Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Showing posts with label Commentary - Bruce Epperly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Commentary - Bruce Epperly. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Process Thinking & Human Living: An Online Seminar for Exploration and Inspiration


Process Thinking & Human Living:
An Online Seminar for Exploration and Inspiration
Premiered Oct 25, 2022



~  Charts & Outlines by Sheri Kling from the Center of Process Studies  ~
found further below

In this 3-hour, online seminar, speakers from Process & Faith, a program of the Center for Process Studies of Claremont School of Theology explore aspects of process thought that make a positive difference in human life and in the life of the earth

This seminar was a collaboration of Process & Faith in the U.S., the Network of Spiritual Progressives – Australia, and the Centre for Interfaith Understanding in Singapore. It is co-sponsored by the Center for Process Studies and the Cobb Institute.

Network of Spiritual Progressives: https://spiritualprogressives.org
Centre for Interfaith Understanding: https://cifusg.wordpress.com
Center for Process Studies: https://www.ctr4process.org
Cobb Institute: https://cobb.institute

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Presenters:

Andrew M. Davis, Ph.D., is Program Director for the Center for Process Studies at Claremont School of Theology. A native of northern California, he was born and raised among the towering redwoods of Occidental and the meandering woodlands of Santa Rosa’s Bennett Valley. It was out of these natural settings that his passion for the questions of philosophy, theology and religion first emerged. He holds B.A. in Philosophy and Theology, an M.A. in Interreligious Studies, and a Ph.D. in Religion and Process Philosophy from Claremont School of Theology. He was recently nominated and elected as a fellow for the International Society of Science and Religion (ISSR). He is a poet, aphorist and author or editor of several books including Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy (nominated for the ISSR 2022 Book Prize). Follow his work: https://www.andrewmdavis.info

Bruce Epperly, Ph.D., has spent over forty years in the varied vocations of seminary and university professor, university chaplain, congregational pastor, and seminary administrator. He is the author of over sixty books in theology, spirituality, health and healing, scripture, politics, and ministerial excellence and wellbeing, including The Elephant is Running: Process and Open and Relational Theologies and Religious Pluralism; Process Theology: Embracing Adventure with God; Mystics in Action: Twelve Saints for Today; Prophetic Healing: Howard Thurman’s Vision of Contemplative Activism; and Francis of Assisi: From Privilege to Activism. His comments for this event are inspired by his Process Theology and Politics. Follow his work: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/livinga...

Patricia Adams Farmer, M.Div., M.A., M.Ed., is a process theologian, writer, and minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She is the author of Embracing a Beautiful God, Fat Soul: A Philosophy of S-I-Z-E, Replanting Ourselves in Beauty (edited with Jay McDaniel), Beauty and Process Theology: A Journey of Transformation, and two theological novels: The Metaphor Maker and Fat Soul Fridays. While serving a small congregation in Fulton, Missouri, she enjoys playing classical guitar, restoring her historical home, and spending time with her husband, Ron Farmer, and their ginger cat, Alfie. Follow her work: https://patriciaadamsfarmer.com

Sheri D. Kling, Ph.D., is the director of Process and Faith (Center for Process Studies of Claremont School of Theology) and the John Cobb Legacy Fund. She is also a writer, teacher, and constructive theologian who integrates the process-relational philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and the analytical psychology of C. G. Jung for psycho-spiritual wholeness. She is a faculty member of the Haden Institute, the author of A Process Spirituality: Christian and Transreligious Resources for Transformation and Finding Home: Rural Reflections on the Journey to Wholeness and editor or contributor to several other texts. Sheri lives with her dog Bobby and her cat, Chelsea, in Bradenton, Florida, where she enjoys Gulf breezes and local wildlife. Follow her work: https://www.sherikling.com

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Process & Faith is a multi-faith network for relational spirituality and the common good.


