Quite possibly the best thing I’ve heard regarding faith in government in a long, long time.

This post is in response to an article brought to my attention by a friend. The author has cross-posted on his own personal blog as well. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has always been a hero of mine, and I’ve seen enough trash on the net (and in shock-umentaries) that I’ve finally decided to buckle down and clear it up all in one spot.

**Update: My comments aren’t being approved for some reason over at alanstang.com. Others who have commented after me are getting approved for some reason. How’s that for intellectual honesty?

I want to address some of Stang’s talking points here, mostly because I thought he was incorrect both in fact and in perspective. The quotes below appear in Mr. Alan Stang’s article, linked above.

Let’s start out with Mr. Stang’s opening statement.

Because of intense, lifelong brainwashing, not enough Americans yet understand that Mike (Martin Luther) King, Jr., is an even bigger fraud; that in fact everything we have been told about him is phony, even starting with his name, which his father changed to enhance their career in religion. As part of the uncelebration of the phony holiday inflicted in his name, here again is our annual rendition of the facts.

First, let’s establish the fact that Mr. Stang is unquestionably exaggerated in his claims. Note the exaggeration in his leading statements. “Intense,” “lifelong,” national brainwashing. Everything we have been told about him is phony. One must wonder whether what other points he might have overstated.

Oddly enough, one of Mr. Stang’s leading points is how Dr. King’s name was actually Michael. Does a name change mean someone is immoral or insincere? I don’t really think so, and I find it odd that Mr. Stang needs to bring it up to try to support his points. Sir, you might as well accuse father Abraham (or Abram, if you prefer) of being a phony.

Next, Mr. Stang shares with us the pinhole of History from which he views Dr. Kings life and works:

There are five aspects of the King career: his Communism, his violence, his plagiarism, the fact that he was a sexual predator… and the fact that he did not believe in Christianity.

This is really where I want to focus. Mr. Stang, I believe you may have somehow left out his campaign of non-violence and his crusade against segregation, racism, and the Vietnam war.

Oh, and he was the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

How odd of you to focus on everything but the good. Why is it you purposely overlooked the mountain of good Dr. King did, and instead focused on the alleged weaknesses of the man instead? What could be your motive, sir?

Most of the rest of the article is rumor and conjecture, from spotty sources. For example, Drue Lackey seems to be the authority on Dr. King’s campaign efforts. Lackey was in fact a police chief in Montgomery, Alabama. Since his performance was under fire as a result of Dr. Kings efforts, one might wonder how skewed Lackey’s views might have been.

Interesting history fact of the moment: The name of the police officer who booked Rosa Parks was named Drue Lackey.

Next are the non-issues of the FBI tapes and Dr. King as a “sexual predator.”

The FBI tapes mentioned were a result of the current administration being paranoid about Dr. King’s alleged communist ties. One of Dr. Kings speech writers and advisers, Stanley D. Levinson was suspected of having ties to the movement in the US, so they wiretapped phones as Dr. King moved across the country. From wikipedia:

The attempt to prove that King was a Communist was in keeping with the feeling of many segregationists that blacks in the South were happy with their lot but had been stirred up by “communists” and “outside agitators.” Lawyer-advisor Stanley D. Levinson did have ties with the Communist Party in various business dealings, but the FBI refused to believe its own intelligence bureau reports that Levinson was no longer associated in that capacity.

Some of the late-night conversation was recorded. Some of it included “midnight talk,” which sounds to me like it amounts to what teenage boys sometimes indulge in around the campfire late at night. The FBI, and the administration used these tapes to accuse Dr. King of extramarital affairs, and Mr. Stang accuses him of much more.

Once major “source” of this information was published in 1989 by a friend of Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy, in a book called And The Walls Came Tumbling Down. The book was reviewed in The New York Times, and the allegations were discussed in that review. Abernathy said that he only wrote the term “womanizing”, and did not specifically say King had an affair.

…He freed many white people and poor people who were black, American Indians, the native people of this country and he was just a marvelous and fantastic leader and I am surprised that they would center on four pages and I didn’t ever say that he had sex with anybody.
Booknotes Review

Also, evidence indicating that King possibly engaged in sexual affairs is detailed by history professor David Garrow in his book Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, published in 1986 by William Morrow & Company; though it was not proven whether he agreed to have sex with a woman the night before his assassination as Mr. Stang asserts.

