martin luther king jr dissertation pdf

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The papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Home > Calvin Theological Seminary > Student Scholarship > PhD Dissertations > 14

CTS PhD Doctoral Dissertations

Unearned suffering is redemptive: the roots and implications of martin luther king, jr.’s redemptive suffering theodicy.

Mika Edmondson , CalvinTheological Seminary Follow

Date of Award

Document type.

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

First Reader

Ronald J. Feenstra

Second Reader

Mary L. Vanden Berg

Third Reader

Lee P. Hardy

Fourth Reader

Rufus Burrow, Jr.

This dissertation analyzes the roots and implications of Martin Luther King Jr.'s redemptive suffering theodicy, reconsidering its continued relevance to contemporary discussions about theodicy among black theologians and within the black church. Through his home and church influences, King inherited a nearly 250-year-old black redemptive suffering tradition that traces back to early Negro spirituals and abolitionist works. King carefully developed these traditional theodical themes through critical engagement with Protestant liberal sources before applying his redemptive suffering formula during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. With a view towards the cross and the omnipotent personal God's good purposes in the world, King held that persons have the freedom and responsibility to agapically engage their suffering to help bring about personal and social transformation. I argue that King's redemptive suffering theodicy successfully answers the challenges raised by its contemporary black humanist and Womanist critics. Among black humanists, William R. Jones and Anthony Pinn allege that King's theodicy undermines black resistance to oppression by calling blacks to wait passively for God to deliver them rather than actively strive for their own social liberation. However, through its emphasis on the moral responsibility of God's free agents and the matchless power of God, King's theodicy provides powerful motivation, guidance, and hope for liberative social action. Womanist theologians Delores Williams and Jacquelyn Grant suspect that King's cruci-centric theodicy promotes a dangerous martyr mentality which valorizes suffering, makes black -women acquiescent in the face of their own oppression, and prioritizes the redemption of oppressors over the dignity and wellbeing of the oppressed. King's theodicy addresses these concerns by emphasizing a moral influence approach to the cross which calls black women to learn from and resist experiences of oppression as empowered moral agents. By identifying their suffering with the suffering of Christ, King's theodicy also protects the dignity of black women who have suffered while resisting oppression, describing them as empowered witnesses rather than as mere victims. Finally, King's theodicy provides a powerful and practical resource to help guide the black church and community in its redemptive engagement with contemporary forms of suffering.

Recommended Citation

Edmondson, Mika, "Unearned Suffering Is Redemptive: the Roots and Implications of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Redemptive Suffering theodicy" (2017). CTS PhD Doctoral Dissertations . 14. https://digitalcommons.calvin.edu/cts_dissertations/14

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The Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Dr. martin luther king, jr. archive, finding aid and content.

View contents of this collection in Boston University ArchivesSpace

Download the Dr. King Collection finding aid and inventory [PDF]

About the Collection – Scope & Content Notes

The Martin Luther King, Jr. collection, donated in 1964, consists of manuscripts, notebooks, correspondence, printed material, financial and legal papers, a small number of photographs and other items dating from 1947 to 1963.

Manuscripts include class notes, examinations and papers written by Dr. King while a student at Morehouse College (1944-1948), Crozer Theological Seminary (1948-1951) and Boston University (1951-1953). Among the notable documents are: a paper entitled Ritual (1947), composed at Morehouse; An Autobiography of Religious Development (1950), an assignment for the “Religious Development of Personality” class at Crozer taught by one of King’s mentors, George W. Davis; and notes and drafts of his doctoral dissertation, A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman (1955). Additional manuscripts in the collection include drafts of speeches, sermons and three books: Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (Harper, 1958), about the 1955-1956 bus boycott; Strength to Love (Harper & Row, 1963), a collection of several of his best-known sermons including “A Knock at Midnight,” “Shattered Dreams,” “The Death of Evil Upon the Seashore,” and “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life;” and Why We Can’t Wait (Harper & Row, 1964), which includes the famed “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Dr. King’s office files, which date from 1955 to 1963, make up the bulk of the collection and consist primarily of letters, but also include itineraries, financial and legal documents, printed items, news clippings, and similar documents. There is material related to both the Dexter Avenue Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Additionally, there are extensive files related to the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Other organizations which prominently figure include the American Friends Service Committee, which helped to finance Dr. King’s 1959 trip to India; the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA).

