah, so the

46:33

Jesus that did not bodily come out of the tomb is if Jesus has not been raised, we are still dead in our skin, right?

46:41

Absolutely. So if Jesus hasn't been raised, we've got nothing. We've got nothing, nothing.

46:49

And Justin, really, when you break it down to its most fundamental elements, the reason we're on this interview right now is because Jesus has been raised from the dead.

46:57

And what I mean by that is that the truth matters here. We're not just talking about really when you look at it from a from the standpoint of biblical apologetics, the conversation we're having around Dr.

47:11

Martin Luther King, Jr. matters, not necessarily because not in the in the small in the grand scheme of things.

47:17

It doesn't matter what King believed with respect to simply criticizing

47:23

King and critiquing King. But in a broader spectrum, what

47:28

King taught and the fact that so many people today still subscribe to what

47:33

King taught matters because of the resurrection. King taught another gospel as it relates to the resurrection.

47:41

Now, there are other other examples of him teaching a different gospel as well.

47:47

But to your point, Justin, when you cite that text of scripture that you just did, if Christ is not raised from the dead, we are

47:56

Paul Paul says we are to be pitied even among other false others who believe false religions.

48:03

Yeah. We're even to be pitied more than them. Yeah. So the resurrection matters. What King taught about the resurrection matters, not because of King, but because the resurrection matters.

48:14

So for him to say that you can believe whatever you want about the resurrection, I mean, that's that's ridiculous.

48:20

That's absurd. And I do want to say one last thing about the

48:26

CT article by Justin Gibney. Gibney in that article says this.

48:34

I'm quoting Gibney. He says the details of King's theological journey have never been the principal concern of his detractors, unquote.

48:44

Now, I want to I want to counter that by saying to the extent that Virgil and I have written so extensively about King.

48:53

In our writings, all we've done is to critique his theology. Yes, that's all we've ever done.

49:00

Yeah. Yeah. We have never written a single syllable about King's personal life.

49:08

Or anything outside of his theological beliefs, every single word we've ever written, every single word we've ever spoken.

49:16

Yeah. Dr. King has literally only been to critique his theology.

49:22

So what is wrong on that point? Yeah, one of the things one of the things, Darrell, that that, you know,

49:28

I get pushed back. I did a I did a when I when I did this article this year and kind of tightened up some older writings that I that I mean, you you read you read the stuff

49:38

I've written. You I send stuff to you for you to edit. You know, we we you send stuff to me for me to look at.

49:44

You know, we're both checking each other's work. And we have editors in our in our own perspective, areas of, you know, where we work and such who look at our who look at our stuff, where it's factual content, it's theological acumen, all of those things.

49:57

And so any article that you see we've put up, it's gone through a pretty intense grid before it actually before it's actually posted or goes up.

50:05

That with that said, more times than not, the challenge that we get back or the pushback that we get is always, well, you didn't talk about, you know,

50:13

Whitfield or Edwards and their slavery, or you didn't talk about, you know, this. And my my my response to that is is this.

50:21

And I'm sure I can almost imagine what Darrell's going to say, but I'll let him

50:28

I'll let him I'll let him say that. I my thing on that is this. I'm not even looking at if Edwards or Whitfield had some errant theology, some some unorthodox belief that they were positing as Christian.

50:44

I'd have the same visceral response that that needs to be addressed and say,

50:50

OK, Whitfield got this wrong theologically or, you know, or Edwards got this wrong theologically.

50:56

I'm not we can talk about the the you know, the issue of slavery or what or what have you.

51:03

Right now, I'm simply dealing with a theological matter. And neither of those men are are in error, theologically speaking.

51:11

Right. So so that's that's the that's the first thing. The second thing is simply because I critique

51:16

King does not require me to critique any other person of any other ethnic hue.

51:23

That is not that is not a requirement. I can I can I can look at the man who said what he said or did what he did on the on the merit of their own words and their own writing.

51:34

Examine that against the backdrop of scripture. There's not some some biblical requirement. You did a black guy.

51:40

You know what's next. You got to do a white guy. There's no there's no there's if someone give me book, chapter, verse where that's found, you know,

51:47

I'm happy I'm happy to take a look at that. But but the reality is, at the end of the day, you can critique

51:52

King in his own in his own, you know, on his own basis based upon theology. And that be it.

52:00

Finally, and I share this in a response that I gave to someone, you know, I think if Edwards or Whitfield had a day that the entire country stopped what they were doing for the purpose of acknowledging their holiday and there were some and there were some moral issues that needed to be addressed.

52:20

I think I think it's I think it's fair game. Right. I think I think I think it'd be fair game. I'd have the same level of intensity to examine their lives.

52:28

At the end of the day, there's there's no requirement here. And all all anyone is doing when they bring up those kinds of charges or claims is exposing their own ethnic idolatry is what they're doing.

