the autobiography of dr martin luther king jr

I guess I accepted Biblical studies uncritically until I was about twelve years old. I never felt any need to doubt them, at least at that time I didn’t. Naturally I accepted the teachings as they were being given to me. Most of them were unlettered and had never heard of Biblical criticism. None of my teachers ever doubted the infallibility of the Scriptures. The lessons which I was taught in Sunday School were quite in the fundamentalist line. My best friends were in Sunday School, and it was the Sunday School that helped me to build the capacity for getting along with people. I guess this was inevitable since my father was the pastor of my church, but I never regretted going to church until I passed through a state of scepticism in my second year of college. As far back as I can remember I was in church every Sunday.

The church has always been a second home for me.

Because of set forth in my family and my environment, and I must admit that this intaking has been largely unconscious. I was the second child of a family of three children, having one brother and one sister. I can see the effects of this early childhood experience on my present anti capitalistic feelings. I was much too young to remember the beginning of this depression, but I do recall how I questioned my parent about the numerous people standing in bread lines when I was about five years of age. My birthplace was Atlanta Georgia, the capital of the state and the so-called “gate-way to the south.” I was born in the late twenties on the verge of the great depression, which was to spread its disastrous arms into every corner of this nation for over a decade. He attributes the decision to become a minister to his father’s “noble example” despite their theological differences, King retains his “admiration for a real father.” He also recounts two formative experiences: the shock of a childhood confrontation with racism and the death of his grandmother. “It is quite easy for me to think of a God of love,” King writes, “mainly because I grew up in a family where love was central and where lovely relationships were ever present.” King relates seminal events in his religious development, including his baptism into the church at age seven and his call to the ministry while in college.

King recalls a nurturing family life-closely interwoven with activities in his father’s church-which conditioned him to be optimistic about human nature. In this revealing essay written for Davis’s course the Religious Development of Personality, King reviews the influences of his family and church on his religious beliefs.

The autobiography of dr martin luther king jr