Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Usage of the Concepts of Children of God and imago Dei as a Theological Foundation of Equality, Human Dignity and Human Rights

Abstract

Abstract Martin Luther King, Jr. employs different theological concepts to substantiate equality and dignity of all human beings. Among these, the metaphors “children of God” and “image of God” feature prominently. While the children of God-concept is used widely in the African American religious and theological tradition, the occurrences of imago Dei are rather scarce in the generation of King and his teachers. This article reconstructs the usage of the concept of children of God – which is used in the New Testament context and thus often in orthodox Protestantism exclusively – as an inclusive universal anthropological concept in the Black religious tradition and its reception as well as adaptation in King’s own work. With regard to the theologoumenon of image of God, we will see that King starts to apply it differently beginning in the early 1960s, now explicitly using it as a foundation of human dignity and worth, and respectively, human rights. In many interpretations of King’s writings, it is overlooked that the usage of the imago Dei-concept was not at all common at this time. Sometimes the metaphor is retrojected in parts of King’s work, where it is not employed as a foundation of dignity. It is also not totally clear why King alters his theological argument at this time, but it is very likely that it is related to his exchange with George Kelsey and Abraham Heschel, who both employ the term as the basis for equality and dignity during this period. This development in King’s theology is an important step forward since in mainstream Protestant theology this development does not take place until one or two decades later.