Revisioning the Church: Martin Luther King Jr. as a Model for Reflection

2008 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-40
Author(s):  
Lewis V. Baldwin
2018 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 318-328
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Jones

In this article, Dr. John Barclay’s work in Pauline studies and particularly his research on the ancient notion of gift (charis [χάρις]) will be used to inform the modern social—and really the theological—predicament of race and place for the church of Jesus Christ. While reviews and reflections of Barclay’s work have focused on the author’s place in the so-called New Perspective and intertestamental understandings of soteriological constructs in the NT, his theological utility for systematics engaging in the social sciences, ethics and practical theology have largely remained unexplored. Civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., famously opined, ‘We must face the fact that…the church is still the most segregated major institution…’ With this in mind, Barclay offers a genuine gift to our understanding of charis, which has implications for the post-segregated church today as she finds herself in a racialized world of brokenness and disparity. This paper will aim to creatively explore the theological utility of Barclay’s work in this intersection of race and place for the church, as she bears witness to the gracious gift of God in Christ.


2020 ◽  
pp. 67-84
Author(s):  
Richard Lischer

This chapter details the events that followed Martin Luther King, Jr.’s arrival in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1954 when he assumed the pastorate of the most distinguished Negro church in the city, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Dexter was built during Reconstruction on the site of one of the city’s four slave pens. As a black church, it therefore occupies an incongruously central location in the old city of Montgomery. King approached Dexter Avenue Baptist Church as the first test of all that he had learned from the church and his mentors. Even before the Boycott of 1955–56, Dexter had proved to be every bit the challenge he was looking for.


1970 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-139
Author(s):  
Coretta Scott King

“Sometimes—yes sometimes—the good Lord … I say the good Lord … accepts his own perfection, and closes his eyes, and goes ahead, and takes his own good time, and he makes himself a man. Yes! And sometimes that man gets hold of the idea of what he's supposed to do in this world, and he gets an idea of what it is possible for him to do. And that man lets that idea guide him as he grows and struggles, and stumbles, and sorrows … until finally he comes into his own God-given shape, and achieves his own individual and lonely place in this world. It don't happen often. Oh, no! But when it does, then even the stones will cry out in witness to his vision, and the hills and towers will echo his words and deeds, and his example will live in the breasts of men forever. … So you look at him awhile, and be thankful—that the Lord let such a man touch our lives, even if it were only for a little while.”


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