[10] http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman/howard-thurman-collection * This includes all parts of the site and any guest contributions. [12] https://www.bu.edu/today/2011/who-was-howard-thurman/ And Rome was everywhere. All Rights Reserved. The people who dealt in the slave traffic were Christians. [1] As a child Thurman’s faith was influenced by his grandmother, who was born a slave. Thurman’s book was influenced heavily by studying the life of Mahatma Gandhi. Thank you, I had no idea, had never heard of Dr. Thurman. Its ultimate consequence is nothing less than the death of the spirit and the disintegration of ethical and moral values.

The devastating emotional effects of avoiding conflicts due to fear is nothing less than death to ‘self’. Reading Jesus and the Disinherited was very much for me like the first time I read the Bhagavad Gita. Christian Collins Winn is associate professor of theology at the Global Center for Advanced Studies, Dublin, Ireland and Teaching Minister at Colonial Church in Edina, Minnesota. Browse 60+ years of magazine archives and web exclusives. While a student, Thurman began working as a youth movement leader, mainly through the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). [42] Thurman, p97 He’s the Jesus who meets the marginalized and oppressed at their point of need. Jesus rejected hatred because he saw that hatred meant death to the mind, death to the spirit, death to communion with his Father. JESUS AND THE DISINHERITED by Howard Thurman Forward by Vincent Harding Beacon Press, Boston 1976/1996 Forward A superficial encounter with the title of Howard Thurman’s classic statement, Jesus and the Disinherited, could easily lead us to anticipate a 1940’s version of liberation theology, with its now familiar message that God is on the side of the oppressed, with its powerful

The author of the book was Howard Thurman, a theologian, pastor and professor, who, by some accounts, would become a mentor to several leaders of the non-violent civil rights movement. ‘Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on…’ [23] The argument is that if God were to know how many hairs are on your head, would he not ensure the deliverance of your spirit, your life? Thurman’s gambit was that Jesus, subject to the same temptations as every dispossessed person, pursued a path distinct from the perils of adopting fear, deception or hatred as a means of survival. [28] Thurman criticizes this technique, arguing that this kind of deception will eventually infect the whole person, that the person who lies to survive will himself eventually become a lie—he will eventually be overcome by this behavior. 1 Jesus and the Disinherited: Deception Ken Wilson 3.19.17 For the record: Jesus for the Disinherited, by Howard Thurman a book that helped change my reading of Bible. Thurman argues in Disinherited that Jesus’ solution to man’s fear of man is simple: A man’s conviction that he is God’s child automatically tends … Stay up to date on the latest news and happenings from Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation. [3] https://www.vox.com/2017/8/12/16138246/charlottesville-nazi-rally-right-uva. That it became, through the intervening years, a religion of the powerful and the dominant, used sometimes as an instrument of oppression, must not tempt us into believing that it was thus in the mind and life of Jesus. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. [6] https://www.facebook.com/pg/FORUSA/about/?ref=page_internal – At only one point does Thurman insist that he does “not ignore the theological and metaphysical interpretation of the Christian doctrine of salvation” (p. 29) although he never says exactly what this interpretation is. DuBois and leaders in the fight for civil rights such as A. Philip Randolph and Mary McLeod Bethune. [31] Thurman, p62 CTWeekly delivers the best content from ChristianityToday.com to your inbox each week. https://www.bu.edu/today/2011/who-was-howard-thurman/, http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/howard_thurman.html, http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman/howard-thurman-collection, https://www.facebook.com/pg/FORUSA/about/?ref=page_internal, http://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/230/Rufus-Jones, http://www.bu.edu/admissions/student-life/community-diversity/mlk/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther-King-Jr, Meet the theologian who helped MLK see the value of nonviolence (The Conversation), Meet the Theologian Who Helped Martin Luther King Jr. See the Value of Nonviolence | BCNN1 - Black Christian News Network, Reflections on C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, Richard Allen and the AME Church, Part 2: Legacy, Richard Allen and the AME Church, Part 1: Richard Allen, Sojourner Truth Part 2: Woman of Influence, Howard Thurman: Jesus and the Disinherited, For A Higher Power: From Hacksaw Ridge to Muhammad Ali, To Heaven and Back II: Miracles from Heaven. Addeddate 2017-01-26 20:38:18 Identifier in.ernet.dli.2015.260684 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t6q00q56s Ocr ABBYY FineReader 11.0 Ppi 600 Scanner Internet Archive Python library 1.2.0.dev4. But Jesus insists that we must be honest, no matter the cost and that this integrity, though dangerous, humanizes and elevates the disinherited: “a man is a man, no more, no less” (p. 73). Fascinating that he is the bridge between Dr. King and Gandhi. Christianity Today strengthens the church by richly communicating the breadth of the true, good, and beautiful gospel.

He was not a Roman citizen, or an official religious leader of Judaism. Howard Washington Thurman (1899–1981) played a leading role in many social justice movements and organizations of the twentieth century. Even in the church, I understand, there is segregation. Thurman makes no distinction between sincerity to God and sincerity with one another. – Oppression breeds fear, arising out of the “violence to which the underprivileged are exposed” (p. 37). He states, for example: If a Roman soldier pushed Jesus into a ditch, he could not appeal to Caesar; he would be just another Jew in a ditch. I came to realize that when we push Jesus away with such rancor, we are in fact reifying the vision of a dominating and petty Jesus. He found in Christ the power and strength to respond to injustice and oppression without violence, hatred, fear, and deception. [27] Thurman, pp 33-34 ‘American Christianity has betrayed the religion of Jesus almost beyond redemption.