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The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word that Moved America Paperback – April 20, 1995

by Richard Lischer (Author)

9 customer reviews

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Today it seems extraordinary that a nation the size of the United States could have been so profoundly affected by the minister of a little Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama. But at a turning point in American history, Martin Luther King, Jr., had an incalculable effect on the fabric of daily life and the laws of the nation. As no other preacher in living memory and no politician since Lincoln, he transposed the themes of love, suffering, deliverance, and justice from the sacred shelter of the pulpit into the arena of public policy. He was the last great religious reformer in America. How the man who always saw himself as "fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher" crafted his strategic vision and moved a nation to renewal is the subject of this remarkable new book.
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. To give the most accurate and intimate portrait possible, author Richard Lischer draws almost exclusively on King's unpublished sermons and speeches, as well as tape recordings, personal interviews, and even police surveillance reports. In King's published works, Lischer shows, King and his editors modified and polished his sermons in order to reach as wide an audience as possible. By returning to the raw sources, Lischer recaptures King's real, African-American, preaching voice and, consequently, something of the real King himself. He shows how as the son, the grandson, and the great-grandson of preachers, King early on absorbed the poetic cadences, the traditions, and the power of the pulpit. He traces King's coming of age from his rebellious teenage years (King once wrote that at thirteen he shocked his Sunday School class by "denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus") to his arrival in Montgomery, where he took on the role of "Brother Pastor" to his flock during the year of ministry before he burst into national prominence. Lischer shows that King was as profoundly influenced by his fellow African-American preachers as he was by Gandhi and the philosophers, and tracks King's themes of brotherhood and justice from the set pieces of his weekly sermons to his electrifying mass meeting speeches, demonstrations, and civil addresses. Lischer also reveals a later phase of King's development that few of his biographers or critics have addressed: the prophetic rage with which he condemned American religious and political hypocrisy. During the last three years of his life, Lischer shows, King accused his country of genocide, warned of long hot summers in the ghettos, and called for a radical redistribution of wealth.
More than any other book, The Preacher King captures the crucial aspect of the identity of Martin Luther King, Jr. Human, complex, and passionate, here is a preacher who never gave up trying to shape a congregation of people that would be capable of redeeming the moral and political character of the nation.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s quest for justice, his insistence on nonviolence and his prophetic rage are themes that resound in the sermons he delivered as a preacher. Beginning with his formative years in Atlanta's Baptist-African church, where his father was a minister, through his own pastorate in Montgomery, Alabama, this careful, illuminating study shows how King transposed the Judeo-Christian themes of love, suffering, deliverance and justice into the civil rights arena. Lischer, professor of homiletics at Duke University's Divinity School, draws heavily on audiotapes and transcripts of King's unedited, original sermons and speeches. He devotes particular attention to King's final three years, when he abandoned liberal rhetoric, accused America of racial genocide, warned of possible urban riots and called for a redistribution of wealth. Lischer argues persuasively that King was influenced by his fellow African-American preachers as much as by Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Lischer (Duke Univ. Divinity Sch.) explores King's use of language to show his many preaching influences and the political tactics and church-tradition antecedents behind his rhapsodic flourishes?how, for instance, refrains from several speeches he'd given on different stumps around the country came together into the "I Have a Dream" address one inspired day by the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product details

Paperback: 360 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1st edition (April 20, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0195087798
ISBN-13: 978-0195087796
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.1 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
Average Customer Review: 9 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,872,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5045 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Ministry & Evangelism > Preaching
- #5188 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Ministry & Evangelism > Sermons
- #5566 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Worship & Devotion > Sermons

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Lischer beautifully captures preaching styles in the African-American community

ByG. Fisheron June 8, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

A very perceptive reflection on preaching by Martin Luther King, Jr. The book shows how Dr King's preaching reflects both liberal protestant ways of thinking and the experience of the African-American community, and how his preaching changed over the course of his ministry. Lischer beautifully captures preaching styles in the African-American community, and shows how some readers have misunderstood Dr King's use of material borrowed from other preachers and adapted from earlier sermons of his own. Overall, a helpful and engagingly written account of the work by a master of preaching.

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Martin Luther King

ByHotcakes Dennison March 14, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Having been a teenager at the time of the Civil Rights movement I haven't been able to appreciate the efforts nor the persona of the movement leaders. The one that stands out is Martin Luther King! This book has provided me with indepth knowledge of the man, his leadership, his achievements and his failures.

