King's Speech

“In the quiet recesses of my heart,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. often said, “I am fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher.” No other statement could identify King better than this. Thus, the statement is the launching point for this work on preacher King’s timeless messages on violence and reconciliation rooted in his theological foundation of the universal yet personal, loving God. Yang shows how King, based on that theological idea, vitalizes a pastoral and prophetic preaching voice, hoping to create reconciliation in the context of a violent reality. This concise piece is easily accessible, yet rich enough to see the continuing impact and applicability of preacher King’s reconciliatory ideas in the present violent, torn-apart world that desperately awaits reconciliation.