Interview with Richard Wayne Wills Sr. about his book, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Image of God. Wills describes his book as unique from any previous works on King because he focuses on the theological convictions that served to shape King’s approach to civil rights activism. The link that connected the two, argues Wills, is the doctrine of Imago Dei.

Excerpt: “King clearly understood that systematic theology was much more than a graduation requirement. It was, for him, a lens through which he made sense of his relationship to God, others, and his living situation. I could not help but write with the then twenty-five year old pastor in mind, and consider the ways in which King assumed leadership responsibility of what would become the most significant movement for freedom in our modern era. King’s impromptu Holt Street address was a speech born of theological conviction. At some level, I suspect I could not help but find myself writing as a pastor with other pastors in mind. If nothing more perhaps a few more bridges between campus and congregation will be strengthened as a result of our remembrance of King’s theological legacy and the ways in which it served to transform ‘the jangling discords’ of his day.”