The Defining Moment: The Spiritual and Soul Care Practice of Rev. Dr. Howard W. Thurman, Part 4

Howard W. Thurman, Part 4

By The Reverend. Dr. D. Darrell Griffin 

Presented by Omni-U Virtual University

Foreword 

It was hard to resist pluralizing the title of today's offering, “A Defining Moment: Rev. Dr. Howard W. Thurman, Part 4” because, in this episode, we recognized an additional  “defining moment” that occurred in the life of Rev. Dr. Thurman. When he led a “pilgrimage  of friendship“ to India, in 1936, his visit was challenged by a Hindu Professor who called him a “traitor to all the darker people of the earth “and asked him, “What are you doing here?”

Following that query was an another question,  “Why are you here as a Christian?”This was accompanied by a scathing account of the  history of the oppression of his people at the hands of those who call themselves Christians. Rev. Dr.Thurman’s responses follow.

Dr. Gloria Latimore-Peace 

In 1936, Rev. Dr. Thurman led a group of African Americans on a mission trip to India. Intriguingly, this group was the first delegation of African Americans to meet Gandhi. On the trip, Thurman felt challenged to explain his reasons, as an African American, for retaining a belief in Jesus since Christianity had been manipulated to affirm the unmitigated suffering of people of color. A prominent professor on the faculty of one of India's universities forthrightly confronted Thurman.

“What are you doing over here? I know what the newspapers say about a pilgrimage of friendship and the rest, but that is not my question. What are you doing here? That is what I mean.” The straightforward professor continued, "More than three hundred years ago, your forefathers were taken from the western coast of Africa as slaves. The people who dealt in the slave traffic were Christians. One of your famous Christian hymn writers, Sir John Newton, made his money from the sale of slaves to the New World. He is the man who wrote “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” and “Amazing Grace”' – there may be others, but these are the only ones I know. The name of one of the famous British slave vessels was “'Jesus.” The men who bought the slaves were Christians.

Christian ministers, quoting the Christian apostle Paul, gave the sanction of religion to the system of slavery…During all the period since then you have lived in a Christian nation in which you are segregated, lynched, and burned. Even in the church, I understand there is segregation. One of my students who went to your country sent me a clipping telling about a Christian church in which the regular Sunday worship was interrupted so that many could join a mob against one of your fellows. When he had been caught and done to death, they came back to resume their worship of their Christian God.

I am a Hindu. I do not understand. Here you are in my country, standing deep within the Christian faith and tradition. I do not wish to seem rude to you, but sir, I think you are a traitor to all the darker people of the earth. I am wondering what you, an intelligent man, can say in defense of your position.[]]

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Provocatively, the Hindu professor crystallized his perplexity:

"Why are you a Christian when everyone connected to your bondage professes to be a Christian? Why are you so committed to something that is committed to your oppression and destruction?”

Thurman struggled to answer. He was left without words.[ 2]

A brief, yet determinative, meeting with Mahatma Gandhi became a defining moment for Rev. Dr.Thurman as it potentially answered his festering question about Christianity's inability to redress racism and bigotry. This meeting yielded a critical and workable solution to his lifelong question regarding the ineffectiveness of Christianity in this regard. Gandhi's ideology of nonviolent resistance resonated with Thurman and inspired him to promote social change through love and reconciliation. At this meeting, which Thurman deemed as a central event of his life, Gandhi told Thurman, "It may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message of nonviolence will be delivered to the world.”[3] 

Gandhi’s commitment to truth, love, and nonviolence profoundly influenced Thurman’'s approach to social activism, shaping his belief in the transformative power of love and reconciliation. He correspondingly incorporated principles of nonviolence into the African American freedom struggle. King and other protest leaders adopted the concept during the early years of the Civil Rights Movement.

