MLK Day

[Haruo]

I have requested Monday the 18th off so I can make it to the Evergreen MLK Day service at New Beginnings. Wondering if any of the rest of you have either local or regional recognition of the only American Baptist to have a federal holiday named for him.

[Ed Pettibone]

I have requested Monday the 18th off so I can make it to the Evergreen MLK Day service at New Beginnings. Wondering if any of the rest of you have either local or regional recognition of the only American Baptist to have a federal holiday named for him.

Ed: Hauro, although I am proud to claim Dr. King as the most influential individual with whom I ever had a bit of personal interaction, I am not sure that we in the ABC-USA can honestly claim him as ours alone. I acknowledge that you you did not do that but your post did cause me to do a search.

It is true that MLK Jr. Graduated Crozer Theological Seminary which at the time was a small school (90 students ) in Chester Pennsylivania, In 1970 Crozer merged with Colgate Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, New York, which like Crozer had its roots in the Triennial Convention and Northern Baptist.

In looking at the histories of the two Churches where he served, Ebeneezer in Atlanta, where he was an associate with his father and Dexter Avenue in Montgomery where he pastored, I find no mention of affiliation other than BAPTIST.

I would therefore suggest this thread be moved to the more general "Baptist Faith & Practice Forum."

[Haruo]

Done. I put it in ABC because my post was centered on an Evergreen Regional event, but certainly our convention has no lock on Dr. King. Indeed, he is in the Episcopal Church's book of saints, and there are MLK hymns in their hymnals.

I was interested to learn the other day, and bemused to think that I'd never learned it previously (or it hadn't stuck) that MLK was born Michael King, and that his dad changed both their names from Michael to Martin Luther when Jr. was five or six years old, following a visit to Nazi Germany for the BWA convention.