Richard Lischer – författare

The Preacher King investigates Martin Luther King Jr.'s religious development from a precocious "preacher's kid" in segregated Atlanta to the most influential America preacher and orator of the twentieth century. To give the most accurate and intimate portrait possible, Richard Lischer draws almost exclusively on King's unpublished sermons and speeches, as well as tape recordings, personal interviews, and even police surveillance reports. By returning to the raw sources, Lischer recaptures King's truest preaching voice and, consequently, something of the real King himself. He shows how as the son, grandson, and great-grandson of preachers, King early on absorbed the poetic cadences, traditions, and power of the pulpit, more profoundly influenced by his fellow African-American preachers than by Gandhi and the classical philosophers.Lischer also reveals a later phase of King's development that few of his biographers or critics have addressed: the prophetic rage with which he condemned American religious and political hypocrisy. During the last three years of his life, Lischer shows, King accused his country of genocide, warned of long hot summers in the ghettos, and called for a radical redistribution of wealth.25 years after its initial publication, The Preacher King remains a critical study that captures the crucial aspect of Martin Luther King Jr.'s identity. Human, complex, and passionate, King was the consummate American preacher who never quit trying to reshape the moral and political character of the nation.

The Preacher King investigates Martin Luther King Jr.'s religious development from a precocious "preacher's kid" in segregated Atlanta to the most influential America preacher and orator of the twentieth century. To give the most accurate and intimate portrait possible, Richard Lischer draws almost exclusively on King's unpublished sermons and speeches, as well as tape recordings, personal interviews, and even police surveillance reports. By returning to the raw sources, Lischer recaptures King's truest preaching voice and, consequently, something of the real King himself. He shows how as the son, grandson, and great-grandson of preachers, King early on absorbed the poetic cadences, traditions, and power of the pulpit, more profoundly influenced by his fellow African-American preachers than by Gandhi and the classical philosophers.Lischer also reveals a later phase of King's development that few of his biographers or critics have addressed: the prophetic rage with which he condemned American religious and political hypocrisy. During the last three years of his life, Lischer shows, King accused his country of genocide, warned of long hot summers in the ghettos, and called for a radical redistribution of wealth.25 years after its initial publication, The Preacher King remains a critical study that captures the crucial aspect of Martin Luther King Jr.'s identity. Human, complex, and passionate, King was the consummate American preacher who never quit trying to reshape the moral and political character of the nation.

It is a commonplace that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a spellbinding orator, and it is evident that he honed these skills in the pulpit, in his capacity as a Baptist minister. Until now, however, there has been no full-scale study of King as a preacher. This long-awaited study, drawing on tape-recordings and transcriptions of unpublished sermons, and interviews with King's parishioners and colleagues, promises to remedy that lack. Preaching to congregations was never something King had "on the side," or dabbled in when he wasn't busy being a "civil rights activist," Lischer shows. Not only was preaching integral to King's identity, but the material of his Sunday morning sermons found its way into his mass-meeting speeches and civil addresses. When King spoke in civil settings, he transposed the Judeo-Christian themes of love, suffering, deliverance, and reconciliation from the shelter of the pulpit into the arena of public policy and behaviour. King's religiously informed rhetoric, argues Lischer, helped create a fragile and temporary consensus among white and black Americans and contributed to legislation that has changed the fabric of daily life in this country. King's Sunday morning sermons were far from identical with his civil addresses, however, and, in Lischer's view, the more intimate, unpublished "private" sermons necessarily tell us far more about what King "really" believed about his God and the ills of the nation - from issues of personal morality to the massive problems of racism and war. The Preacher King thus opens a new window on the heart and mind of one of the great figures of 20th-century American history, and on the well-spring of his greatness.

A guided tour of spiritual autobiography that grants readers new insights and appreciation of the genreThe genre of spiritual autobiography has flourished ever since Augustine essentially invented it in the fourth century. In Our Hearts Are Restless, Richard Lischer--himself the author of two spiritual memoirs--takes readers on a guided tour of the genre, examining the life writings of twenty-one figures from the expected (Thomas Merton) to the surprising (James Baldwin); from the sublime Julian of Norwich and Emily Dickinson to the outrageous Anne Lamott.Lischer is a perceptive reader and an engaging guide in the art and craft of spiritual writing. Our Hearts Are Restless shows readers how history's most brilliant spiritual writers have sought and found a pattern of meaning in the face of tragedy, conflict, and the responsibilities of daily life.

The Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching is the most comprehensive reference work on preaching available in the English language. No other book so richly combines concerns for the practice of preaching with theological themes and historical tradition. Its scope ranges from the technical tasks of sermon preparation to thoughtful essays on such topics as narrative preaching, African American preaching, style, and prophetic preaching, as well as a host of issues that are shaping and challenging the contemporary pulpit. Also included are essays that explore the life and work of the church's most influential preachers, including such diverse figures as St. Augustine, Sojourner Truth, and Fulton Sheen.

Parables make up one-third of Jesus' speech in the New Testament. In this volume, Richard Lischer provides an expert guide to these parables and proposes an important distinction between reading and interpreting the parables.Emphasizing the importance of reading the parables versus interpreting them, Lischer asserts that reading offers a kind of breathing space to explore historical, literary, theological, and socio-political dimensions of the parables and their various meanings, whereas interpreting implies an expert and critical position that must be defended.In this volume, Lischer lays out four theories for reading parables: 1) parables obscure truth; 2) parables teach many truths; 3) parables teach one truth; and 4) parables undermine the truth. Ultimately, he concludes that biblical parables undermine dominant myths called "the truth" to shine light on the Truth that is Jesus, God's presence with us.

Parables make up one-third of Jesus' speech in the New Testament. In this volume, Richard Lischer provides an expert guide to these parables and proposes an important distinction between reading and interpreting the parables.Emphasizing the importance of reading the parables versus interpreting them, Lischer asserts that reading offers a kind of breathing space to explore historical, literary, theological, and socio-political dimensions of the parables and their various meanings, whereas interpreting implies an expert and critical position that must be defended.In this volume, Lischer lays out four theories for reading parables: 1) parables obscure truth; 2) parables teach many truths; 3) parables teach one truth; and 4) parables undermine the truth. Ultimately, he concludes that biblical parables undermine dominant myths called "the truth" to shine light on the Truth that is Jesus, God's presence with us.