Trego's Mountain Ear

I accidentally ran across a couple of student papers written by Martin Luther King during the 1949-50 school year.  The first was a brief paper “A Study of Mithraism” “A Study of Mithraism” | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute and the second included the research on the first and is titled “The Influence of Mystery Religions on Christianity.”  “The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity” | The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute

He was a beginning grad student when he wrote the papers – both of which deal with some touchy areas for a minister.  Frankly, the papers are pretty darned good – particularly when you consider that there was no internet to use for search routines, and he was limited to the libraries of relatively small colleges (his doctorate, at Boston University) was still in the future when these were written.

It was fun to read how a young MLK researched the commonalities between the Mystery cults, between Mithraism, Isis, Osiris and Christianity – and see that he was capable of recognizing that the many religions of that area exchanged stories, myths if you have it, that later became part of the Christian story.  Seeing Martin Luther King Jr. as a young graduate student, instead of the mature civil rights leader was humanizing.  For most of my life I have respected the man for his courage.  Reading his student papers brought an additional respect for his willingness to research a hard topic, and do it well.  The links are worth clicking, and his essays worth reading.