52:39

They're exposing the fact that they have an idol, that that idol is melanin and that they are bowing the knee to that idol.

52:46

And so no one of a certain level of melanin is able to be critiqued because they get a pass because of the fact that they're that they're black.

52:54

That's kind of how that ends up working. And, you know, V, whenever I hear somebody try to they go, that's all.

52:59

But but what about his morale? The whole what about his morale? They want to talk about Edwards. They want to talk about Whitfield.

53:06

I'm like, no, no, let's not. Let's not talk about them. Let's talk about the slave owners in your line of family. Let's talk about your ancestors who was like, because I guarantee you, you had some.

53:14

Yeah, I guarantee you have some. So now let's not talk about Edwards and Whitfield. In fact, they own slave. Let's talk about the people in your own ancestry who own slave, maybe in my own ancestry, who own slaves, who

53:25

I know for a fact own slaves. Let's just bring that home. Let's not let's not go back 200 years.

53:31

Say they get home today. You have some people in your in your lineage back there with your same melanin level who own slaves, own slaves.

53:41

Yes, I do. Absolutely. I've got I can name you on Anderson Jewel. My great grandfather, my great great grandfather,

53:46

Anderson Jewel, own 260 slaves on a plantation in North Carolina. Wow.

53:52

He was a mulatto, so he was mixed. Yeah. Own 260 slaves on a plantation in North Carolina.

54:01

OK, so, I mean, you talk about the whataboutism, but Virgil's absolutely right.

54:07

That's the instinctive reaction that we get. They want to bring up Edwards. They want to bring up Whitfield.

54:13

No, let's talk about the slave owners in your family. Let's let's because I promise it's like it's like Sonny Hosted on The View who was shocked.

54:22

I don't know why he was shocked when she found out that her some of her ancestors actually owned slaves.

54:31

And when you look at this in the context of Act 1726. Yes. Which clearly says that every last one of us.

54:40

Yes. Is descended from one man. Yes. You think that out logically that if we're all if we're all descended from Adam at some point in time, every single person on this earth.

54:54

Probably can trace in their genealogy, at least contemporarily to to someone who was either a slave or a slave owner.

55:03

And we don't and we don't we don't even want to deal with with with the issue of slavery.

55:08

I can promise you no one. Well, we don't they don't want to talk about that. I promise you no one wants to have a conversation with Daryl or me on on that subject altogether.

55:17

That's that's that's a that's a nonstarter. They don't want to go there. I promise you. I would

55:23

I would love to see the two of you and Dwight McKissick have a conversation about that.

55:36

So, brothers, let's go back to Giboney's article here because he makes and Virgil, you touched on it a little bit, but I want to flesh it out a little bit more.

55:46

He says MacArthur may take issue with some of King's early theological work, which did question

55:53

Christian doctrine. However, as Mika Edmondson, himself a pastor and systematic theologian, insightfully explained, quote,

56:01

King's early seminary papers don't reflect his final fully formed theology. Not unlike Abraham Kuyper and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, King wrestled with theological liberalism, but later seemed to, quote, shift back toward the faith of his conservative black

56:19

Baptist upbringing. So, you know, you have to you have to acknowledge that King clearly wrote against the basic elements of the gospel.

56:31

So to to kind of rescue King amongst, at least for theologically conservative evangelicals, whatever that means, to rescue him from himself.

56:41

They've got to say that he returned to a more orthodox, conservative, biblical stance and understanding of Christianity.

56:51

Is that true? Well, I'll start here.

56:57

Where's the evidence? Like everything. Listen, everything that every statement that I made in my article,

57:03

I backed with a link directly to an original source. So everything

57:08

I stated in the way of a in the way of a charge, in the way of a statement, something

57:15

I posited, an idea, I connected the dots back to an original source.

57:21

You can you can posit a whole bunch of ideas. You could make claims all you want, but it's not it's attached to nothing.

57:28

And if and if all they have is that is the kitchen conversation that that is that is vacuous.

57:37

There is there is no there there. There's no there's no repudiation of of previous doctrines regarding the deity of Christ, regarding the resurrection of Christ.

57:48

There's there's there's no gospel. There's no proclamation. There's no advance of the gospel proclamation to say, oh, he now believes in a biblical gospel that he's presenting in this instance.

58:01

What King is doing is what he's always done. He's borrowed biblical language when it suits him.

58:07

He's put that before people that he knows wants to hear it. And even in this, even in this instance, it does not.

58:14

It still does not connect the dots solidly to a biblical gospel.

58:20

It doesn't. It's it's not it's not there's no there there. Right. You know, Justin, you're you're familiar.

58:27

You're extremely familiar with the work that Virgil and I do on the Just Thinking podcast. And one of the things that Virgil and I take pride in, which is one of the reasons why we don't put out episodes more frequently than we do, is because we spend so much time doing research.