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Insightful!

ByMichael Mon January 26, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

"The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word that Moved America " by Richard Lischer is very insightful and a great read. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a master of words. Richard Lischer expressed the life and preaching of MLK using elegant keen dictum as the pages flow from one to the next.

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Not for everyone

ByAmazon Customeron November 30, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

this can be boring reading and comes across more as a doctoral dissertation than an accounting of his speeches

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Excellent Evaluation of King's Preaching & Theology

ByrodboomboomHALL OF FAMEon December 31, 2001

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

One can easily see why this book was awarded the Outstanding Book of 1995 by the Religious Speech Communication Assoc., it is so well written. The research appears exhaustive, the writer is is firm touch with his subject matter, having poured over sermon manuscripts and listened to tape after tape, and conducted interview upon interview.
One is able to grasp the essence of King's preaching from this reading. Long suspecting that King comes out of the liberal element in the church, this confirmed that suspiscion. The theology and subsequent preaching is far from what my confession would maintain as Biblical. This is social gospel, theology not from heaven down, but earth up, trying to impose its agenda upon God, rather than letting His word and plan of salvation have its way.
While one can easily relate to the race problems and frustrations with an American that would not listen to the pleas, but an America that responded violently, there remains no cause to make the precious Gospel a political one. Jesus had attempts to preach such freedom from political oppression, but in each and every instance, He maintained the gospel at the level it is intended, spiritual.
King thus is out of sync with his namesake, Martin Luther, as well as the historic Christian church. The gospel is about the forgiveness of sins for the life everlasting. As the famous hymn sings: "What is the World to Me?"
This book is vibrant with the complexities of the background and influences on King's theology and preaching. Enjoyed it, yet sad that the title "preacher" is applied to such a false teacher of God's Word. To apply humanity's agenda above and beyond God's is the height of sin and rebellion.

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Preacher King Review

ByJ. Graveson July 7, 2009

Format: Paperback

Richard Lischer, scholar and professor at Duke Divinity, supplies both the student of history and local pastor a wonderful gift with his work, The Preacher King: Martin Luther King Jr.and the Word that Moved America. Combining history, theology, New Testament scholarship, politics, and narrative criticism as very few can--Lischer paints a detailed yet complete picture of the life and legacy of one of America's great religious leaders.

I suggest Richard Lischer's Preacher King for two reasons. First, Lischer has the rare ability to capture the tension and ethos of 1960's America. The Civil Right Era has become a source of nostalgia for some. Lischer refuses to buy into this hype-machine by closely immersing himself back into the world of those who marched in Selma, Montgomery, and Memphis. "Despite the enforced intimacy of the races, a rigid caste system, buttressed by dozens of local statutes, forbade blacks and whites to acknowledge the life they in fact held in common. A local statute went so far as to bar whites and blacks from playing cards, dice, checkers, or dominoes together. Restrooms and drinking fountains were clearly marked. By law, a white person and a Negro could not share a taxi. The segregation of restaurants and public transportation was carried out with a routine cruelty that left the black citizens of Montgomery, like those of most southern cities, humiliated and burning with resentment." You will find an absence of over-sentimentalized anecdotes and conversations: Lischer understands all too well how the stakes were during this tumultuous period in American history.

Second, Lischer paints a nuanced portrait of Dr. King as the Civil Right's Moses-figure. Lischer pays close attention to Dr. King's ethos, rhetorical skill, knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, historical context, intellectual heroes, as well as his intense personal connection to the African-American church. Unlike some depictions, Lischer avoids the pitfalls of depicting King a secular humanitarian or as a mere social insurrectionist with an axe to grind. Rather, Lischer clearly demonstrates the manner in which Dr. King sees his own life as a holy improvisation, living out the dangerous love of Jesus in marches, prisons, restaurant sit-ins, and church bombings. With racism (Pharaoh) pressing in, Jim Crow government laws forming insurmountable walls on all sides (Red Sea), King (Moses) led his people to the other side. Dr. King prepared the people for what God was going to do next (Canaan) though he himself, like Moses, would not experience the land "flowing with milk and honey." Lischer presents Dr. King for what he was: a young black Baptist preacher-prophet who named, exposed, and in his death, unmasked the systemic powers of darkness. This book will prepare you to re-imagine the God who liberates (all) his people from oppression and domination.