The Preacher King: Martin Luther
King, Jr. and the Word that Moved
America by Richard Lischer
Preacher King Review
At a turning point in American history, Martin Luther King, Jr., the minister
of a small black Baptist church, was able to accomplish the impossible: he
transposed the themes of love, suffering, and justice from the sacred
shelter of the pulpit into the arena of public policy. The Preacher King
chronicles Martin Luther King, Jr.s religious development from his
childhood as a preachers kid in segregated Atlanta to the most influential
American orator of the twentieth-century. Richard Lischer draws almost
exclusively on Kings unpublished sermons and speeches to give the most
accurate portrait possible. Utilizing speeches, recordings, interviews, and
even police surveillance reports, Lischer shows the unedited King and
reveals his real African-American preaching voice. But King was also
profoundly influenced by Gandhi and philosophers such as Hegel, Marx,
Thoreau, and Freud, and blended both into his compelling vision of

brotherhood and and justice which electrified audiences nationwide.
Lischer also focuses on the much ignored later phase of Kings
development wherein he was consumed by prophetic rage, leading him to
condemn American religious and political hypocrisy. In The Preacher
King, Lischer has captured the crucial identity of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Here is a complex human being who, unlike any other preacher in living
memory, never gave up trying to shape a congregation of people that
would be capable of redeeming the moral and political character of a
nation.
Personal Review: The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr.
and the Word that Moved America by Richard Lischer
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.
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