58:42

That's right. We spend so much time doing research and homework and citing our sources. If you if your viewers were to see the notes from an average episode of the

58:55

Just Thinking podcast, you will probably you will probably see close to 30 pages of single page notes, single single spaced notes with close to 40 to 50 citations, 40 to 50 footnotes.

59:10

Right. We take accuracy very seriously on the Just Thinking podcast.

59:16

We don't cut corners. We don't take shortcuts. So when I look at what

59:21

Mr. Gibbons said here towards the end of his article in Christianity Today, where he cites

59:28

Mika Edmondson, and then he says that Mika Edmondson insightfully explained and that word explained is hyperlinked to a

59:37

Twitter post. Uh -huh. That's see, I thought I found it interesting that Gibbony didn't say.

59:44

He said, as Mika Edmondson insightfully explained, he didn't say as Mika Edmondson insightfully documented.

59:52

He didn't say that. Right. He didn't link to a document, a documentation that that supports or endorses or affirms his suggestion.

01:00:04

And let's use that word lightly, that King changed his theology in his later years, there is nothing that documents that.

01:00:14

Right. That King, that King changed his Christology, his theology or his soteriology.

01:00:23

There's nothing. Darrell, Darrell, Darrell, I got it. I've got to interrupt you here and here's why. You've written for a number of publications, brother, in journals and different and different periodicals.

01:00:37

You've written blog articles, everything from from a journal, which is which is, you know, something something very, very, you know, in -depth, theologically dense to a blog article.

01:00:48

And even in the lightest form blog article, the places that you and I both have submitted our articles to would never, never let you or I get away with making a statement like that, attaching it to some random tweet and acting as if that was documentation for the purpose of making our case.

01:01:13

They wouldn't do that. An editor would look at that, laugh and go, you need to go find an original source and come back.

01:01:20

Now, had they used. Had they used the tweet to say this person said this, that's one thing.

01:01:29

That's one thing. But if they're trying to make a case and are using the are using this tweet to make a case, it's not documented proof of anything at all.

01:01:37

And no good editor. Again, I apologize for the interruption. No good at it. I have to make this point.

01:01:43

No good editor would allow that to happen. No, no, no, no, no, no good theologian either. No good systematic theologian either.

01:01:51

Who, who, who, who given the describes Mika Edmondson as a quoting himself, speaking of Edmondson, given, he said himself a pastor and systematic theologian.

01:02:03

If he's a systematic theologian and intrinsic with the word systematic is preciseness.

01:02:10

You want to be precise. You want to be accurate, a because a systematic theologian.

01:02:16

Being precise, accurate and thorough. Is inherent to that to that label, to that, to that, to that title.

01:02:26

So but referring but linking to a tweet where someone is basically offering an opinion, essentially, with no objective second or third party confirmation of what you're suggesting.

01:02:43

That's not that's not documentation. No, no, that's that's not that would not stand up in court, as they say.

01:02:51

That would not stand up in court. But that's that's the that's the mindset that Virgil and I have in our preparation on the

01:02:59

Just Thinking podcast. We will not get behind those microphones and say anything that we cannot cite or support outside of ourselves.

01:03:08

We're not going to do it. And no, forget a good writer or a good editor. A good systematic theologian would never let someone else say that about them if it can't be asserted in some other secondary tertiary way.

01:03:24

This is not going to happen. That's right. That's right. And and to to that point, if King did return or if he did in his later years, embrace a biblical gospel, then then real repentance bears real fruit, right?

01:03:43

He would have come out and Virgil, you said it earlier. He's one of the most documented individuals in the modern era.

01:03:50

If he had truly gone from darkness to light, if he had truly been granted faith and repentance, he clearly was not a

01:03:59

Christian by denying all the fundamentals of the faith. If he somehow later did become a

01:04:05

Christian in his later years and embrace the true gospel, then he would have come out and said that.

01:04:12

He would have said, look, I've been preaching a false gospel for all of these years.

01:04:18

I've been preaching a different Jesus. I was deceived. And in so doing, I was deceiving even you.

01:04:25

And I've brought reproach upon the name of Christ. And I realize now the bodily resurrection, what you believe, but it actually does matter what what form the resurrection comes in.

01:04:34

It actually matters a lot. It matters eternally. And he would have said, I'm now born again.

01:04:40

I've been brought to life. I all things passed away. All things are made new. He would have made that very clear.

01:04:46

And yet not one syllable of evidence that that ever took place. Now, what you have, what you have is a lot of evidence to the contrary again.

01:04:57

And we don't spend a ton of time on this. But given his lifestyle, given what what others have said about him, the way that he the way that he lived, the womanizing, all of those kinds of things, there's a ton of evidence to the contrary that can actually be brought to bear.