————————————————————

00:00 Welcome – Richard Livingston
02:20 Opening remarks – Adis Duderija
05:32 Introduction – Sheri Kling
13:03 Patricia Adams Farmer — Beauty in Troubled Times
40:03 Andrew Davis – Ideas in Process
1:19:15 Bruce Epperly – Healing Politics
1:52:42 Sheri Kling – Wholeness & Transformation
2:22:45 Closing Q&A



Charts & Outlines by Sheri Kling
from the Center of Process Studies












Sunday, February 14, 2021

Bruce Epperly - A Holy Lent for Pastors




A Holy Lent for Pastors

FEBRUARY 13, 2021 BY BRUCE EPPERLY


Ash Wednesday is on the horizon. In just a few days, we will gather on Zoom or, in some places, in person and place ashes literally or symbolically on congregants’ foreheads and embark on the Lenten journey. Lent, Holy Week, Advent, and Christmas are the most challenging seasons of the Christian year for spiritual leaders. During Lent, pastors usually have at least one more service or program each week and often spend extra time visiting shut-ins and giving home communions. Even in pandemic, we have extra activities to nurture our congregation’s spirituality. Zoom often adds, rather than subtracts, from our responsibilities.

Then, before we know it, there’s Holy Week with at least two and often as many as six or more extra services to be planned and led. Most pastors hardly have time to catch their breath, must less live in the complacent spirit of Lent and Holy Week. Recently, I met with a group of pastors who lamented that although they counseled their congregants to spend extra time in prayer, their own prayer lives deteriorated, even in time of Zoom, during these seasons of penitence and retreat. I believe that pastors can heed the Ash Wednesday affirmation, “Repent and believe the Gospel.” We can turn around, choose an alternative ministerial path, reclaim our understanding of prayer, and discover the good news of God’s abundant life in our daily duties.


How do pastors live a holy Lent in a time of pandemic? The answer is obvious, we live a holy Lent by intentionally cultivating your spiritual life through a focus on spiritual disciplines. Spirituality involves a dynamic call and response, joining divine grace and human intentionality. Grace abounds and God is near, but our calling during Lent is to open our hearts to the grace in which we stand. Our challenge is to be agents in shaping our ministries, rather than passively being shaped by the expectations of others.

Like everything important in ministry, the key element of pastoral spiritual formation is intentionality and agency, of opening to God in our daily lives and ministries. Our intentionality shapes our understanding of time. Ministry is a 24/7 profession, but much of a pastor’s time is discretionary, that is, a matter of priorities and prayerful decision-making. Living a holy Lent is not optional for good ministry any more than study is not optional for good preaching. Time is of the essence, but not the time of fast-food spirituality. Knowing that we -can never fully manage time – we sure have learned that over the past year! – we nevertheless need a slow-cooked spacious spirituality for the Lenten season. Pastors need to make time for retreat during Lent. Though we may be homebound and seldom go to work at church, we can find quiet time at home, or in our deserted church building, or rent a cabin in the woods or a beach house.

Ministry doesn’t need to be done in the hurried pace of focusing on one week at a time, especially in terms of our preaching and worship preparation. The coming of Lent can inspire us to purposeful moments of prayer and meditation and time apart for retreat. As a matter of fact, depending on family obligations, I would suggest that a pastor take minimally three retreat days during Lent to gain spiritual perspective and insight on the scriptures as well as God’s presence in her or his life.

These days, or half days, need not be sequential. We simply need to find a quiet place for prayer as did Jesus during times of important decision-making.


While the hour is late in terms of the liturgical calendar, one pathway to a spiritual formation in Lent can begin during the first week of Lent. While ideally, you’ve read the Lenten readings during Epiphany and charted out your sermons for Lent, on Monday or Tuesday prior to Ash Wednesday, find a quiet place, where you can spend a full morning or afternoon, or better yet, a whole day in prayerful solitude and study. (If you can’t do this prior to Ash Wednesday, Thursday or Friday following Ash Wednesday will also work.) With nothing but your bible and laptop or journal, take one morning or afternoon simply to read imaginatively once more the Lenten lectionary passages. Let ideas and images emerge through practices such as lectio divina or imaginative prayer. Gather these ideas up and begin to reflect on common themes that emerge throughout the season. Let them shape your perspective throughout the Lenten season.

