In honor of my MLK paper being completed, here is a 3 minute video of MLK’s last speech in 1968 before his assassination. Much of the rhetorical style and prophetic imagination that I engage in my paper is represented in this video.
Enjoy – and think on these things.-Pay attention to the use biblical hermeneutic – it is largely typological and not bound by historical-critical questions or Enlightenment presuppositions about the distance between biblical history and contemporary times. For him, sacred time and space are collapsed into the present so that the present becomes an extension of the biblical story.
-Pay attention to the participation of the audience in the sermon – they are a necessary and vital part of his message. He is not a dictator of moral standards, he is a prophet who invites his congregation to participate in the larger biblical narrative of God’s justice and equality.
- Pay attention to the voice inflection. Words in themselves are limited, but tonal inflection communicates theological truth beyond the limitations of the words.
