In an 18 July 1952 letter, Martin Luther King wrote to his
future wife, Coretta Scott, about his beliefs as a minister and
proclaimed: ‘‘Let us continue to hope, work, and pray that in
the future we will live to see a warless world, a better
distribution of wealth, and a brotherhood that transcends race
or color. This is the gospel that I will preach to the world’’
(Papers 6:126). As a self-described ‘‘advocator of the social
gospel,’’ King’s theology was concerned ‘‘with the whole man,
not only his soul but his body, not only his spiritual well-
being, but his material well-being’’ (Papers 6:72; Papers
5:422). His ministry built upon the social gospel of the
Protestant church at the turn of the twentieth century and his
own family’s practice of preaching on the social conditions of
parishioners. The early social gospel movement emerged during
the rapidly industrializing American society following the Civil
War. Recognizing the injustices of ‘‘triumphant capitalism,’’
some progressive ministers prescribed a la