Notable correspondence from figures in the Civil Rights movement includes letters from Bayard Rustin, Malcolm X, Adam Clayton Powell, Ella J. Baker, Medgar Evers, Roy Wilkins, Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, William Sloane Coffin, Allan Knight Chalmers, Sidney Poitier, Jackie Robinson, A. Philip Randolph, Harry Belafonte, and Ralph Abernathy. Distinguished U.S. Government correspondents include Alabama Gov. John Patterson, Robert F. Kennedy, Sargent Shriver, Paul Douglas, Prescott Bush, Ralph Bunche, Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, Richard M. Nixon, Dean Rusk, Walter Reuther, Adlai Stevenson, Earl Warren, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Other eminent correspondents include James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Jawaharlal Nehru, Linus Pauling, Nat King Cole, Cass Canfield, Ralph Ginzburg, Julian Huxley, Paul Tillich, and Stanley Levison.

Photographs in the collection include images of King with his family and congregation, a formal portrait, a photograph of the knife with which he was stabbed in 1958, and his coffin being transported by airplane.

Awards for King in the collection include an honorary Doctor of Divinity diploma from the Chicago Theological Seminary (1957); a certificate from the Alabama Association of Women’s Clubs (1957); Man of the Year Award from the Capital Press Club (1957); the Social Justice Award from the Religion and Labor Foundation (1957); the New York City proclamation of May 16, 1961 as “Desegregation Day” in honor of King, by Mayor Robert Wagner (1961); a citation from Americans for Democratic Action (1961); a certificate from the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (1963); an award from the Institute of Adult Education, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Bayonne, New Jersey (1964); and King’s certificate of membership in the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity at Boston University.

Audio in the collection includes recordings of King delivering a speech at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina (1958); an interview with Bayard Rustin (1963); King’s visit to Boston University in 1964 to donate his papers; King giving a speech at the Golden Jubilee Convention of the United Synagogues of America (Nov. 19, 1964); King speaking to District 65 DWA; and King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Other items in the collection include telephone log books (1961–1963); King’s diary regarding his arrest on July 27, 1962; numerous clippings, pamphlets, flyers, articles, and other printed items; and a monogrammed leather briefcase owned by King. An addendum to the collection includes correspondence pertaining to the Joan Daves Agency’s dealings with King and the King Estate. These letters date from 1958 to 1993 and cover advertising and promotion, King’s Massey Lectures (1967), publishing rights, permissions, and other subjects.

Facsimiles of select materials are available on permanent display in the Martin Luther King Jr. Reading Room on the 3rd floor of the Mugar Memorial Library .

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American prophet: martin luther king, jr. public deposited.

• In August 2011, after more than two decades of planning, fund-raising and construction, the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial— a four-acre tract south of the Mall featuring a granite statue of King — has opened to the public. King is officially enshrined in granite in the National Mall. A black preacher became a monument, a monument represents America. King is the prophet of American Civil Religion. This paper examines Martin Luther King, Jr. as the prophet of America and in the context of American Civil Religion. To begin, I will explore the concepts and definitions of the prophet, the civil religion, and the American Creed by analyzing Max Weber, Robert Bellah, Martin Marty, and Richard Hughes’s works. King’s thoughts, words and acts in the light of prophetic traditions and the Civil Religion will be further discussed. The concept of the Beloved Community will be the main clue in order to interpret King’s commitment to his social actions. King’s outlook on American Civil Religion will be sketched by analyzing the center concept of Civil Rights Movement, Anti-Vietnam War Campaign, as well as Poor People Campaign. Lastly, I will explore how King is recognized in the United States today by examining the establishment of King National Memorial in Washington D.C. and the speech of the president delivered at the dedication ceremony. Further, the link between King’s idea/actions and the Occupy movement in 2011, which is referred even by the president, will be discussed.
• Semba, Sakuma
• Religious Studies
• Chernus, Ira
• Johnson, Greg
• Whitehead, Deborah
• University of Colorado Boulder
• Martin Luther King
• Martin Luther King National Memorial
• Robert Bellah
• American Civil Religion
• Masters Thesis
• In Copyright
• English [eng]

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"The Humanity and Divinity of Jesus"

Author:  King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Crozer Theological Seminary)

Date:  November 29, 1949 to February 15, 1950 ?

