Prophet or activist? Pastor or social reformer? In the six decades since his death, the testimony and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. has been so extensively documented and analyzed that it seems almost asinine to imagine posing a new question about his life and work or the Civil Rights era more broadly.
But I want to propose that King has been mislabeled—or, more precisely, that even many of his admirers have missed a title he deserves: revivalist.
It’s well recognized, of course, that the Civil Rights Movement under King’s leadership pulsed with the gospel of the kingdom. But what I’m saying is not merely that King and many lesser-known activists were Christians whose efforts were motivated by their faith in Jesus. Rather, I want to suggest that this was not merely a political movement that used biblically inspired strategies like nonviolent demonstration. It was a spiritual movement of great awakening, even a widely unrecognized Great Awakening in the grand tradition of grassroots American revivals.
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