"King was a proponent of the separation of church and state and also one of religion's most ardent critics. ...

Though King's legacy is often inextricably linked to his faith in God, he was hardly a cheerleader for the church as he found it and is best understood as a philosopher and social leader who happened to be passionately committed to Jesus Christ. For example, King believed the church had failed to fight for peace and social and economic justice. He also chided churches across the United States for having done little to fight segregation and racism. ...

Moreover, King was hardly a proponent of contemporary dogma -- the kind that insists on favoring creationism over evolution. King berated what he called softmindedness. 'Softminded individuals', he said, 'are prone to embrace all kinds of superstitions. . . . The soft-minded man always fears change.' More specifically, King wrote:

'Softmindedness often invades religion. This is why religion has sometimes rejected new truth with a dogmatic passion. Through edits and bulls, inquisitions and excommunications, the church has attempted to prorogue truth and place an impenetrable stone wall in the path of the truth-seeker.'

He goes on to criticize soft-minded persons for having 'revised the Beatitudes to read, "Blessed are the pure in ignorance: for they shall see God."'

Defending the importance of science, King wrote, 'Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism.' This appreciation of science, though hardly acknowledged by most, isn't surprising. In arguing against notions of black racial inferiority, he frequently cited current anthropological research that revealed what he called 'the falsity of such a notion.' And on more than one occasion, he even lauded 'the philological-historical criticism of biblical literature', saying it 'has been of immeasurable value and should be defended with religious and scientific passion.' We don't hear much today about how King was positively influenced by such atheistic, existentialist philosophers as Friedrich Nietzsche and John Paul Sartre. Yet King said, while 'finding things to question in each, I nevertheless learned a great deal from study of them.'