Then, you can choose to take a brief retreat on Ash Wednesday. Rather than scurrying around completing your homily, liturgy, or finding last year’s palm branches to burn for the Ash Wednesday service, begin the morning in prayerful reflection – perhaps in a time of reflection on the meaning of Ash Wednesday as a day of transformation and change, a day to recognize your mortality and seize the moment to live abundantly and faithfully. You may choose to meet for a few hours of prayer and meditation with colleagues in ministry, concluding your time with communion and the imposition of ashes. (If you have an Ash Wednesday Service in the morning, I suggest that you wake up an hour early for retreat time or immediately adjourn to your retreat following the service.)

While the first retreat is more ambient and intuitive, the second scripture-based retreat is more goal-oriented. In this retreat, taking place during the second Thursday or Friday (or a day of your convenience) of Lent, bring your bible and worship resources. Grounding your time in prayerful meditation, take time to harvest key points for your preaching and worship preparation for the remaining weeks of Lent. Take time to reflect on appropriate worship materials, including global and innovative as well as traditional styles of worship. Rough out yourLenten services in advance. Once again, let your retreat time join prayer and preparation for your own spiritual formation as a pastor.


These retreats join prayer, worship, and preaching, and refresh the spirit of ministry. Advance preparation enables the pastor to experience Lent in a more spacious way. Well-prepared pastors can practice what they preach. Amid the busyness of Lent, they have the time to take a weekly morning or afternoon retreat for prayer, meditation, and study each week. I would suggest a regular time each week. Even in the midst of Holy Week and Easter, the spiritually-prepared pastor has time for prayer, exercise, study, and family time. This truly is a matter of priority as well as necessity.

Time can be our friend in ministry, and not an enemy constantly thwarting our purposes. We can experience time and energy in terms of abundance rather than scarcity. We can, like Jesus, find our own places of solitude despite a busy schedule. In the process, our ministries will become more spacious and we will become more hospitable and creative in living out our ministerial duties. We will be less hurried and more present to persons. We may even experience Lent as one long retreat, in which we deepen our spirits through living through a holy Lent in an intentional, leisurely, and effective way. (For more on ministerial spirituality and wellbeing, see A CENTER IN THE CYCLONE: 21ST CENTURY CLERGY SELF-CARE and TENDING TO THE HOLY: THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD IN MINISTRY.

+++

Bruce Epperly is a Cape Cod pastor, professor, and author of over sixty books, including:
  • WALKING WITH FRANCIS OF ASSISI: FROM PRIVILEGE TO ACTIVISM
  • MYSTICS IN ACTION: 12 SAINTS FOR TODAY
  • PROPHETIC HEALING: HOWARD THURMAN’S VISION OF CONTEMPLATIVE ACTIVISM
  • GOD ONLINE: A MYSTIC’S GUIDE TO THE INTERNET
  • PROCESS THEOLOGY AND POLITICS
  • THE JUBILEE YEARS: EMBRACING CLERGY RETIREMENT





Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Black Theology - Howard Thurman: Joining Prophetic Ministry with Personal and Social Healing


Amazon Link

Prophetic Healing: Howard Thurman's Vision
of Contemplative Activism

by Bruce Epperly
August 10, 2020


Thurman reminds us that we can both picket and pray, and
protest injustice while working toward reconciliation. - BE


Can mystics be political activists? Can our encounter with God inspire us to be agents of social transformation? Through the lens of Howard Thurman's life and mystical theology, Bruce Epperly explores what it means to join prophetic ministry with personal and social healing. Despite the racism he experienced throughout his life, Thurman joined his spiritual experiences with a commitment to racial and social healing. He was a prophet, challenging racism and social injustice. He was also a healer who experienced God's presence in oppressor as well as oppressed. Thurman's holistic spirituality provides a pathway for social healing in a time characterized by polarization, incivility, and hatred. Thurman reminds us that we can both picket and pray, and protest injustice while working toward reconciliation.

