Last week, the banks were shut down due to the federal holiday, but America’s celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. was as muted as ever. The last few years have seen a substantial shift in how America sees the Civil Rights Movement. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, the late Charlie Kirk, Matt Walsh, and several others have all criticized the crowning achievement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the last year when in years prior, this was a third rail issue. How did we get here?
The first answer is discernment bloggers. The narrative that MLK is the prime example of Christian political engagment is rife in liberal Evangelicalism. Russell Moore’s MLK 50 in 2018 was a Super Bowl of Southern Baptist wokeness. However, many solid Baptists were making known the heretical views of MLK, among them Pulpit and Pen, Reformation Charlotte, and Virgil Walker.
And while Evangelical Dark Web can take some credit for dismantling the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I never pursued writing about MLK because the work has been done already, and there is little mystery. It’s an air tight case that he was a false teacher, based on beliefs and behavior.
Secondly, the right began criticizing the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. Two prominent figures who were earlier than most are John Doyle and Carl Benjamin. Their work drew sharp parallels between the 1960s and the lived experience of fighting wokeness today. In many ways, it’s the same battle. Justified police shootings leading to race riots is hardly a Black Lives Matter invention, but rather it was their inheritance.
Jason Whitlock hosted a debate on MLK between Delano Squires in the affirmative and Chad Jackson in the negative. Both agreed that MLK was not a Christian based on his stated beliefs. However, Delano Squires argues that there isn’t enough evidence to say that MLK was a Marxist, citing that MLK argued that communism and Christianity were incompatible. Chad Jackson argued that MLK was yoked to communists and that communists are intentionally deceitful. He further followed up in a line of questioning, pointing out that if MLK was not a Christian, then he would be compatible with communism.
It was an interesting debate that Chad Jackson thoroughly won. But even haivng the debate shows how far the right has come.
With Republicans urging state legislatures to do away with DEI districts that hand Democrats free House seats because of the Voting Rights Act, it’s clear that they as a whole are questioning the legacy of MLK and the Civil Rights Movement as a whole.
Among Christians, the celebration of MLK has been muted as well, with Christian Post leading the way clumsily. So, it’s fascinating to see the idols of liberalism come under scrutiny and ultimately smashed. But this is not a sudden development but rather the sowing of the faithful bearing fruit today.
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MLK had so many communist front affiliations when he first came to Chicago (a democrat run city even at that time though majority white, probably 80%) MLK could not get an audience with Mayor Daily. By the time he was killed in Memphis he was down there supporting a garbage man’s strike if memory serves. He had become passe in his usefulness so in killing him they were able to use him as a martyr and whitewash who he actually was. Much as they did Lincoln since the civil war.