01:05:15

Like I said, Darrell and I don't spend a lot of time discussing those matters. Those will see the light of day when they do.

01:05:22

And most of those related issues, people, unfortunately, are going to dismiss anyway.

01:05:29

But they but they do serve as evidence of a life that that is not regenerate.

01:05:35

That's for sure. That's right, Virgil. And since you brought it up, I want us to bring this up because it is germane to this discussion.

01:05:44

The sexual immorality and promiscuity of Martin Luther King Jr. is is beyond dispute.

01:05:50

I mean, it's not even debatable, maybe the degree to which is somewhat debatable.

01:05:56

But one of his closest friends was a man by the name of Ralph Abernathy.

01:06:03

He was a fellow civil rights leader with Martin Luther King. He was King's probably his closest friend, most trusted confidant.

01:06:13

Their children referred to the other man's father as Uncle, you know,

01:06:19

Uncle Martin or Uncle Ralph. You know, these were close personal friends. They they labored together.

01:06:26

And Ralph Abernathy, he wrote an autobiography on his close personal friend titled And the

01:06:32

Walls Came Tumbling Down, in which he says that Martin Luther King Jr. had many adulterous affairs.

01:06:40

In fact, he says that the night Martin Luther King Jr.'s last night on earth was spent in the

01:06:48

Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. And he says of his dearest friend for his entire adult life, he says that there were two women spending the night with King in that hotel room, neither of which was his wife.

01:07:05

And one of the women, one of the women was the first black woman state senator from the state of Kentucky.

01:07:14

Her name was Georgia Davis Powers. And she herself openly admitted,

01:07:20

I think she died maybe about, I think, 2012, if I remember correctly. But she she herself admits, openly admitted to being one of those two women who spent the night with King his last night on earth in the

01:07:34

Lorraine Motel. Now, and then there's apparently we talked about this before we started recording.

01:07:39

There are FBI tapes that are scheduled to be released in the year 2027 that document if one percent of what

01:07:50

I'm reading about these tapes is true. King was not only guilty of prolific sexual immorality, but to the point of criminal sexual immorality.

01:08:04

Now, what are y 'all's thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, one, when

01:08:11

I hear that, when I hear anything like that, my heart absolutely breaks. Absolutely. For for everyone involved, for King to be engaged in that, for those who were involved, for those who were around him that knew.

01:08:27

My heart breaks when I hear that kind of thing, regardless of who, regardless of the situation or circumstance, absolutely breaks secondarily.

01:08:36

And sadly, unfortunately, this kind of information is is not unknown.

01:08:42

It's clear. The challenge is most people, like those who stand with Giboney, ignore it.

01:08:51

It's irrelevant. They find it absolutely irrelevant for them. This is not germane.

01:08:58

It's neither germane to King's claim of being a

01:09:05

Christian, nor is it germane or clouds any of what they believe good

01:09:12

King did. They, you know, his abuse of Christianity and Christian language and Christian ideas for the purpose of his own, of the promotion of his own social agenda.

01:09:26

All that, that is all that matters at the end of the day for for the vast majority of these people.

01:09:32

So while I think it is important to look at, to examine, most who carry water for King will ignore it, won't, you know, they won't.

01:09:43

They will pay little to no attention to it and believe anyone who brings it up to be racist or to have some some kind of an agenda.

01:09:52

Right. Yeah, I would just add to what Virgil just said. I think we haven't talked about this thus far in the conversation, but I think notwithstanding the allegations of Martin Luther King's faithfulness to his wife or unfaithfulness to his wife,

01:10:15

I should say, his his lifestyle when he was not in front of the public.

01:10:24

You know, one of his closest confidants was an open homosexual, Bayard Rustin, who the man who organized the march on Washington, he was he was one of Dr.

01:10:38

King's closest confidants. But I think, you know,

01:10:45

I can't unlike some who want to link to a tweet,

01:10:51

I can't sit here and say that I read Dr.

01:10:56

Abernathy's book, being an Atlanta native, I'm familiar with Ralph David Abernathy, you know, growing up in Atlanta, you get that you get all that history.

01:11:08

You know, I was a child in school in the 70s. So you get that history of Dr.

01:11:15

King, Ebenezer Baptist Church and the civil rights march, civil rights movement, rather the march on Washington.

01:11:23

And you get all of that. So I'm very familiar with that just from being born and raised in Atlanta. But I want to use this sort of as a metaphor of what

01:11:33

Virgil's just talking about, how when it comes to people like Giboney, they like to separate certain things about King and just sort of toss those aside as if they're just totally irrelevant.

01:11:47

I'm not a chef. I'm not a baker. But as I'm listening to Virgil, I'm thinking about how

01:11:54

I've never tried this, but I've seen on cooking shows and whatnot, when you can crack an egg and you try to separate the yolk from the egg white.