The spiritual exercises at the end of each chapter draw on Howard Thurman's work to challenge us--if we practice these exercises seriously and with commitment--to develop a new view of our opponents. They help us toward loving our enemies, and becoming the "friendly world of friendly persons" that Thurman described.


* * * * * * * * * * *


Howard Thurman Lost Lectures - Love or Perish
Publ. Jun 7, 2019


Morehouse College
Found in the Morehouse College Archives


* * * * * * * * * * *




Mysticism and Social Action: The Spirituality
of Howard Thurman

by Bruce Epperly
December 3, 2018

Activism is at the heart of progressive theology. The way of Jesus is both personal and social. Jesus’ embodiment of prophetic spirituality was reflected in his welcome of the marginalized, affirmation of women, expansion of the scope of salvation and ethical concern to include foreigners and the disinherited, and challenge to narrow purity codes which promoted exclusion. Jesus proclaimed that the “spirit of the Lord” was upon him, and this meant the healing of the social order as well as people’s religious lives.

Yet, today politics has become a hotbed of polarization, even among progressive Christians. In our quest for a more just society, we too have succumbed to incivility, exclusion, and divisiveness, even among our own progressive ranks as many insist there is only one right way to respond to the current political crises and only one language set appropriate to including the marginalized. If we are to go high in transforming our culture, we need models for activism that transform, heal, and liberate.

African American theologian and spiritual guide Howard Thurman (1899–1981) provides one pathway toward healing our cultural divide even as we protest the injustices of our time. A descendant of slaves who experienced racism throughout his life, Thurman sought to nurture a liberating spirituality that included foe and friend alike. Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited, published in 1949, was one of the first texts on black liberation theology and was an inspiration to the nonviolent resistance of Martin Luther King Jr., who reportedly carried Thurman’s book in his pocket during the height of the civil rights protests.

Thurman was an activist mystic, a universalist who experienced God profoundly in the non-human world of flora, fauna, sky and sea. He believed that the world is animated by a Spirit within which all of us “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). This Spirit joins all creation and is the deepest reality of every person. Thurman knew the dangers of polarization and racism, having grown up in a culture where he was “an outsider in the community of power, where most of the life and death decisions are made which control the common life,” who must struggle daily to affirm his identity and find his place in a society whose structures often disregard his voice and value.[1] He knew the power of poverty and racism to destroy the imaginations and dreams of children and their parents. Thurman also knew that God is present in everyone and that transformation can occur among the greatest as well as the least of these. He believed that deep down everyone could become a mystic.

In Thurman’s lectures on “Mysticism and Social Action,” he defined mysticism as:
“the response of the individual to a personal encounter with God within his own soul. This is my working definition. Such a response is total, effecting the inner quality of the life and its outward expression as its manifestation.”[2]
In the spirit of his teacher Quaker professor and spiritual guide Rufus Jones, Thurman proclaimed an “affirmative mysticism,” which saw God moving through our social structures as well as personal experience seeking the spiritual and interpersonal unity of all things.

The mystic, Thurman believed, is motivated by the desire that everyone receives the opportunity to experience holiness and value, and a personal relationship with God. Going beyond self-interest to world loyalty, the mystic sees our common humanity, empathizes with the suffering of the oppressed, and embraces contrasting viewpoints, even viewpoints they continue to oppose, as ways of moving from polarization to reconciliation. Having experienced God as the source of all creation, the mystic desires that all people experience this same sense of wholeness, according to their unique personalities, cultures, and life experiences. Accordingly, when the mystic observes conditions that threaten persons’ encounter with God, he or she is compelled to confront them. “Social action, therefore, is an expression of resistance against whatever tends to, or separates one from, the experience of God, who is the ground of his being.”[3]
According to Thurman, the mystic understands that healthy societies are fundamental to experiences of spiritual wholeness. Improving the social, political, and economic order opens the door for the leisure and dignity necessary for intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual growth. In contrast, when persons do not have adequate food, housing, security, social equality, and legal protection, they seldom pursue intellectual and spiritual growth. Trauma haunts their daily lives, and mistrust feeds their spirits. The mystic’s social agenda ultimately “has to do with the removal of all that prevents God from coming to himself in the life of the individual. Whatever there is that blocks this, calls for action.”[4]
Thurman believed that “for the mystic, social action is sacramental, because it is not an end in itself. Always, it is the individual who must be addressed, located and released, underneath his misery and his hunger and his destitution. That whatever may be blocking his way to his own center where his altar may be found, this must be removed.”[5] The mystic realizes that the rich and the poor, the oppressor and the oppressed, may be equally alienated from their deepest selves, despite their economic and social differences. The soul-destroying nature of poverty and injustice is obvious and must be addressed immediately with wise personal and political action.