Location:  Chester, Pa. ?

Genre:  Essay

Topic:  Martin Luther King, Jr. - Education

This paper, written at the beginning of the second term of Davis’s course Christian Theology for Today, indicates King’s estrangement from the conservative Baptist theology he learned as a child. As he had done in his earlier outline of William Newton Clarke’s  An Outline of Christian Theology , King dismisses the conception of an inherent divinity in Jesus and concludes: “The true significance of the divinity of Christ lies in the fact that his achievement is prophetic and promissory for every other true son of man who is willing to submit his will to the will and spirit  [ of ]  God.” By establishing Jesus as human, King allows for the possibility of progressive improvement in earthly society through individual action. Commenting on the essay, Davis warned: “You need to proofread your papers before turning them in. Note corrections on p. 4.” Nevertheless, he marked the work a B + and praised the paper as “a solution which would appeal to the liberal mind.”

Many years ago a young Jewish leader asked his followers a question which was all but astounding. He had been working with them quite assiduously. During their work together he was constantly asking them what his contemporaries were saying about him. But one day he pressed the question closer home. It is all very well to say what other people think of me, but what do you think? Who do you say that I am?

This question has gone echoing down the centuries ever since the young Jewish prophet sounded its first note. 1  Many have attempted to answer this question by attributing total divinity to Jesus with little concern for his humanity. Others have attempted to answer this question by saying that Jesus was a “mere” good man with no divine dimensions. Still others have attempted to get at the question by seeing Jesus as fully human and fully divine. This question, which was so prominent in the thinking of the early Christian centuries, was not answered once and for all at the council of Chalcedon, rather it lurks forth in modern theological thinking with an amazing degree of freshness. In grappling with the question of the person of Christ, modern Christian thinking is unanimous in setting forth the full humanity of Jesus, yet Christians have not been willing to stop there. Despite all the human limitations of Jesus, most Christian thinkers have been convinced that “God was in Christ.” 2  To be sure, Christian thinkers are often in conflict over the question of how and when Jesus became divine, but as to the presence of the divine dimension within him we find little disagreement in Christian circles. At this point we may turn to a detailed discussion of the humanity and divinity of Jesus.

The Humanity of Jesus

If there is any one thing of which modern Christians have been certain it is that Jesus was a true man, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, in all points tempted as we are. 3  All docetist, Eutychean, Monophysite errors which explained away the humanity of our Lord have now been jettisoned be all serious theological thought. 4  Theologians of all shades of opinions have declared that in respect to His human nature Christ is consubstantial with ourselves.

We need only read the Gospels to attest to the fact of Jesus’ genuine humanity. There is not a limitation that humanity shares that Jesus did not fall heir. Like the rest of us, he got hungry. When at the well of Sameria he asked the women who was drawing water for a drink. When he grew tired, he needed rest and sleep. He leared obedience, we are told, in the way we must learn it. When his disciples were unfaithful it was very cutting to his heart. The blindness of the city he longed to save moved him to tears. In the garden he experienced the normal agony of any individual in the same situation. On the Cross, he added to all physical tortures the final agony of feeling God-forsaken. 5

Notice how the unknown writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the humanity of Jesus. Nowhere in the New Testament is the humanity of Jesus set forth more vividly. We see him agonising in prayer (5:7) embracing the Cross with joy and faith (12:2). Springing from the tribe of Judah, He passed through the normal development of human life, learning obedience, even though a Son, by the things which he suffered (5:8). Like all other men he was tempted. Yet no corrupt strain existed in His nature to which temptation could appeal. Here we find a frank emphasis of the humanity of Jesus, paralleled nowhere in the New Testament.\[Footnote:] H. R. Mackintosh, The Doctrine of The Person of Jesus Christ, p. 78.\ 6

