King "wanted to develop an intellectually respectable form of Christianity that did not require people to simply abandon their rational, critical abilities," Carson said. The essential truth King saw, according to Carson, was the social gospel -- "to see the Bible as a message of spiritual redemption and global social justice." [Emphasis Added.]
[However]
Duke Divinity School Professor Richard Lischer, who has extensively studied and written about King's theology, believes that his rejection of literalism has to be viewed in context.
King went to seminary and received a doctorate from two bastions of liberal theology, Crozer Theological Seminary and Boston University, respectively. A professor told him that neither Moses nor the exodus were real -- an irony, given that King was called "new Moses" for his role during the civil rights era.
Literalists were also linchpins of segregation, said Lischer, author of "The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word that Moved America." To accomplish his goals, Lischer said, King had to distance himself from them.http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/15/MLK.TMP
For those who read my essay, An Appraisal of the Evangelical Power Structure: A Duality between Faith and Enlightenment, I don't feel so bad for spending so much time on it. :)
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