Was MLK a true Modern Prophet?

[DeBunkem]

Consider the difference between Pat Robertson (and so many others like him nowadays) and Martin Luther King...a minister who spoke against the evil he saw in his country rather than try to be a part of it. His interest went far beyond the usual bland references to his "Dream" speech, which is about all that the Corporate media will say about him. His speech on Vietnam seems prescient. Some excerpts:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeche ... ilence.htm

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality... we will find ourselves organizing "clergy and laymen concerned" committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

So now, just as MLK predicted, we are still stuck in the quagmire of new Vietnams,
new tarbabies of petroleum Conquests, and all the division and hatemongering resulting here in the "Homeland." The George Wallaces have multiplied. Challenge imperialist societal assumptions and be accused of anti-Americanism by the new McCarthyists. The way to healing was also pointed out...and ignored. A year later to the day, MLK was assasinated by a right wing racist. Coincidence?

[Abraxas]

Depends on how one defines "prophet" I suppose. In this regard, to me, he seems more like any other social commentator who made realistic judgments as to how the nation behaves. He observed then that the US has a tendency to find problems with regimes all over the world so long as they have something we want and continue to use armed force to secure it for us. He isn't the first to make the observation.

Smedley Butler, Major General in the US Army was quoted as saying this in 1935:

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class thug for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

Martin Luther King was well aware of the history of the US, he knew the track record we hold in regards to the lengths we will go to for profit. Extrapolating that would continue unless there was a major shift in American attitude wasn't prophetic, it was merely observant.

[DeBunkem]

Agreed. I certainly would not credit him with any imaginary divine insight. But those "inspired" prophecies have all failed or are too vague to be tested. I suggest that "prophecy" or prediction based upon knowledge of history and the behavior of Empires is much more likely to be "spot on." The only part missing in King's prediction is the name of the upcoming countries of Conquest. But this was before the country became obsessed with petrol and the shortages of '71. These shortages were also accurately "prophesized" as well....also by non-religious methods.

The late Dr. M. King Hubbert, geophysicist, is well known as a world authority on the estimation of energy resources and on the prediction of their patterns of discovery and depletion.

He was probably the best known geophysicist in the world to the general public because of his startling prediction, first made public in 1949, that the fossil fuel era would be of very short duration. "Energy from Fossil Fuels, Science" [scanned, 260 kb] [Printing aids] [February 4, 1949]

His prediction in 1956 that U.S.oil production would peak in about 1970 and decline thereafter was scoffed at then but his analysis has since proved to be remarkably accurate. See Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels by M. King Hubbert, Chief Consultant (General Geology), Exploration and Production Research Division, Shell Development Company, Publication Number 95, Houston, Texas, June 1956, Presented before the Spring Meeting of the Southern District, American Petroleum Institute, Plaza Hotel, San Antonio, Texas, March 7-8-9, 1956.

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/Hubbert/

"Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know."
M. King Hubbert

[cnorman18]

In Jewish tradition, "prophecy" is not about predicting the future, but speaking the truth of God. In that sense, Dr. King absolutely was a prophet, in the spirit of Amos and Jeremiah. He spoke for JUSTICE and TRUTH. He never claimed that God spoke to him - when he said "Thus saith the Lord," he was quoting from the Bible, not a personal conversation with Him, as Oral Roberts and Peter Popoff and other fakers claim - but he was no less a prophet anyway.

King, to me, was a shining example of what Christianity ought to be and seldom is. He was, first and last, a Baptist minister and never claimed to be anything else; and if all ministers were like him, I doubt that atheists and non-Christians would have much to complain about. It's a pity that he was and remains such a towering and unique figure on the American religious scene. We need more of him.

[JoeyKnothead]

In Jewish tradition, "prophecy" is not about predicting the future, but speaking the truth of God. In that sense, Dr. King absolutely was a prophet, in the spirit of Amos and Jeremiah. He spoke for JUSTICE and TRUTH. He never claimed that God spoke to him - when he said "Thus saith the Lord," he was quoting from the Bible, not a personal conversation with Him, as Oral Roberts and Peter Popoff and other fakers claim - but he was no less a prophet anyway.

King, to me, was a shining example of what Christianity ought to be and seldom is. He was, first and last, a Baptist minister and never claimed to be anything else; and if all ministers were like him, I doubt that atheists and non-Christians would have much to complain about. It's a pity that he was and remains such a towering and unique figure on the American religious scene. We need more of him.

Agreed in principle. I'd be reticent to think we need more religious leaders in terms of increased power, but I could certainly agree if such leaders had the vision of MLK I couldn't complain too much.

[Slopeshoulder]

I say he was a prophet because he fearlessly spoke truth to power, grounded in a religious commitment, with keen insight. That's what prophets ARE. They are not soothsayers. Never were. I got this by reading post-Bultmannian exegesis. MLK counts. As does Ghandi.
As to Robertson, I had dismissed Satan and the Antichrist as literary fictions, but he makes me want to reconsider.