Martin Luther King Jr.’s Transnational Christology: E. Stanley Jones, Gandhi, and the Making of Nonviolent Theology

This paper examines Martin Luther King Jr.’s theology of nonviolence through a transnational Christological genealogy linking E. Stanley Jones and Mahatma Gandhi. Challenging interpretations that treat Kingian nonviolence as a derivative ethical strategy, the study argues that King articulated a transnational Christological praxis shaped by postcolonial moral imaginaries. Jones’s reconfiguration of Jesus—detached from Western ecclesial authority and imperial power—created a space in which Gandhi could appropriate Jesus as an ethical guide without abandoning his Hindu identity. Gandhi, in turn, mediated this Christology through indigenous traditions of ahimsa, embodied suffering, and disciplined moral action, a vision that deeply influenced King’s understanding of nonviolence and the beloved community. Engaging the AAR Presidential Theme FUTURE/S, the paper argues that King’s emphasis on moral agency, embodied suffering, and refusal of technocratic power offers a theological alternative to contemporary forms of dehumanization, algorithmic governance, and political abstraction.