The preacher King : Martin Luther King, Jr. and the word that moved America /

This helpful book adds a new dimension to our understanding of Martin Luther King Jr. The focus is on King's preaching--on the spoken form of his sermons as opposed to published versions. The first quarter of the book explores the making of King the preacher, including both his academic study and his apprenticeship under J. Pius Barbour. The remainder analyzes King's sermons with regard to their content, style of delivery, and connection with King's various audiences. Throughout all of this Lishcer intertwines commentary on King as a theologian and a social leader. Of particular interest is the way Lischer deals with King's plagiarism (often arguing against Keith Miller's views) and develops the differences between King's early sermons and those given later in his life. Lischer also tries to differentiate (when possible) the voice of King the human being from King the performer in the public drama of the Civil Rights Movement. This book effectively combines critical analysis with warm admiration for the "Preacher King." Undergraduate through professional; general. D. Jacobsen; Messiah College

Lischer's look at the most important black leader of this century focuses on King's profession and first love, preaching from a pulpit in a small church in Montgomery, Alabama. Interesting facts emerge about King's preaching persona. Unlike many ministers who write sermons constantly, King recycled his sermons, only using about a 100 homilies during his lifetime. Despite King's daily appearances as a public figure, his sermons were almost never self-referential and did not deal with the ongoing civil rights struggle, except within scriptural terms. King was a sermon scholar, drawing on past preachers, such as nineteenth-century bishop Phillips Brooks, for much of his inspiration. Lischer's analysis is sparkling and addresses not only King's sermons but also preaching history. --Joe Collins

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. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

David Garrow, David Lewis, Stephen Oates, and a host of others have sought to measure King (1929-68) as leader, organizer, protester, and target in the Civil Rights movement. Lischer (Duke Univ. Divinity sch.) instead focuses on King as preacher. Relying heavily on unedited tapes and transcripts of King's sermons and speeches, he probes the sources of King's rhetoric and resonance. Lischer seeks out King's teachers and traditions to discover what formed the public voice that turned love and suffering into a vision of deliverance and justice. Lischer argues that as an evangelical prophet King was living out the heritage of a Southern Afro-Baptist, using a liberal theological tradition to purge the enduring iniquity of race in America. Recommended for collections on African Americans, civil rights, modern U.S. history, and homiletics.‘Thomas J. Davis, Buffalo Univ., N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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.