The powerful and wealthy perpetrators of injustice are also in spiritual jeopardy. With all their advantages and privilege, they have turned their gaze from the beauty of the heavens to the banality of oppression and manipulation. One may gain the world, as Jesus says, and lose one’s soul, caught up in consumerism, power, entitlement, and self-gratification. The oppressor’s injustice ultimately stunts her or his own soul as well as the souls of those whom they oppress.

Inspired by their sense of the unity and divinity of all life, the mystic seeks the healing of both oppressor and oppressed. The mystic pushes hard for social transformation, but also recognizes the humanity of the oppressor. Justice is painful – and oppressors need to learn the error of their ways – but the confrontation with those who perpetuate injustice is intended to support their relationship to God, humankind in its diversity, and personal spiritual growth. In so doing, the mystic rises above polarization to promote what Martin Luther King Jr. described as the Beloved Community.
Howard Thurman shows progressive Christians that mysticism can be this-worldly and earth-affirming. The mystic need not escape the maelstrom of life, but has the mandate to be God’s companion in promoting God’s vision “on earth as it is in heaven.”

About the Author

Bruce Epperly is senior pastor of South Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, in Centerville, Massachusetts, and a professor in theology and spirituality at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. He is the author of over 45 books, including The Mystic in You: Discovering a God-filled World (Upper Room Books) and The Work of Christmas: The Twelve Days of Christmas with Howard Thurman(Anamchara Books).

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[1] Howard Thurman, Mysticism and Social Action: Lawrence Lectures and Discussions with Dr. Howard Thurman (London: International Association for Religious Freedom, 2014), Kindle Location, 109.

[2] Ibid., Kindle Location, 177–179.

[3] Ibid., Kindle location, 235–236.

[4] Ibid., Kindle location, 244–245.

[5] Ibid., Kindle location, 249–251.


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Howard Thurman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Howard Thurman
picture of Howard Thurman
Born
Howard Washington Thurman

November 18, 1899
Daytona Beach, Florida, United States
DiedApril 10, 1981 (aged 81)
Alma mater
OccupationMinister, theologian, author, dean
Notable work
Jesus and the Disinherited (1949)
Howard Washington Thurman (November 18, 1899 – April 10, 1981) was an African-American author, philosopher, theologian, educator, and civil rights leader. As a prominent religious figure, he played a leading role in many social justice movements and organizations of the twentieth century.[1] Thurman's theology of radical nonviolence influenced and shaped a generation of civil rights activists, and he was a key mentor to leaders within the movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thurman served as dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University from 1932 to 1944 and as dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University from 1953 to 1965. In 1944, he co-founded, along with Alfred Fisk, the first major interracial, interdenominational church in the United States.[2]
Howard Thurman died on April 10, 1981 in San Francisco, California.