01:12:04

That's what Virgil's talking about, what people like Giboney like to do when it comes to King. They try to separate the yolk from the egg white.

01:12:11

Yeah, but you can't. It's still all the same egg. Right. It's still all the same egg. You can try to separate the yolk if you want to and then separate the egg white.

01:12:19

But it's still the same egg. And what's really sad here, and I concur with both of you guys, my heart breaks when

01:12:28

I listen, when I listen to you a few minutes ago, just sort of run through that. Justin, I wasn't over here giggling and sneering.

01:12:35

I mean, that was heartbreaking. Yeah. But see, here's the thing when it comes to idols and idolatry.

01:12:44

What's what's ironic is. We won't we won't accept because we're so as congenital sinners, we're so inherently enemies of God that we won't accept

01:12:59

God's loving, merciful, graceful boundaries for our lives.

01:13:06

We won't live by those while at the same time for our idols, though.

01:13:12

We'll accept the worst in them because because there are idols, because we don't want our idols and our idolatry of those idols challenged.

01:13:20

We don't want them challenged. So we'll accept. Even the sin or the alleged sin of a

01:13:27

Martin Luther King, if this man is so so a part of who

01:13:36

I identify myself with that, I can just let all of his no matter how egregious they are,

01:13:43

I can let all of his sins go no matter how egregious they were, no matter who they hurt, no matter who they harm.

01:13:49

Or even if the harm was done to himself. But see, here's the thing, though, and this goes full circle back to my earlier comments about most

01:13:58

Christians have a moralistic Christianity. It is not a modernist Christianity. So they think with King.

01:14:05

That he had it within himself, if he did change his theology or his

01:14:11

Christianity later on, that he would have been empowered in himself to do that. You see, as if some epiphany came upon him, whereas we know that you only come to the light of the truth.

01:14:26

If God draws you to it, God has to bring you to it. Salvation is not of yourself.

01:14:34

Regeneration is not of yourself. People who argue that King came to a different, although we have no documentation of this, that King's theology, his

01:14:44

Christology matured in his later years as if he himself would have been able to come to that realization.

01:14:51

Well, that's erroneous, but that's those people who think salvation is by works, that we can do enough good works to endear himself to God.

01:15:03

To whereas to choose salvation, to choose to be saved, and then again to say in and of themselves, oh, yeah,

01:15:13

I was wrong about that. I was wrong about that. Hey, I read this book and all of a sudden my heart changed.

01:15:18

No, that's not how this works. That's right. You know, but they don't want to put the work in.

01:15:24

You know, y 'all really need to do more than just read letters from a Birmingham jail. People get behind King.

01:15:31

You should read his letters from Birmingham jail. Well, have you read his papers that he wrote when he was in seminary?

01:15:39

The papers King wrote at Crozer Theological Seminary represent the same

01:15:45

Martin Luther King all the way up to when he was assassinated in 1968. That's right.

01:15:52

That's right. And you're exactly right. There's no evidence that he ever embraced a biblical gospel.

01:15:57

If he had, he would have done what we've been talking about. He would have made that known. You can't go from being dead in sins to alive in Christ and not tell people about it.

01:16:08

But see, King never taught. The thing about King never taught, King never had a homardiology.

01:16:14

No, he never had a doctrine of sin to throw out. That's a big doctrine. He never had a doctrine of sin.

01:16:20

So he never had a doctrine of sin. So which again, I can't find it. And I listen, we studied,

01:16:25

Bert and I have studied King profusely. We can't I can't find a single sermon. Where he preached on repentance and confession of sin, not one, not one that that is not to be missed.

01:16:37

OK, not one, not a single one. I can't find a single one.

01:16:43

I've studied him for years. I've not been able to find one. Yeah, that you know, that that's the open and shut case right there that you if he truly embraced a biblical gospel towards the end of his life, he would have made that known that that would have been his all consuming compassion, not compassion, to preach the gospel.

01:17:06

And he didn't do it. He never did it. And the immorality, the apparently prolific, if not even criminal, sexual immorality, that is just I mean, that's what you expect from a lost person.

01:17:24

That's what lost people do. What lost people do is being unregenerate. He did not have the indwelling of the

01:17:30

Holy Spirit of God. Therefore, there is no restraint on his flesh. Right.

01:17:36

And so that's just kind of what you would expect from someone who's a regenerate. Just just can I say one more thing real quick?

01:17:41

I want to harken back to the sermon that we were talking about earlier in our conversation, a walk through a walk through the

01:17:50

Holy Land. This is King's Easter Sunday sermon that he sermon that he delivered at Dexter Memorial, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, March twenty nine, nineteen fifty nine.

01:17:59

Now, I want you to tell me I'm going to play this game that Virgil likes to play a lot. He calls it who said it first.

