The Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of the theology of Martin Luther King's response to the experience of black oppression in America as illustrative of a transition to a new anthropological focus for Christian theology. This emerging focus is reflected specifically in the development of various theologies of minority concern and in the Humanum Studies of the World Council of Churches. Especially do the observations and findings of the latter suggest that theology address itself concretely to the problem of being human by directing its efforts at the removal of the dehumanizing features of the human situation, by contributing a doctrine of man that interprets genuine humanity in concrete terms that cannot be made to sanction man's inhumanity to man, and by moving the human situation toward that understanding of genuine humanity. [See dissertation for the rest of the abstract.]