Early life and education

Howard Thurman was born in 1899 in Florida in Daytona Beach. He spent most of his childhood in Daytona, Florida, where his family lived in Waycross, one of Daytona's three all-black communities.[3]:xxxi, xxxvii, xci He was profoundly influenced by his maternal grandmother, Nancy Ambrose, who had been enslaved on a plantation in Madison County, Florida. Nancy Ambrose and Thurman's mother, Alice, were members of Mount Bethel Baptist Church in Waycross and were women of deep Christian faith. Thurman's father, Saul Thurman, died of pneumonia when Howard Thurman was seven years old. After completing eighth grade, Thurman attended the Florida Baptist Academy in Jacksonville, Florida. One hundred miles from Daytona, it was one of only three high schools for African Americans in Florida at the time.[3]:xxxi-xli
In 1923, Thurman graduated from Morehouse College as valedictorian.[3]:xciv In 1925, he was ordained as a Baptist minister at First Baptist Church of Roanoke, Virginia, while still a student at Rochester Theological Seminary (now Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School).[3]:xcvi He graduated from Rochester Theological Seminary in May 1926 as valedictorian in a class of twenty-nine students.[3]:lxi, xcvii From June 1926 until the fall of 1928, Thurman served as pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Oberlin, Ohio.[3]:xcvii, c In the fall of 1928, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he had a joint appointment to Morehouse College and Spelman College in philosophy and religion.[3]:c During the spring semester of 1929, Thurman pursued further study as a special student at Haverford College with Rufus Jones, a noted Quaker philosopher and mystic.[3]:ci

Career


Detail from a stained glass window featuring Howard Thurman at Howard University's Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel
Thurman was selected as the first dean of Rankin Chapel[4] at Howard University in the District of Columbia in 1932. He served there from 1932 to 1944. He also served on the faculty of the Howard University School of Divinity.[5]
Thurman traveled broadly, heading Christian missions and meeting with world figures such as Mahatma Gandhi.[6] When Thurman asked Gandhi what message he should take back to the United States, Gandhi said he regretted not having made nonviolence more visible as a practice worldwide and remarked "It may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of nonviolence will be delivered to the world.".[7]
In 1944, Thurman left his tenured position at Howard to help the Fellowship of Reconciliation establish the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. He served as co-pastor with a white minister, Alfred Fisk. Many of their congregation were African Americans who had migrated to San Francisco from OklahomaTexas and Arkansas for jobs in the defense industry. The church helped create a new community for many in San Francisco.
Thurman was invited to Boston University in 1953, where he became the dean of Marsh Chapel (1953–1965). He was the first black Dean of Chapel at a majority-white university or college in the United States. In addition, he served on the faculty of Boston University School of Theology. Thurman was also active and well known in the Boston community, where he influenced many leaders.
After leaving Boston University in 1965, Thurman continued his ministry as chairman of the board and director of the Howard Thurman Educational Trust in San Francisco until his death in 1981.
Thurman was a prolific author, writing twenty books on theology, religion, and philosophy. The most famous of his works, Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), deeply influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. and other leaders, both black and white, of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Thurman had been a classmate and friend of King's father at Morehouse College. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited Thurman while he attended Boston University, and Thurman in turn mentored his former classmate's son and his friends. He served as spiritual advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., Sherwood EddyJames FarmerA. J. Muste, and Pauli Murray. At Boston University, Thurman also taught Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, who cited Thurman as among the teachers who first compelled him to explore mystical trends beyond Judaism.[8]

Marriage and family

Thurman married Katie Kelley on June 11, 1926, less than a month after graduating from seminary. Katie was a 1918 graduate of the Teacher's Course at Spelman Seminary (renamed Spelman College in 1924). Their daughter Olive was born in October 1927. Katie died in December 1930 of tuberculosis, which she had probably contracted during her anti-tuberculosis work. On June 12, 1932, Thurman married Sue Bailey, whom he had met while at Morehouse, when Sue was a student at Spelman.[3]:lxii-lxiii, lxvii, lxix-lxxii Howard and Sue Bailey Thurman's daughter Anne was born in October 1933. Sue Bailey Thurman was an author, lecturer, historian, civil rights activist, and founder of the Aframerican Women's Journal. She died in 1996.

