RESUMO
This article examines the role of sonship in the psychological and spiritual development of men. In using the methodology of psychobiography, I explore the life history of Martin Luther King, Jr. to analyze his search for and recovery of sonship. I propose that sonship helps men rebel against and, in the end, overcome the feelings of inadequacy that are experienced in their struggles to achieve manhood, particularly within the father-son dyad. The scholarship of pastoral theologian Donald Capps is instructive in this regard, in that he suggests that sons should be allowed to search for a male figure, a father-substitute, who can affirm, not disdain or reject, this state of sonship. In the end, what is often viewed as a negative act of regression-i.e., the recovery of and return to sonship-is recognized instead as a positive one that assists a man in his journey toward wholeness.
