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Work #218 · Mid (the major collection of sermons)

Strength to Love

Martin Luther King Jr.
1963 (collected sermons; some preached at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church Montgomery in the 1950s) · English
Collection of seventeen sermons · American Civil Rights / black-church preaching

King's major book of theological-pastoral preaching — Christian love as the principle of non-violent social transformation

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute Strength to Love (Mid (the major collection of sermons))
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Both
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency Personal
Observer · Moral Authority Scripture
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

Strength to Love

The temporal life of Christian discipleship and social struggle — the long process of personal and social transformation.

Space

Strength to Love

The local space of the church congregation and the broader space of national-political struggle.

Matter

Strength to Love

Embodied Christian-political life — bodies subject to suffering, transformed by grace.

Observer

Strength to Love

The Christian disciple — embodied, plural, both active in love and passive in receiving grace. Personal-providential God as framework.

Energy

Strength to Love

The transformative energy of Christian love — the strength to love one's enemies.

Information

Strength to Love

The biblical-theological tradition preserved through the sermon as the primary form of communicating Christian truth.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

Strength to Love

The sermons' integration of personalist theology with prophetic social demand has been criticised from both sides — by black-radical thinkers as too integrationist, by conservative evangelicals as too political. The relation between Strength to Love's pastoral-individual address and the structural-political analysis of King's later work (Where Do We Go from Here) is a continuing scholarly theme.