Honors and legacy

Thurman was named honorary Canon of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, in 1974.[9]
The Ebony Magazine called Thurman one of the 50 most important figures in African-American history. In 1953 Life rated Thurman among the twelve most important religious leaders in the United States.
In 1986, Dean Emeritus George K. Makechnie founded the Howard Thurman Center at Boston University to preserve and share the legacy of Howard Thurman. In 2020, the Center moved to a larger space occupying two floors in the Peter Fuller Building at 808 Commonwealth Avenue.[10] The Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University holds the Howard Thurman Papers and the Sue Bailey Thurman Papers, where they are catalogued and available to researchers.[11]
The Howard Thurman Papers Project was founded in 1992. The Project's mission is to preserve and promote Thurman's vast documentary record, which spans 63 years and consists of approximately 58,000 items of correspondence, sermons, unpublished writings, and speeches. The Howard Thurman Papers Project is located at Boston University School of Theology.[12]
Howard University School of Divinity named their chapel the Thurman Chapel in memory of Howard Thurman.[13]
Howard Thurman's poem 'I Will Light Candles This Christmas' has been set to music by British composer and songwriter Adrian Payne, both as a song and as a choral (SATB) piece. The choral version was first performed by Epsom Choral Society in December 2007. An arrangement for school choirs, which can be performed in one or two parts with piano accompaniment, was first performed in December 2010.[citation needed][importance?]

Works by Howard Thurman

Books

  • The Greatest of These (1944)
  • Deep River: Reflections on the Religious Insight of Certain of the Negro Spirituals (1945) [also published as The Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death (same year)]
  • Meditation for Apostles of Sensitiveness (1948)
  • Jesus and the Disinherited (1949)
  • Deep is the Hunger: Meditations for Apostles of Sensitiveness (1951)
  • Christmas Is the Season of Affirmation (1951)
  • Meditations of the Heart (1953)
  • The Creative Encounter: An Interpretation of Religion and the Social Witness (1954)
  • The Growing Edge (1956)
  • Footprints of a Dream: The Story of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples (1959)
  • Mysticism and the Experience of Love (1961)
  • The Inward Journey: Meditations on the Spiritual Quest (1961)
  • Temptations of Jesus: Five Sermons Given By Dean Howard Thurman in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, 1962 (1962)
  • Disciplines of the Spirit (1963)
  • The Luminous Darkness: A Personal Interpretation of the Anatomy of Segregation and the Ground of Hope (1965)
  • The Centering Moment (1969)
  • The Search for Common Ground (1971)
  • The Mood of Christmas (1973)
  • A Track to the Water's Edge: The Olive Schreiner Reader (1973)
  • The First Footprints (1975)
  • With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman (1979)
  • For the Inward Journey: The Writings of Howard Thurman (1984) (selected by Anne Spencer Thurman)

Edited Collections

  • Fluker, Walter Earl; et al., eds. The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman, Vol. 1: My People Need Me, June 1918-March 1936. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2009.
  • Fluker, Walter Earl; et al., eds. The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman, Vol. 2: Christian, Who Calls Me Christian? April 1936-August 1943. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2012.
  • Fluker, Walter Earl; Eisenstadt, Peter; and Glick, Silvia P., eds. The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman, Vol. 3: The Bold Adventure, September 1943-May 1949. Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2015.
  • Fluker, Walter Earl and Tumber, Catherine, eds. A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religious Experience and Public Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998.
  • Smith, Jr., Luther E. Howard Thurman: Essential Writings. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2006.

