A thorough, textured analysis of the sources and strategies of
Martin Luther King's preaching and rhetoric. Lischer
(Homiletics/Duke Univ. Divinity School) argues that focusing on
King's thought as expressed in his "derivative" academic work
scants the "stunning creativity" of his achievement in articulating
the values and aspirations of the civil rights movement. Thus, in
trying to locate King's true voice, Lischer relies on sources that
he says many biographers overlook: audiotapes and unedited
transcripts of King's sermons and speeches. He traces King's
development as a "preacher's kid," inheriting the Baptist Church's
mixed heritage of resistance and faith in otherworldly relief. At
Morehouse College, King found another influence in the intellectual
idiom of the school's president Benjamin Mays; later, at Crozer
Seminary and Boston University, he drew on broader religious
traditions but never lost his grounding in the black community and
church. Thrust into prominence at 26 as a Montgomery, Ala., church
leader, King responded with his rich intellectual and spiritual
resources; in one of several insightful critiques, Lischer shows
how the preacher galvanized his audience by using repetition of the
word "tired" to connect historical black grievances with
contemporary humiliations. The author demonstrates how King drew on
an enormous range of material - poems, gospel formulas, paragraphs
from speeches of popular white preachers - and inserted them "like
numbers on a jukebox" for maximum effect. Lischer also shows how
King was able to speak authentically to blacks, yet also reach the
larger society by linking social reform with the country's dominant
Christianity. He concludes with analyses of King's choices of
biblical preaching texts, his "first draft" style of preaching,
and, fascinatingly, his powerful voice at mass organizing meetings.
Lischer argues that King was able to frame a broadly based
rationale for racial equality in a historical moment that has since
passed. Worthy stuff, but more detail than most readers will want.
(Kirkus Reviews)
The Preacher King investigates Martin Luther King Jr.'s religious development from a precocious "PK" ("preacher's kid") in segregated Atlanta to the most influential American preacher and orator of the twentieth century.
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