01:18:06

OK, who said who said it first? I want to I want your audience to to guess who said this was

01:18:11

Martin Luther King or was it Joel Osteen? Now, let me let me let me read from that sermon.

01:18:17

And I want you to guess, was this MLK or was this Joel Osteen from that sermon?

01:18:22

King says this. He says, so often we come to those points when it gets dark, it seems that the light of life is out, the sunlight of day moves out of our being and out of the rest of our faith.

01:18:36

We get disillusioned and confused and give up in despair. But if we will only look around, we will discover that God has another light.

01:18:43

And when we discover that we need never walk in darkness. I've seen this so often in my own personal experience.

01:18:50

But when it was dark and tragedy around seemed that the light of day had gone out, darkness all around and sunlight passing away.

01:18:59

I got enough strength in my being to turn around and only to discover that God had another light.

01:19:06

Now, who said that was that Martin Luther King or was that Joel Osteen? You could flip it either way.

01:19:13

That's exactly my point. You can flip that either way. Either way, it'd be a jump ball. I could hear,

01:19:18

I could almost hear that in Joel Osteen's accent actually. But that's from MLK.

01:19:25

But yeah, it would fit perfectly with Osteen. That's right. That's right.

01:19:33

So guys, to wrap this up a little bit, going back to Giboney's article, he says, quote,

01:19:41

Inasmuch as MacArthur or any others reject or even obstruct the American church's efforts to repent of injustice, imitate

01:19:49

Christ and heal our country's racism, sexism and economic inequalities, they will only find themselves fighting against God.

01:19:58

Now, full article, if you want to read it, he is playing off of Gamaliel's advice in Acts chapter five, which

01:20:04

Gamaliel's advice was bad advice because Gamaliel was not even a believer. And it doesn't pass a common sense test.

01:20:10

But that's another program. So I mean, that right there, it reflects his social justice, social gospel bent, does it not?

01:20:19

Yeah, yeah, it does. He ends the article that way. I mean, at the end of the article, he connects social justice with the gospel.

01:20:28

Right. And so, you know, from start to finish, he kind of lays out his his case and shows you his cards and lays the charge to MacArthur that that he's the one being slanderous when when actually not at all the case.

01:20:45

In fact, the the everything we've laid out in our conversation here is is evidential proof of why

01:20:55

MacArthur made the statement that he did. It follows logic.

01:21:01

It follows reason. It follows the evidence, you know, and it's substantiated by King's own words.

01:21:09

And so, you know, at the at the end of the day, I think this this this article, you know, and those who published it, it's telling and absolutely is telling what they're doing, why they're doing it, all of it to to to raise up King rather rather than the king of kings and Lord of lords, who is

01:21:29

Jesus, the Christ. Amen, amen. And what's at stake here is to portray

01:21:37

King as a genuine Christian and who preached the real gospel, you're cheapening the gospel, you're preaching to people a different Jesus, a different gospel and a different gospel does not save.

01:21:52

So we're talking about matters of eternity here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I'm so happy to hear you emphasize that,

01:22:01

Justin. Because, listen, souls are at stake. The truth is at stake here. We're not we're not just talking about a man's perspective on who

01:22:08

Jesus is. We're not talking about just, you know, siloed opinions here. This man,

01:22:14

King, here we are almost, you know, almost 60 years.

01:22:21

Yeah. You know, after he was murdered, people are still leveraging his theology to not only develop their own theology, but to also continue to expand on an already false theology, which is liberation theology, that that liberation theology still has legs liberation theology in the in the

01:22:44

American church. We're going on over 100 years now of of of this poison penetrating the evangelical church, but is continuing to do particular damage in churches with predominantly black congregations.

01:23:00

Because now a lot of those a lot of those churches, a lot of the pulpits, especially in urban, large metropolitan areas like Atlanta, where Virgil is, you've got young pastors, young men, rather, who many of them, not that you have to be, but many of them not seminary trained.

01:23:21

They're they're they're they've got their pulses on a certain bit of the culture with BLM, with the whole

01:23:29

George Floyd thing with they buy into DEI, they buy into critical race theory.

01:23:37

In other words, they're woke. So they either are put into these pulpits or they may start their own church, you know, and and and and lead their own congregations down this same heretical path, which is rooted in speaking of black liberation theology is rooted in envy, jealousy, covetousness, hatred and sinful partiality.

01:24:04

I could probably go on, but black liberation theology, and I studied this at Princeton.

01:24:10

This is why I went there, Princeton Theological Seminary to study the black liberation theology of James Cone. You have now, starting with Cone, you're probably on your fourth generation within black communities of people, young people who are swallowing up the poison of black liberation theology and not realizing that the the salvation that James Cone preached is not the salvation of the

01:24:39

Bible. It is not the gospel. Souls are at stake here. This is why it matters.