References

  1. ^ Thurman, Howard (1998), "Introduction", in Fluker, Walter Earl; Tumber, Catherine (eds.), A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religious Experience and Public Life, Boston: Beacon Press, p. 2, ISBN 080701057X
  2. ^ "Howard Thurman Papers Project | Boston University"www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2016-02-24.
  3. Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i Fluker, Walter Earl; et al. (2009). The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman, Vol. 1: My People Need Me, June 1918-March 1936. Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-57003-804-4.
  4. ^ "Howard University Libraries". Howard.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-03-31. Retrieved 2013-08-01.
  5. ^ "Howard University School of Divinity". Divinity.howard.edu. Archived from the original on 2014-11-18. Retrieved 2013-08-01.
  6. ^ Dixie, Quinton; Eisenstadt, Peter (2011). Visions of a Better World: Howard Thurman's Pilgrimage to India and the Origins of African American Nonviolence. Boston: Beacon Press. pp. 95–115ISBN 978-0-8070-0045-8.
  7. ^ Dixie, Quinton; Eisenstadt, Peter (2011). Visions of a Better World: Howard Thurman's Pilgrimage to India and the Origins of African American Nonviolence. Boston: Beacon Press. pp. xii. ISBN 978-0-8070-0045-8.
  8. ^ Schachter-Shalomi, Reb Zalman; Gropman, Daniel (1983). The First Step: A Guide For the New Jewish Spirit. Toronto: Bantam. pp. 3–6.
  9. ^ Letter from Howard Thurman to Charles G. Proffitt, March 29, 1974 (Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston Univ.)
  10. ^ "Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground | Boston University". Bu.edu. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
  11. ^ "Welcome - Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center"hgar-srv3.bu.edu. Retrieved 2016-02-24.
  12. ^ "Howard Thurman Papers Project | Boston University"www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2016-02-24.
  13. ^ "Howard University School of Divinity"www.divinity.howard.edu. Retrieved 2016-09-18.

Further reading

  • Apel, William, "Mystic as Prophet: The Deep Freedom of Thomas Merton and Howard Thurman," in Merton Annual: Studies in Culture, Spirituality and Social Concerns, Vol. 16 (2003), 172–187.
  • Dixie, Quinton and Eisenstadt, Peter. Visions of A Better World: Howard Thurman's Pilgrimage to India and the Origins of African American Nonviolence. Boston: Beacon Press, 2011.
  • Fluker, Walter Earl. "Dangerous Memories and Redemptive Possibilities: Reflections on the Life and Work of Howard Thurman," in Preston King and Walter Earl Fluker, eds., Black Leaders and Ideologies in the South: Resistance and Nonviolence. New York: Routledge, 2005, 147–176.
  • Fluker, Walter Earl. "Leaders Who Have Shaped Religious Dialogue—Howard Thurman: Intercultural and Interreligious Leader," in Sharon Henderson Callahan, ed., Religious Leadership: A Reference Handbook (Vol. 2). Los Angeles: Sage, 2013, 571–578.
  • Giles, Mark S. "Howard Thurman: The Making of a Morehouse Man, 1919–1923," The Journal of Educational Foundations 20:1–2 (2006), 105–122.
  • Giles, Mark S. "Howard Thurman, Black Spirituality, and Critical Race Theory in Higher Education," Journal of Negro Education 79:3 (2010), 354–365.
  • Haldeman, W. Scott. "Building a Reconciling Community: The Legacy of Howard Thurman," Liturgy 29:3 (2014), 31–36.
  • Hardy III, Clarence E. "Imagine a World: Howard Thurman, Spiritual Perception, and American Calvinism," Journal of Religion 81:1 (2001), 78–97.
  • Jensen, Kipton. "Howard Thurman: Philosophy, Civil Rights, and the Search for Common Ground," Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2019.
  • Kaplan, Edward K. "A Jewish Dialogue with Howard Thurman: Mysticism, Compassion, and Community," CrossCurrents 60(4) (2010), 515–525.
  • Neal, Anthony. Common Ground: A Comparison of the Ideas of Consciousness in the Writings of Howard Thurman and Huey Newton. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2015.
  • Neal, Anthony Sean. Howard Thurman’s Philosophical Mysticism: Love Against Fragmentation. New York: Lexington Press, 2019.
  • Smith, Jr., Luther E. Howard Thurman: The Mystic as Prophet. Richmond, Ind.: Friends United Press, 1991 (first published in 1981).
  • Walker, Corey D.B. "Love, Blackness, Imagination: Howard Thurman's Vision of Communitas," South Atlantic Quarterly 112:4 (2013), 641–655.
  • Williams, Zachery. "Prophets of Black Progress: Benjamin E. Mays and Howard W. Thurman, Pioneering Black Religious Intellectuals," Journal of African American Men 5:4 (2001), 23–38.

External links