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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.
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Howard Thurman Lost Lectures - Love or Perish
Publ. Jun 7, 2019
Howard Thurman Lost Lectures - Love or Perish
Publ. Jun 7, 2019
Morehouse College
Found in the Morehouse College Archives
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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
Howard Thurman
| |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
Howard Washington Thurman
November 18, 1899
Daytona Beach, Florida, United States
|
| Died | April 10, 1981 (aged 81)
San Francisco, California, United States
|
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Minister, 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
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 Oklahoma, Texas 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 Eddy, James Farmer, A. 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
- ^ 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
- ^ "Howard Thurman Papers Project | Boston University". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2016-02-24.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Howard University Libraries". Howard.edu. Archived from the original on 2013-03-31. Retrieved 2013-08-01.
- ^ "Howard University School of Divinity". Divinity.howard.edu. Archived from the original on 2014-11-18. Retrieved 2013-08-01.
- ^ 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. 95–115. ISBN 978-0-8070-0045-8.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Schachter-Shalomi, Reb Zalman; Gropman, Daniel (1983). The First Step: A Guide For the New Jewish Spirit. Toronto: Bantam. pp. 3–6.
- ^ Letter from Howard Thurman to Charles G. Proffitt, March 29, 1974 (Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston Univ.)
- ^ "Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground | Boston University". Bu.edu. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
- ^ "Welcome - Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center". hgar-srv3.bu.edu. Retrieved 2016-02-24.
- ^ "Howard Thurman Papers Project | Boston University". www.bu.edu. Retrieved 2016-02-24.
- ^ "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
Howard Thurmanat Wikipedia's sister projects
Quotations from Wikiquote
- The Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections
- The Howard Thurman Papers Project
- "Howard Thurman", Chicken Bones: A Journal, a 1953 essay by Jean Burden reprinted from The Atlantic Monthly
- Howard Thurman, the first feature-length film about Howard Thurman
- "Howard Thurman", This Far by Faith, PBS
- Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story. Description and link. A documentary film by Martin Doblmeier. Broadcast on PBS 2/18/2019.
