"Martin Luther King Jr.’s Theological Evolution and the Impact of the (Black) Social Gospel on His Political Views"

by Paulina Napierała

Summary: This academic article challenges the dominant narrative about Martin Luther King Jr.'s intellectual influences by recovering a long-neglected theological tradition: the Black social gospel.

The Problem: For decades, scholars attributed King's activism primarily to white Western philosophy and theology—personalism from Boston University, Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian realism, Walter Rauschenbusch's social gospel, and Gandhi's nonviolence. Early analyses minimized or entirely omitted the Black Church tradition that shaped King's formative years. This erasure distorted our understanding of King's theology, his activism, and the Black Church itself.

The Black Social Gospel Defined: Gary Dorrien's scholarship has been instrumental in distinguishing the Black social gospel from its white counterpart. While both traditions addressed economic inequality and sought to apply Christian ethics to social problems, the Black social gospel emerged from fundamentally different circumstances:

• It developed in response to Reconstruction's failure, Jim Crow's rise, and lynching's terror

• Racial oppression wasn't one issue among many—it "refigured how other problems were experienced"

• Black social gospel leaders lacked access to mainstream platforms, creating counter-public spheres

• They couldn't downplay the cross's meaning because they were "persecuted, crucified people" experiencing oppression daily

The full-fledged Black social gospel combined five elements: emphasis on Black dignity and personhood, protest activism for racial justice, comprehensive social justice agenda, insistence that authentic Christianity is incompatible with racial prejudice, emphasis on Jesus' social ethical teaching, and acceptance of modern scholarship and social consciousness.

Key representatives included Reverdy C. Ransom, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Adam Clayton Powell Sr., Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, Benjamin E. Mays, Howard Thurman, Vernon Johns, and J. Pius Barbour.

King's Journey

Family Background: King grew up at Ebenezer Baptist Church under his grandfather A.D. Williams and father Martin Luther King Sr., both of whom practiced early versions of the Black social gospel—combining evangelical faith with social activism. However, their fundamentalism and emotional revivalism made young King initially reluctant to pursue ministry.

Morehouse College (1944-1948): This was King's breakthrough. Two professors transformed his understanding:

• Benjamin E. Mays, president and leading Black social gospel representative, showed King that ministry could be intellectually rigorous, theologically liberal, and prophetically engaged. Mays had studied under Rauschenbusch and been mentored by Mordecai Johnson. He argued "a religion which ignores social problems will in time be doomed."

• George D. Kelsey introduced King to biblical criticism, helping him realize Bible studies didn't require fundamentalist literalism. His lectures became "a breaking point for King's theological development."

Through these mentors, King discovered he could be a minister without adhering to his father's fundamentalism or emotionalism. As he wrote, "Both were ministers, both deeply religious, and yet both were learned men, aware of all the trends of modern thinking. I could see in their lives the ideal of what I wanted a minister to be."

Crozer Theological Seminary (1948-1951): King studied Rauschenbusch directly, calling Christianity and the Social Crisis "a book which left an indelible imprint on my thinking." He engaged Edgar Brightman's personalism, wrestled with Niebuhr's Christian realism, and heard Mordecai Johnson deliver an electrifying lecture on Gandhi. Importantly, J. Pius Barbour—Crozer's first Black graduate and a Black social gospel leader—mentored King through regular dinner conversations.

Boston University (1951-1955): King deepened his study of personalism under L. Harold DeWolf while also learning from Walter Muelder's "Socialist pacifist, antiracist, anticolonial, and feminist" wing of the social gospel. Howard Thurman influenced him with Jesus and the Disinherited, which interpreted Jesus' teachings through the oppressed's experience.

The Framework

What emerges isn't simply that King synthesized various influences. Rather, the Black social gospel provided the framework through which he understood and appropriated other traditions. As Dorrien stresses, "King was not the first Black thinker who appropriated the social gospel to the specific situation of the Black community. He was rather a continuator of the Black social gospel tradition."

Even when King studied Rauschenbusch directly at Crozer, he did so already immersed in the Black social gospel's interpretation of Rauschenbusch's work. His Morehouse mentors had shown him what it meant to translate social gospel theology into Black church contexts.

Political Implications

The Black social gospel's influence shaped King's activism from the beginning:

• When Montgomery called in December 1955, King had already absorbed Black social gospel values about the church's prophetic role

• The Southern Christian Leadership Conference gathered Baptist ministers all under strong Black social gospel influence

• King translated social gospel beliefs into moderately socialist political views, agreeing with Rauschenbusch's critique of capitalism as "exploitative and predatory"

• He considered "the social gospel, put into practice, as a decentralized, spiritualized form of socialism"

His socialist convictions—though kept quiet during the 1950s—became evident in political solutions he supported: the Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged, the domestic Marshall Plan, compensatory treatment for the poor, the Poor People's Campaign, and opposition to the Vietnam War.

Importantly, King's "radicalization" in the 1960s wasn't a departure but a deepening. As one scholar notes, "the more the superstructure of his politics changed, the more the moral and spiritual base of his thinking stayed essentially the same."

Why This Matters

Distinguishing the Black social gospel as a separate tradition matters for several reasons:

1. It reveals unique features of a theological movement addressing issues white social gospel advocates ignored

2. It illustrates the Black Church's complicated nature—neither monolithically conservative nor uniformly activist

3. It allows us to notice the Black social gospel's particular influence on King and other civil rights leaders

4. It shows how religion can shape individual political preferences and influence social movements

5. It highlights theological and political divisions within churches, especially the Black Church

Conclusion

As Dorrien emphasizes, "without the black social gospel, King would not have known what to say when history called on December 3, 1955." Although the Black social gospel was long forgotten in scholarship, it is "the category that best describes Martin Luther King Jr., his chief mentors, his closest movement allies, and the entire tradition of black church racial justice activism reaching back to the 1880s."

King's views were "a product of the synthesis of Black cultural and religious influences and the Western traditions and theologies." Both versions of the social gospel—Black and white—deeply influenced his political views. While one emphasized the Black community's conditions and the other highlighted systemic faults affecting the whole society, both installed in him deep devotion to Christian socialism that translated into democratic socialism within the political sphere.

Understanding this theological foundation is essential for understanding King's legacy—and for recognizing that his activism emerged not from abstract philosophy but from a rich, prophetic tradition within the Black Church itself.

Pull Quotes

• "King’s views were a product of the synthesis of Black cultural and religious influences and the Western traditions and theologies." (Page 3)

• "He considered the social gospel, put into practice, as a decentralized, spiritualized form of socialism." (Page 28)

Citation (Chicago Style)

Napierała, Paulina. "Martin Luther King Jr.’s Theological Evolution and the Impact of the (Black) Social Gospel on His Political Views." Ad American: Journal of American Studies 25 (2024): 65-94. https://doi.org/10.12797/AdAmericam.25.2024.25.05