Reviews
"This helpful book adds a new dimension to our understanding of Martin Luther King, Jr."--Choice"Thorough [and] textured."--Kirkus Reviews"Illuminating."--Publishers Weekly"Sparkling...addresses not only King's sermons but also preaching history."--Booklist, "...a fine piece of research, well-written, and insightful. One is able to learn much about King, his work, and the African-American preaching tradition from this fine book."--The Cresset, "Richard Lischer has done what no one else has attempted in the nearly 30 years since Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination: offered a comprehensive analysis of King's preaching....Lischer...is successful because his study is contextual and inclusive."--Christian Century, "This helpful book adds a new dimension to our understanding of Martin Luther King, Jr."--Choice "Thorough [and] textured."--Kirkus Reviews "Illuminating."--Publishers Weekly "Sparkling...addresses not only King's sermons but also preaching history."--Booklist, "A thorough, textured analysis of the sources and strategies of Martin Luther King's preaching and rhetoric."--Kirkus Reviews, "...The reader is treated to an illuminating account of King's relationship to both black and white preaching.... This book offers a persuasive preacher, not a saint but a creative power with the spoken word who was much more than a creation of the media."--American Historical Review, "Lischer's analysis is sparkling and addresses not only King's sermons butalso preaching history."--Booklist, "This is an important book for two reasons. First, it is an important...study of the sermonic power of King's public discourse as it was performed before live audiences, rather than as it was subsequently edited and published as written documents. Second...it serves to remind us of a recentand important example of the creative power of individual rhetorical agency to effect social and political change. This is a consideration that has been too little noticed or commented on in recent years, and by itself it warrants the price of admission to this volume."--The Journal of AmericanHistory, "The overall effect of The Preacher King is impressive....This is a splendid book which should stimulate anyone who practices the art and craft of preaching. This homlietical biography should also appeal to anyone, even non-preachers, who wishes to find insights into a turbulent period ofAmerican history, one which still confronts us with unfinished business....For those who do not have access to the tapes of King's preaching, Lischer's book will give profound pleasure and almost evoke the power of the word proclaimed by the King and the preacher king."--Word and World, "Richard Lischer has done what no one else has attempted in the nearly thirty years since Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination: offered a comprehensive analysis of King's preaching....[Lischer] is successful because his study is contextual and inclusive....His interpretation of the goal ofKing's rhetoric seems fresh and noteworthy....The key to King's preaching genius was not so much that he always preached well but that he always preached big, in terms and tones that touched human longing and invoked divine vision."--Kirk Byron Jones, The Christian Century, "A thorough, textured analysis of the sources and strategies of MartinLuther King's preaching and rhetoric."--Kirkus Reviews, "This careful, illuminating study shows how King transposed theJudeo-Christian themes of love, suffering, deliverance, and justice into thecivil rights arena."--Publishers Weekly, "Written so beautifully about the preaching of Dr. King that the greatcivil rights leader's words resonate with almost their original power in thisbook."--Gayraud Wilmore, "With The Preacher King, Richard Lischer has made all who love liberty andits language his debtors. Lischer has captured the spirit of Martin Luther Kingout of which came an oratory blazing in intensity and clothed in a logic socompelling that it left a nation 'defenseless utterly'."--Gardner Taylor, PastorEmeritus, The Concord Baptist Church of Christ, and author of ChariotsAflame
