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   From: rkoch@banmlkday.com   
      
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   During his third year of doctoral work at Boston University,   
   Martin Luther King wrote Crozer Theological Seminary’s George   
   Davis, his former advisor, about his progress in graduate   
   school. He disclosed that he had begun to research his   
   dissertation and that the late Edgar Brightman, his first mentor   
   at Boston, and his current dissertation advisor, L. Harold   
   DeWolf, were both ‘‘quite impressed’’ with his course work. ‘‘So   
   far, my Dissertation title is: ‘A comparison of the conception   
   of God in the thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.’   
   I am finding the study quite fascinating. If there are no basic   
   interruptions, I hope to complete it by the end of the coming   
   summer’’ (Papers 2:224). Davis commended King on selecting ‘‘an   
   excellent dissertation topic’’ and expressed his confidence that   
   King would ‘‘do a good piece of work with it’’ (Papers 2:225).   
      
   King passed his final doctoral examination in February 1954, and   
   his dissertation outline was approved by Boston University’s   
   graduate school on 9 April, shortly before he accepted the call   
   to pastor Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. King’s letter of   
   acceptance to Dexter’s congregation specified that he be   
   ‘‘granted an allowance of time to complete my work at Boston   
   University,’’ though he would be ‘‘able to fill the pulpit at   
   least once or twice per month.’’ He also asked that the church   
   cover his expenses during the completion of his dissertation,   
   ‘‘including traveling expenses’’ (Papers 2:260).   
      
   King chose to focus his dissertation research on Tillich and   
   Wieman due to their status as influential religious thinkers and   
   as representatives of divergent views on the nature of God.   
   King’s comparison of Tillich’s and Wieman’s concepts of God   
   reflected his adherence to personalism, which proceeds from the   
   belief that God possesses a personality and can therefore have a   
   relationship with human beings. King’s analysis of Tillich’s and   
   Wieman’s theological concepts as ‘‘unsatisfactory’’ and   
   ‘‘inadequate  a philosophical and religious world-views’’   
   followed from his belief that God was a living force,   
   ‘‘responsive to the deepest yearnings of the human heart; this   
   God both evokes and answers prayer’’ (Papers 2:532; 533; 512).   
   He found that both Wieman and Tillich rejected the conception of   
   a personal God, which resulted in ‘‘a rejection of the   
   rationality, goodness, and love of God in the full sense of the   
   words. An impersonal ‘being-itself’ or ‘creative event’ cannot   
   be rational or good, for these attributes are of personality’’   
   (Papers 2:506). In the end, King pointed out the two   
   theologians’ views of God are not ‘‘basically sound’’ because   
   they ‘‘render real religious experience impossible’’ (Papers   
   2:532).   
      
   Recent scholarship by the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers   
   Project of the King Institute has revealed that as a student at   
   Crozer and Boston, King frequently appropriated the words of   
   other writers without proper attribution. Volumes I and II of   
   The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. have demonstrated that   
   while his bibliographies contained the authors and books that he   
   drew on in his own compositions, his papers often lacked the   
   footnotes and quotation marks that identified his use of these   
   sources in his text. His habit of plagiarizing others’ work,   
   intentionally or not, can be found in the various drafts of his   
   dissertation. King borrowed from several secondary sources   
   without proper citation, including a dissertation written by   
   fellow Crozer student Jack Boozer for DeWolf three years   
   earlier, and a review of Tillich’s Systematic Theology written   
   by one of King’s former professors.   
      
   King’s professors did not detect this pattern in his   
   scholarship. After King submitted the first draft of his   
   dissertation, DeWolf filed a report observing that he had sent   
   his specific criticisms, ‘‘most of them formal or minor,’’ to   
   the candidate. DeWolf reminded King to submit an abstract of the   
   dissertation ‘‘early’’ to allow proper time for revision and to   
   clearly set forth his thesis statement (Papers 2:333). That   
   said, DeWolf projected that the finished version would be an   
   ‘‘excellent and useful scholarly achievement’’ (Papers 2:334).   
   S. Paul Schilling, the dissertation’s second reader, approved   
   the draft as well.   
      
   King turned in the final version of his dissertation by the 15   
   April 1955 deadline, returning to Boston for his oral defense.   
   Graduate faculty at Boston University voted to confer the PhD on   
   King in May 1955; however, due to financial difficulties and   
   Coretta Scott King’s pregnancy, he was unable to attend   
   graduation.   
      
   Sources   
      
   Carson et al., ‘‘Martin Luther King, Jr., as Scholar: A   
   Reexamination of His Theological Writings,’’ Journal of American   
   History 78 (June 1991): 93–105.   
      
   Davis to King, 7 December 1953, in Papers 2:225–226.   
      
   DeWolf, First Reader’s Report, 26 February 1955, in Papers   
   2:333–334.   
      
   Introduction, in Papers 1:49–50.   
      
   Introduction, in Papers 2:22–26.   
      
   King, ‘‘A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking   
   of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman,’’ 15 April 1955, in   
   Papers 2:339–544.   
      
   King to Davis, 1 December 1953, in Papers 2:223–224.   
      
   King to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, 14 April 1954, in Papers   
   2:260.   
      
   King Papers Project, ‘‘The Student Papers of Martin Luther King,   
   Jr.: A Summary Statement on Research,’’ Journal of American   
   History 78 (June 1991): 23–31.   
      
   Schilling, Second Reader’s Report, 26 February 1955, in Papers   
   2:334–335.   
      
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