To the end of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. pressed for solutions to the problems of race, inequality, and poverty in the United States. He was willing to consider fairly radical proposals, though always in a basic American framework. Martin Luther King and his father accepted the American dream, simply demanding that the promises America made be kept. The more one reads the younger King, the more the influence of Daddy King is evident. Martin Luther King Senior was... Read more
God’s church must be built and sustained God’s way. What is that way? Reverend Doctor King looks to God’s Word for guidelines in how His people can grow a good work. After all, “. . .we in the church don’t want the funds of grace cut off from the divine treasury . . .” King finds guidelines in the message of the Lord in the Temple where Jesus fulfills the message of the prophet Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord... Read more
Listen, then read the sermons of Martin Luther King Jr. Do so in parallel with apostolic fathers like Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, or Justin Martyr. You will hear the same prophetic voice and many of the same themes. Against the heresy that Jesus was not really embodied, Ignatius pointed to his own coming martyrdom and real sufferings. King uses the suffering of African-Americans and his own personal troubles as also bearing the marks of Christ. Ignatius has his... Read more
Listen to the sermon. Listen to the people interacting with the preacher, changing the sermon by their silences or their loud responses. Read what you have heard and learn. Find what the Spirit was saying through this servant. Disagree, if disagree we must on some details, later. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. was a global statesman, a brilliant strategist, and civil rights leader. All of these jobs were in harmony with his first and most enduring role: pastor, preacher,... Read more
The African American Church had the experience and intellectual resources to produce and deal with one of the great American leaders of the last century: Martin Luther King Jr. The son of a pastor, descendant of other pastors, King was first a preacher. To understand anything else King did, one must being with King as preacher. The start of the academic year at The College finds me reading King with ears to hear, today learning from The Dimensions of a Complete Life. ... Read more
Martin Luther King was a pastor descended from pastors. Recall that when King was introduced at the March on Washington, he was the Reverend, the doctorate was unmentioned. As a brilliant preacher, the son of a great pastor (Daddy King), Martin Luther King gained much of his moral authority from the African-American church. The start of the academic year at The College finds me reading King with ears to hear, beginning near the end of his ministry with The Drum Major Instinct. This... Read more
The election is about Trump, the Democratic Nominee is a Choice Between Two Options An advantage of being a Lincoln-Roosevelt-Reagan Republican is that I can always look at the battle for the Democratic nomination fairly objectively. This next election will center around the incumbent. The economy is good and at peace (relative to the last twenty years). An aggregate of polls shows that Trump is within reach of the poll numbers he needs to win, but he has (generally) stayed... Read more
For as God lives, and as the Lord Jesus Christ lives and the Holy Spirit (on whom the elect believe and hope), the man who with humility and eager considerateness and with no regrets does what God has decreed and ordered will be enlisted and enrolled in the ranks of those who are saved through Jesus Christ. Through him be the glory to God forever and ever. Amen. Clement: disciple of the Apostles So says the author known as Clement,... Read more
“If you don’t buy this timeshare now,” he said to us, “then you will regret it the rest of your life.” He was persuasive and we had experienced a wonderful free weekend at his property. “Wouldn’t we like to visit again?” Surely. “What of these other places? We could use “points” there and visit. Wouldn’t that be great?” Yes, maybe. I responded: ‘We better go home and think about this. . .” He shook his head. His look was all... Read more
University education, financed by debt, without a coherent center, has lost the unified vision that kept it from being a multiversity. The trouble with a multiversity is that it presents the world as if there are “truths” over in the literature department at odds with the “truths” found in the engineering department. There is no center, no commonality, no shared values between the two. We could do job or skills training cheaply through apprenticeships. The university was to give us a unified... Read more
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