Monday, January 16, 2012

How Martin Luther King Jr Became Martin Luther ( Lutheran Shout Out )









Get Religion has post looking at some of the Martin Luther King Jr coverage today. See Martin Luther and Dr. King


They reference this Forbes Piece that references something I did not know. See Martin Luther King Jr.: The German Connection and How He Got His Name


On Monday,January 16th, this country celebrates the memory and legacy of the late Civil Rights activist, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Both Dr. King and his father are celebrated figures in the United States, but most people do not know the connection between the two Baptist ministers from the American South and the medieval German monk whose name they bear.


As an adult, Martin Luther King Sr., whose given name was Michael King, chose the name Martin Luther for himself and for his young son after visiting the region of eastern Germany where Martin Luther, the Father of the Reformation, was born, lived and worked, according to LutherCountry, an umbrella title for two neighboring German states, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.


The region is celebrating the LutherDecade, the 10-year count-down to 2017 and the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
Back in the 1934, Martin Luther King Sr. was one of 10 Baptist ministers who traveled first to the Holy Land and then to Germany. It was on this trip that the senior King “discovered” Martin Luther, and upon returning, gradually changed both his name and his then five-year old son’s, the group said
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