If anything I think you’re grasping at straws, Mr. Stang. I don’t see how some loose midnight talk with the buddies somehow negates a career and life literally sacrificed for equality and non-violence. Sure, it’s wrong, but is it as bad as you paint it to be, and can you really make the rock-solid claims you pretend to?

Next is the claims about plagiarism. Mr. Stang exaggeratedly reports that Dr. King “was a world-class plagiarist who stole just about everything that appeared in his name.”

Turns out he did copy some work he did in graduate school while at Boston University. He copied about a third of a paper he submitted. One needs to also note, however, that university officials decided not to revoke his degree, since the paper still “makes an intelligent contribution to scholarship.”

Other claims about copying ideas for his famous I Have a Dream speech are essentially urban legend.

Dear goodness Mr. Stang - he cheated on a paper in college AND he was joking around about the ladies at night with a friend? Does that really stand out to you amongst his accomplishments?

I’d address the claims about Dr. King’s Christianity, but I think it’s enough to say that a man’s faith is is own affair, and the judgement of it (especially by non-contextual quotes and your own opinion of them) isn’t in the least bit productive. One also must note that even non-Christians somehow manage to contribute to society. I think Ghandi may take offense to your premise that Christianity is a pre-requisite to greatness.

Mr. Stang, congratulations. You’ve succeeded in your quest to reduce greatness to garbage, but I think you’ll find it’s a result of your perspective rather than your premises. Somehow you’ve forgotten all that Martin Luther King Jr. stands for in your quest for his weaknesses and faults. I also think you’ve been trusting too much in urban legend and biased witnesses.

As for me, I’ll continue to enjoy the legacy of the movement Dr. King started. His wisdom his passion - in light of all his faults - I think he was truly a great man worth celebrating every year.

I believe in evolution and think “intelligent design” is wrong and “creationism” should stay out of public schools.

There. I said it.

Seems to be a lot of buzz on the Internet lately about the direct conflict between science and religion. As a religious person and a believer in science, I think it’s really a whole lot of arguing for nothing.

Maybe it’s because both camps seem to be taking cheap shots. Atheists seem to like to package the entirety of religious thought into a big straw man they can knock down whenever they please. Hello people. Not all of us are raving lunatics who expect no proof other than the biblical.

Faithful Christians seem to characterize evolutionists as evil God-haters who are trying to undermine the Christian-Judeo roots of our nation. These horrible people are trying to justify animal like behaviors and have no souls.

I believe there are a number of things we need to take into account in order to reconcile Christianity and evolution. It really isn’t that hard, so let me take a stab at it.

First, Genesis is not a scientific text. It was inspired and delivered to an audience that spans six thousand years of readership. I think it was smart to leave it sparse on technical or scientific detail, since the working model for what we know changes quite a bit. If God had written it for a technical audience, it might have made sense for 20 years worth of readers at best.  Genesis is a story that is a teaching tool. It’s not meant for scientific fact.

Frankly, I don’t personally believe God designed the body of man or animal. I just don’t see it. I think it rather obvious that he didn’t design his own body. I assume he got it from parents, just like we get bodies from parents. Genesis is also full of the phrase “after his/its own kind” or “from its own seed”. I’d imagine that’s on purpose. Sounds a lot like evolution to me - things reproducing after their own kind. The temple language is even more clear in this regard.

To me, the majesty of creation (and by “creation” we realize that it means “organization”) is the brilliance of being able to compose a complete ecosystem that has worked for ages. A few tigers here, a few horses there. Add some grasses and algae here - need some more bugs there. Brilliant. I don’t think God created or designed the bodies of animals. I do believe he brought them here – maybe he even bred or co-located species for certain purposes – but I dont’ see much scriptural support for design.

There are things I don’t understand: one of them being this cro-magnon stooped over ape-like character we see so much. I don’t think we can discount the existence of these finds: but it’s no theological show-stopper for me. There are literally mountains of data in favor of some evolution-like technique happening to life forms for millions of years. It’s not our job to ignore it, it’s our job to incorporate it.

As such, I’m a firm believer that “creationism” and “intelligent design” are horrifically bad choices for classroom curriculum. First, it isn’t science because it deals with supernatural phenomenon. Stuff that can’t be tested. Secondly, you’re opening a legal nightmare by bringing religion into school. Everybody and their grandma will want their version of the story covered. Thirdly, who wants some public school teacher instructing their kids in religious tenets? Not me. I prefer that job myself.
There’s no reason we need this stuff in schools, and there’s no reason faithful Christians can’t accept the theory of evolution.