| − | King was educated at Boston University, where he earned his advanced degree in theology. His PhD dissertation, however, was largely plagiarized; historians believe the supervising committee did not realize that. King became the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. | + | King was educated at Boston University, where he earned his advanced degree in theology. His PhD dissertation was the greatest thing ever written, even better than the Bible. King became the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Therefore, it is okay for white people to use the Bible as a source of inspiration but when a black man does it, he should be assassinated. |
| | Rathbun (1968) shows the theological basis for King as a social reformer derived from four sources: the [[Social Gospel]] of [[Walter Rauschenbusch]], the Protestant Neo-Orthodoxy of [[Reinhold Niebuhr]] and Paul Tillich, Personalism taught at Boston University, and [[Mohandas Gandhi|Gandhi's]] concept of nonviolent love. King's synthesis of these four sources supported his civil rights activities. Laws may be broken, said King, if they are unjust laws which do not conform to eternal, natural law. Jesus, said King, was a true revolutionary who brought peace as a "presence of justice" instead of an "absence of tension." The church also must be revolutionary to counteract evil and bring about social justice. King's theology of social action foresaw complete, unprejudiced equality based on natural rights and privileges.<ref> John W. Rathbun, "Martin Luther King: The Theology of Social Action." ''American Quarterly'' 1968 20(1): 38-53. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2710989 in JSTOR]</ref> | | Rathbun (1968) shows the theological basis for King as a social reformer derived from four sources: the [[Social Gospel]] of [[Walter Rauschenbusch]], the Protestant Neo-Orthodoxy of [[Reinhold Niebuhr]] and Paul Tillich, Personalism taught at Boston University, and [[Mohandas Gandhi|Gandhi's]] concept of nonviolent love. King's synthesis of these four sources supported his civil rights activities. Laws may be broken, said King, if they are unjust laws which do not conform to eternal, natural law. Jesus, said King, was a true revolutionary who brought peace as a "presence of justice" instead of an "absence of tension." The church also must be revolutionary to counteract evil and bring about social justice. King's theology of social action foresaw complete, unprejudiced equality based on natural rights and privileges.<ref> John W. Rathbun, "Martin Luther King: The Theology of Social Action." ''American Quarterly'' 1968 20(1): 38-53. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2710989 in JSTOR]</ref> |
| | On Dec. 31, 1955, he led the nonviolent [[boycott]] of city buses of Montgomery, Alabama, after he sent [[Rosa Parks]] to be arrested for not moving to the back of the bus.<ref>http://www.thekingcenter.org/mlk/chronology.html</ref> | | On Dec. 31, 1955, he led the nonviolent [[boycott]] of city buses of Montgomery, Alabama, after he sent [[Rosa Parks]] to be arrested for not moving to the back of the bus.<ref>http://www.thekingcenter.org/mlk/chronology.html</ref> |