Again we may notice that Jesus was by no means omnicient. His knowledge was essentially limited by human conditions. This fact was set forth as for back as 1912 by the notable theologian, H. R. Mackintosh. In dealing with this question of Jesus’ omnicience He states: “The question can be decided solely by loyalty to facts; and these, it is not too much to say, are peremptory. Not only is it related that Jesus asked question to elicit information—regarding the site of Lazarus tomb, for example, or the number of the loaves, or the name of the demented Gadarene—but at one point there is a clear acknowledgment of ignorance. ‘Of that day or that hour,’ He said, respecting the Parousia, ‘knoweth no man, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.’ If he could thus be ignorant of a detail connected in some measure with his redemptive work, the conclusion is unavoidable that in secular affairs His knowledge was but the knowledge of His time.”\[Footnote:] Ibid, p. 397.\

Again we may notice the human character of our Lord’s moral and religious life. His religious experience was in the human realm. Certainly he had a human faith in God. As Dr. Baille has so cogently stated, “Our Lord’s life on earth was a life of faith, and His victory was the victory of faith. His temptations were real temptations, which it was difficult and painful for Him to resist.”\[Footnote:] D. M. Baille, God was In Christ, p. 14.\ Jesus overcame his temptations not by relience on some inherent divine dimension, but by the constancy of his will. 7  So we are moved to the conclusion, on the basis of peremptory evidence, that Jesus shared fully our human life.

The Divinity of Jesus

After establishing the full humanity of Jesus we still find an element in his life which transcends the human. To see Jesus as a “mere” good man like all other prophets is by no means sufficient to explain him. Moreover, the historical setting in which he grew up, the psychological mood and temper of the age and of the house of Israel, the economic and social predicament of Jesus family—all these are important. But these in themselves fail to answer one significant question: Why does he differ from all others in the same setting. Any explanation of Jesus in terms of psychology, economics, religion, and the like must inevitably explain his contemporaries as well. These may tell us why Jesus was a particular kind of Jew, but not why some other Jews were not Jesus. Jesus was brought up in the same conditions as other Jews, inherited the same traits that they inherited; and yet he was Jesus and the others were not. This uniqueness in the spiritual life of Jesus has lead Christians to see him not only as a human being, but as a human being surrounded with divinity. 8  Prior to all other facts about Jesus stands the spiritual assurance that He is divine. As Dr. Brown succinctly states in a recent book, “That God was in Christ is the very heart of the Christian faith. In this divine human person the ever recurring antinomy of the universe is presented in a living symbol—the antinomy of the eternal in the temporal, of the infinite in the finite, of the divine in the human.”\[Footnote:] W. A. Brown, How To Think of Christ, p. 9.\

As stated above, the conflict that Christians often have over the question of Jesus divinity is not over the validity of the fact of his divinity, but over the question of how and when he became divine. The more orthodox Christians have seen his divinity as an inherent quality metaphysically bestowed. Jesus, they have told us, is the Pre existent Logos. He is the word made flesh. He is the second person of the trinity. He is very God of very God, of one substance with the Father, who for our salvation came down from Heaven and was incarnate be the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary.

Certainly this view of the divinity of Christ presents many modern minds with insuperable difficulties. Most of us are not willing to see the union of the human and divine in a metaphysical incarnation. Yet amid all of our difficulty with the pre existent idea and the view of supernatural generation, we must come to some view of the divinity of Jesus. In order to remain in the orbid of the Christian religion we must have a Christology. As Dr. Baille has reminded us, we cannot have a good theology without a Christology. 9  Where then can we in the liberal tradition find the divine dimension in Jesus? We may find the divinity of Christ not in his substantial unity with God, but in his filial consciousness and in his unique dependence upon God. It was his felling of absolute dependence on God, as Schleiermaker would say, that made him divine. Yes it was the warmnest of his devotion to God and the intimatcy of his trust in God that accounts for his being the supreme revelation of God. All of this reveals to us that one man has at last realized his true divine calling: That of becoming a true son of man by becoming a true son of God. It is the achievement of a man who has, as nearly as we can tell, completely opened his life to the influence of the divine spirit.

