Without a Preacher
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: January 1, 1962 to December 31, 1962?
Genre: Sermon
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Career in Ministry
Details
King penned this outline, which explores the importance of a preacher's spiritual guidance, on the verso of a form for a 19 February 1962 speaking engagement.1
Introduction: Definition of Preacher and Preaching. See Keighton's [book?]2
- Without a preacher we would be tempted to be satified with our evil ways.3 But the preacher reminds us that in our individual and collective lives that where we are is never where we ought to be. Without a preacher we would be satified with the vally, but he reminds us that we are made for the stars
- Without a Preacher we would conclude that we could lift ourselves by our own botstraps.
- Without a preachr we would conclude that man is the center of the universe. So many things have happened recently to give us the impression that man can do anything. (Give examples)
1. Shirley Bird to Charlotte Sander, 19 February 1962.
2. King may refer to Keighton's definition of preaching in his book The Man Who Would Preach ([New York: Abingdon Press, 1956] , pp. 19-20). In his copy of the book, which he kept in his personal library, King underlined several passages including: “The sermon is what takes place in the lives of our hearers, and preaching is influencing human lives.”
3. Cf. Romans 10:14.
Source: MCMLK-RWWL, Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection, Atlanta University Center, Robert W. Special Collections, Atlanta, Ga.