01:24:46

What Dr. King taught is because what he taught. In terms of being an unbiblical, false, totally another gospel.

01:24:57

Is going to send people to hell. That's right. That's why King, that's why this conversation matters.

01:25:04

Oh, that's right. That's right. We're not having this conversation just to diminish

01:25:12

Martin Luther King Jr. in people's eyes. That's not what any of us is motivated by.

01:25:18

We're motivated by the truth, and we're energized by the real gospel, the true gospel, not a false gospel.

01:25:28

Listen, I would have this same conversation if we were here talking about the modalism of T .D. Jakes or the prosperity gospel of a who's my guy?

01:25:37

Creflo Dollar. Creflo Dollar. I wouldn't care who I wouldn't care who it was.

01:25:43

If the person's in error, we need to have a conversation. Right. And the difference in the difference here between, you know, for those who would say, oh, well,

01:25:52

OK, y 'all y 'all talked about King and and what he did, you know, in the bedroom with someone who was not as wise, but you didn't talk about the slavery of of Edwards and Whitlock.

01:26:04

The issue at the end of the day, Phil, I'm sorry, Whitlock. And the difference that we don't even go into why

01:26:12

I said that the difference here at the end of the day has everything to do with who preached the right gospel.

01:26:20

What was the gospel that was preached? And we don't have to you don't have to ignore the issues of slavery with those men.

01:26:27

We can lay that on the table. We can talk about that. How wrong it was horrific. You know, the transatlantic slave trade.

01:26:36

We have no problem discussing any of those any of those. I would love to talk about that, actually. I know you would.

01:26:44

Maybe we need to know. Yeah, I know you would. But at the end of the day, we can talk about it.

01:26:51

No one's embarrassed by that. We can look we can stand flat footed, clear eyed and talk about those issues.

01:26:57

And the danger of that and what was sinful about it. We can do all of that in the same way that we do about King and his issues with women.

01:27:07

At the end of the day, what matters is who got the gospel right? What about the gospel?

01:27:14

If there's an incorrect proclamation of the gospel, that absolutely needs to be addressed.

01:27:19

And we can address it all. We can address it all. Absolutely. But at the end of the day, what matters is that which will stand up in eternity.

01:27:31

Scripture is clear that it is appointed and the man wants to die. And after that, the judgment. Was your knee bent?

01:27:40

Was your heart transformed, regenerated as a result of hearing the proclamation of a biblical gospel or not?

01:27:48

That's the bottom line question. See the thing, and I'll say this, and I'll let this be my last word,

01:27:55

Justin. But as I'm listening to Virgil there, I just happen to flip the Romans 5, Romans 5, 6, where it says, for while we were still weak at the right time,

01:28:03

Christ died for the ungodly. So when you take a guy like King, King will acknowledge that Christ died.

01:28:09

But if he didn't, if he didn't rise again, if there was no resurrection, then his death is irrelevant too. That's right.

01:28:14

That's right. Death is totally irrelevant. So I would, I would challenge any of your viewers, any of your listeners, listeners to ask themselves, especially even if they're a believer in Christ, if they're professing believer in Christ, why does

01:28:26

Jesus matter to you? If Jesus only matters to you from a standpoint of morality, you don't understand who

01:28:33

Jesus was. You got the wrong Jesus. You've got the wrong gospel. It's not enough to acknowledge that Jesus died.

01:28:39

Okay. Now, when King says that the, how you think about the resurrection doesn't matter. And him saying that inherent within that conversation is, is an acknowledgement that Jesus died.

01:28:49

You can't have a resurrection of anything that doesn't die. So he acknowledges that Jesus died, but you cannot stop there.

01:28:56

But that's where he stopped. Apparently. Yep. That's where he stopped. If, if the resurrection and even the form in which

01:29:03

Jesus was resurrected doesn't matter, then that means his death doesn't matter. So we have to be clear on this.

01:29:09

This is, this is a holistic thing. It's not just one piece. We're talking about an entire biblical theology of the gospel.

01:29:17

And if you don't get that, like Virgil said, if you don't get the gospel, right. I don't,

01:29:23

I don't, I just don't know what else to say. So I would challenge even your viewers here to ask, you know, who, who is,

01:29:29

Hey, it's the, it's the ultimate question, right? Of mankind. Who do you say Jesus is right?

01:29:34

Who do you say Jesus is, is your Jesus, the Jesus of Martin Luther King Jr. Or is your Jesus, the

01:29:39

Jesus of Paul and Romans five. That's right. That's right. Can't be both. That's right.

01:29:45

Can't be both. Can't be both. Well, brothers, um, I want to,

01:29:51

I just want to conclude. We, we probably will have a lot of people watching who have imbibed to one degree or another, the social justice gospel.

01:30:00

So I want to give, I want to give folks a true gospel, just a clear, succinct.