The orthodox attempt to explain the divinity of Jesus in terms of an inherent metaphysical substance within him seems to me quite inadaquate. To say that the Christ, whose example of living we are bid to follow, is divine in an ontological sense is actually harmful and detrimental. To invest this Christ with such supernatural qualities makes the rejoinder: “Oh, well, he had a better chance for that kind of life than we can possible have.” In other words, one could easily use this as a means to hide behind behind his failures. So that the orthodox view of the divinity of Christ is in my mind quite readily denied. The true significance of the divinity of Christ lies in the fact that his achievement is prophetic and promissory for every other true son of man who is willing to submit his will to the will and spirit og God. Christ was to be only the prototype of one among many brothers.

The appearance of such a person, more divine and more human than any other, andstanding  and standing in closest unity at once with God and man, is the most significant and hopeful event in human history. This divine quality or this unity with God was not something thrust upon Jesus from above, but it was a definite achievement through the process of moral struggle and self-abnegation. 10

Bibliography

1. Baille D. M., God was in Christ, Scribner’s, 1948.

2. Brown, William A., How To Think of Christ, Scribner, 1945.

3. Hedley, George, The Symbol of the Faith, Macmillan, 1948.

4. Mackintosh, H. R., The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ, Scribner, 1912.  

1.  William Adams Brown,  How to Think of Christ  (New York: Scribner, 1948), p. 3: “Many years ago a young Jew put to a little group of his companions what in its setting seems a strange question. He had been asking them what his contemporaries were saying about him and they had repeated a variety of answers. Now he presses the questions closer home. It is all very well to tell me what other people are thinking about me. What do you  think  I am?… It has been so ever since. The question of the young Jewish Rabbi has gone echoing down the centuries.”

2.  See Donald Macpherson Baillie,  God Was in Christ  (New York: Scribner, 1948), cited in King’s bibliography.

3.  Brown,  How to Think of Christ , pp. 6–7: “If there is any one thing of which Christians have been certain it is that Jesus is true man, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, in all points tempted as we are.”

4.  Baillie,  God Was in Christ , p. 20: “all serious theological thought has finished with the docetist, Eutychean, Monophysite errors which explained away the humanity of our Lord and thus the reality of the Incarnation.” 

5.  Brown,  How to Think of Christ , p. 7: “If further evidence of Jesus’ genuine humanity were needed, one has only to read the Gospels. There is not a limitation to which our human kind is heir but Jesus shares it with us. Like the rest of us, he was hungry. At the well at Samaria he asked the woman who was drawing water for a drink. When he grew tired, he needed rest and sleep. He asked questions, and expected answers. He was a learner, and not from books alone. He learned obedience, we are told, in the way in which we must all learn it, by the things which he suffered. He was cut to the heart by the faithlessness of disciples. He knew what it was to be betrayed by a friend. The blindness of the city he longed to save moved him to tears. In the garden he was in agony and sweated blood. On the Cross, he added to all physical tortures the final agony of feeling God-forsaken.”

6.  H. R. Mackintosh,  The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ  (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1913), p. 79: “Nowhere in the New Testament is the humanity of Christ set forth so movingly … We see Him proclaiming salvation (2:3), agonizing in prayer (5:7), embracing the Cross with joy and faith (12:2), suffering the last penalty without the city gate (13:12) … Sprung from the tribe of Judah, He passed through the normal development of human life, learning obedience, even though a Son, by the things which He suffered (5:8).… Yet no corrupt strain existed in His nature to which temptation could appeal.… A frank emphasis, without parallel in the New Testament, is laid on His human virtues.”

7.  Baillie,  God Was in Christ , p. 15, quoting William Temple’s  Christus Veritas , p. 147: “He overcame them exactly as everyman who does so has overcome temptation—by the consistency of his will.”

8.  Davis underlined “surrounded with divinity,” and asked, “Was not divinity ‘in’ him?”

9.  Baillie,  God Was in Christ , pp. 42–43.

10.  A version of this paragraph appears in a previous paper for Davis during the first term of Christian Theology for Today: “The appearance of such a person, more divine and more human, than any other, and standing in closest unity at once with God and man, is the most significant and hopeful event in human history. This divine character or this unity with God was nothing thrust upon Jesus from above, but it was a definite achievement” (“Six Talks in Outline,” 13 September–23 November 1949, p. 247 in this volume).

Source:  MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954-1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass.

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