Dale Andrews on Martin Luther King, Jr.

“King’s nonviolent civil disobedience strategies to combat racism as well as poverty and militarism were shaped by an evolving critical theological methodology, which determined his four steps to any nonviolent campaign: collection of facts to expose injustice; mutual negotiation with one’s oppressor in seeking justice; perpetual self-purification to sustain the character of justice-making; and direct action for transformation. Love is an active force; it has its own agency; it calls us to agency in forms of care and justice. For King, a real interconnection exists between pastoral meaning-making and prophetic justice-making.” — Dale P. Andrews, “Black Practical Theology,” in Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore (ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology (Malden: Blackwell, 2012), pp. 401-411, at p. 408.