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Showing posts from January 15, 2012

Martin Luther King, Jr. Pastor-Preacher

One of my beefs with the coverage of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was that no one , I mean no one , that I heard or watched ever mentioned he was a pastor of a local church long before he led a national movement for civil rights. Why is that important? He was a preacher , not a public speaker. He was a pastor , not a community organizer. He preached Sunday after Sunday from the Bible that dealt with real issues in his congregation's life , and from addressing those needs in a biblical-theological way, the message from the local church touched the community, state, nation and then the world . Mervyn A. Warren in his book King Came Preaching wrote that King believed God and his people, not governments and community organizations would change the world. "In the sermons of King, then, God is the sustaining power in the universe whose presence assures the ultimate triumph of good over evil. As the One who provides human beings with inner resources to meet life's pr