Overwhelmingly, Martin Luther has been treated as the generator of ideas concerning the relationship between God and humankind. The Personal Luther deliberately departs from that church-historiographic tradition. Luther was a voluble and irrepressible divine. Even though he had multiple ancillary interests, such as singing, playing the lute, appreciating the complexities of nature, and observing his children, his preoccupation was, as he quickly saw it, bringing the Word of God to the people. This book is not about Luther’s theology except insofar as any ideational construct is itself an expression of the thinker who frames it. Luther frequently couched his affective utterances within a theological framework. Nor is it a biography; it does not portray a whole life. Rather, it concentrates on several heretofore neglected aspects of the Reformer’s existence and personality. The subjects that appear in this book are meant to demonstrate what such core-taking on a range of mainly unexplored facets of the Reformer’s personality and experience can yield. It will open the way for other secular researchers to explore the seemingly endless interests of this complicated individual. It will also show that perspectives of cultural historians offer the broadest possible evidentiary base within which to analyze a figure of the past.

MLK and the Practice of Spirituality The scholarship on Martin Luther King Jr. is seriously lacking in terms of richly nuanced and revelatory treatments of his spirituality and spiritual life. This book addresses this neglect by focusing on King's life as a paradigm of a deep, vital, engaging, balanced, and contagious spirituality. It shows that the essence of the person King was lies in the quality of his own spiritual journey and how that translated into not only a personal devotional life of prayer, meditation, and fasting but also a public ministry that involved the uplift and empowerment of humanity. Much attention is devoted to King's spiritual leadership, to his sense of the civil rights movement as "a spiritual movement," and to his efforts to rescue humanity from what he termed a perpetual "death of the spirit." Readers encounter a figure who took seriously the personal, interpersonal, and sociopolitical aspects of the Christian faith, thereby figuring prominently in recasting the very definition of spirituality in his time. King's "holistic spirituality" is presented here with a clarity and power fresh for our own generation.

A poignant account of the author's brief years shared with his civil rights leader father offers insight into their special bond, their separation during Dr. King's imprisonment and the author's 5-year-old witness to the famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

Quotations by the civil rights leader cover such issues as race, justice, and human dignity.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize: The definitive biography of Martin Luther King Jr. In this monumental account of the life of Martin Luther King Jr., professor and historian David Garrow traces King’s evolution from young pastor who spearheaded the 1955–56 bus boycott of Montgomery, Alabama, to inspirational leader of America’s civil rights movement. Based on extensive research and more than seven hundred interviews, with subjects including Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, and Coretta Scott King, Garrow paints a multidimensional portrait of a charismatic figure driven by his strong moral obligation to lead—and of the toll this calling took on his life. Bearing the Cross provides a penetrating account of King’s spiritual development and his crucial role at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, whose protest campaigns in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama, led to enactment of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. This comprehensive yet intimate study reveals the deep sense of mission King felt to serve as an unrelenting crusader against prejudice, inequality, and violence, and his willingness to sacrifice his own life on behalf of his beliefs. Written more than twenty-five years ago, Bearing the Cross remains an unparalleled examination of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and the legacy of the civil rights movement.

This Luther biography is presented in sequential art graphic novel style bringing to life Luther's story of adventure, courage, and faith.

This book is a major new account of the most intensely creative years of Luther's career. The Making of Martin Luther takes a provocative look at the intellectual emergence of one of the most original and influential minds of the sixteenth century. Richard Rex traces how, in a concentrated burst of creative energy in the few years surrounding his excommunication by Pope Leo X in 1521, this lecturer at an obscure German university developed a startling new interpretation of the Christian faith that brought to an end the dominance of the Catholic Church in Europe. Luther's personal psychology and cultural context played their parts in the whirlwind of change he unleashed. But for the man himself, it was always about the ideas, the truth, and the Gospel. Focusing on the most intensely important years of Luther's career, Rex teases out the threads of his often paradoxical and counterintuitive ideas from the tangled thickets of his writings, explaining their significance, their interconnections, and the astonishing appeal they so rapidly developed. Yet Rex also sets these ideas firmly in the context of Luther's personal life, the cultural landscape that shaped him, and the traditions of medieval Catholic thought from which his ideas burst forth. Lucidly argued and elegantly written, The Making of Martin Luther is a splendid work of intellectual history that renders Luther's earthshaking yet sometimes challenging ideas accessible to a new generation of readers. --