01:30:06

What is the gospel? And either, either one of you, whoever wants to do that. I got to hand it off to my guy, because he does an amazing job.

01:30:15

Virgil, give us a gospel brother. Absolutely. The gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ is his life, death, burial, and resurrection for the forgiveness of sin.

01:30:26

The fact that God, the father in eternity past, uh, knew that we would be sinful, that we would, that we would fall in the sin.

01:30:34

And as a result laid out a plan before the foundation of the world that he would send his one and only son, uh, in, in the form of, of, of human, of human flesh, uh, born of a virgin, uh, to live the perfect life that none of us could live.

01:30:50

He lived a perfect life for his entirety in thought, in word, in deed, uh, never, ever sinning.

01:30:59

Uh, and, and as, and as a result of, of this perfect life that he gave of himself by, by dying upon a cross, uh, and, and, and, and rising from the dead, confirming that the substitutionary death was, was, was received by the father.

01:31:16

Uh, and that those of us who would repent of our sin and place our faith in him would indeed experience and have eternal life.

01:31:28

Uh, and, and those who would, would, would repent, uh, and again, bow the knee, uh, bow the knee to the pride, bow the knee to, to their desire to, to, to win some, some temporal, uh, uh, a goal or, uh, or opportunity or some economic, uh, you know, uh, uh, goal, you know, uh, uh, uh, run on the ladder.

01:31:47

If, if they would let go of that and recognize their sinfulness before a holy

01:31:52

God, uh, repent of that sin and place their full faith in Christ, again, they, they would inherit the free gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ.

01:32:02

Amen. And amen brothers. Thank you so much for your time today.

01:32:07

Thank you for helping us think through these issues. Um, thank you for your ministries. Thank you for your personal standpoint.

01:32:14

Thank you for your friendships. Uh, I treasure, I treasure you both of you men very much.

01:32:19

So, uh, we're going to be together in April, right? Yes, we are. That's right.

01:32:25

April, uh, in Jackson, Mississippi. So yeah, I'm looking forward to the

01:32:30

Bible. Conference. Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. Yeah. I'll actually be there too.

01:32:37

I'll be there too. Hey, I'm looking forward to that.

01:32:43

I'm looking forward to that. So I'll put a link to that too, but down below, is that how they see it down there?

01:32:49

I've heard people say it, not normally. No, it's not the typical pronunciation. That's, that's a bit of an exaggeration.

01:32:55

So I'm, I'm originally from Vicksburg, which was about, uh, uh, about 45 miles due

01:33:03

West of Jackson. But yeah, man, very, very extremely historic city. Uh, Vicksburg.

01:33:08

It was war and everything. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Very familiar with that area.

01:33:14

Yep. That's right. Yep. Um, you have a lot of, a lot of history there, a lot of history there. So, all right, well, brothers, uh, where can people,

01:33:23

I won't, I want to point people your direction. So where can people find out more about it? You don't just do the

01:33:29

Just Thinking podcast link down below, but you've also written some books. So, um, how can people find out more about you and your, your resources and avail themselves?

01:33:40

You could, you could check us out on, uh, you can get us on Amazon. We've got Just Thinking About the

01:33:46

State, uh, which was, uh, published with, uh, Founders Press as is

01:33:51

Just Thinking About Ethnicity. Uh, and then, uh, we've got here at G3 Press.

01:33:58

Um, uh, what, uh, what is it? Um, that's it right behind you, man. Why are you afraid? That's right.

01:34:04

The book, right? But so many books, you can't even remember the books right behind me.

01:34:11

Why, why, why are you afraid? And, uh, yeah, in fact, I mean, you can, you can order any of these on, on Amazon or go to g3men .org,

01:34:20

uh, or go to Founders Press. Yeah. And any, any, any one of those founders .org, uh, you can, you can order the books there and, uh, and, and have those in front of you as well.

01:34:30

So yeah. Download the Just Thinking podcast, wherever you listen to a podcast on your favorite, uh, mobile device, or you can listen online at justthinking .me,

01:34:40

justthinking .me. And then Virgil and I are both active on social media. So, uh, you can find us on social media as well.

01:34:48

All right. It is one of my great joys of, for this YouTube channel to be able to point people in the direction of some good, faithful brothers doing some good work, good resources that will encourage and edify them and strengthen their walk with Christ.

01:35:03

And it is my joy to do that. So folks go their directions. All right. And Virgil and Daryl, Lord willing,

01:35:09

I will see you guys in person in about a month. And, uh, thank you brothers. Thank you very much.

01:35:16

Thanks for having us, man. Love you, man. All right. Love y 'all too. All right. Well, dear ones, thank you very much for joining us.

01:35:23

I hope that this was encouraging and edifying helpful for you to think through these issues. Thank you so much for watching until our next time together.

01:35:30

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of his Holy Spirit be with you all.