Upon his return to the States, Thurman traversed the country and shared "the relevance of nonviolent resistance as a means for addressing racial injustices." Smith, editor of Thurman’'s primary writings, summarizes Thurman’s message and purpose. "Directly and indirectly, Thurman was the messenger for connecting the spiritual methods of India’s struggle for independence to the need for a spiritually-based nonviolent movement to transform racial injustices in the United States.”[4] 

Thurman's influence extended beyond theology and spirituality to practical activism. An early advocate for desegregation and social justice, he tested his theory of the beloved community by co-founding the first interracial and interfaith congregation in the United States, the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, in 1944.

Thurman's spirituality transcended religious boundaries.Through meditation, prayer, and mindfulness, Thurman encouraged individuals to become aware of their inner lives and to listen attentively to the voice of the spirit.He answers the question relating to the existential worth of Christianity for African Americans and other people of color in his thought-provoking book, Jesus and the Disinherited. Published in 1949, this book materializes within the historical context of fierce racial and social segregation in the United States. It offers an adversarial theological analysis of that prevalent social injustice. 

Thurman centers upon the idea that Jesus of Nazareth, a marginalized Jew living under Roman occupation in the Ancient Near East, understood the struggles and aspirations of his fellow disinherited and oppressed people. He interprets Jesus’ teachings through the prisms of the experience of those marginalized communities and through the lens of twentieth-century American social and economic inequality. He submits these teachings proffer empowerment, liberation, hope, and dignity to people who suffer from systemic oppression.

The "disinherited” suffer  because of race, class, culture, and social status. He contends that Jesus’ message primarily addresses marginalized and vulnerable people, thereby offering a radical vision of a “beloved community” sharing love, justice, and social cohesion.

Thurman proposes a radical concept, “the love ethic,” which is a revolutionary vision of love that transcends conventional notions of sentimentality or romantic affection. He clarifies Jesus’' commandment to love one another as a call to action, thus challenging individuals to embody love as a force of social transformation and justice. Thurman provides a re-evaluation of traditional theological norms and pragmatic spiritual guidance to resolve daily dilemmas. He emphasizes the importance of silence and solitude in nurturing the spiritual life from whence empowerment to combat evil, oppression, injustice, and turmoil arises. Quieting one’s spirit in prayer and meditation unveils God's presence, which daily busyness often obscures. In reflective Prayer, one finds divine resources to triumph over deception and hatred in addition to defeating fear. 

“Why are you a Christian?”[5] That question blares like neon lights on Thurman's theological canvas and mental consciousness. He concludes he is a Christian because he belongs to “the religion of Jesus” and not the religion about Jesus. Thurman exhorts adherents to study and internalize the actual biblically based teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. He rebuffs the widespread commercial, official, and socially acceptable conceptualizations of Jesus, which affirms oppression, exploitation, and subjugation of the disinherited. A religion about Jesus commodifies an image of Jesus that distorts his teachings to further the political and economic aims of the ruling class. Those ideas affirm the destitution of the disinherited and argue its theological permissibility. 

As someone born poor and subject to daily oppression, Jesus was one of the disinherited and taught a religion that sought liberation, dignity, and justice for vulnerable people. Thurman remained a Christian because he formulated a concept of Christian and contemplative spirituality that enabled adherents to oppose and defeat systemic oppression such as slavery and segregation Reminiscent of his grandmother, Mrs. Nancy Ambrose, Thurman rebuffed official and orthodox Christianity, which demanded that African Americans uncritically accept racial, social, political, and economic injustice.  For Thurman, the “true purpose” of spiritual discipline was to “ clear away whatever may block our awareness of that which is God in us. The aim is to get rid of whatever may so distract the mind and encumber the life that we function without this awareness, or as if it were not possible.[6]

He viewed Jesus’ teachings as a spiritual toolbox with which to attain self-realization and achieve personal destiny despite the rigors and ordeals of daily life. He sought more than favorable laws. He advocated for individual and societal wholeness and recognition of divinity in each of the more than eight billion people who inhabit the globe. He knew the power of poverty and racism to destroy imaginations and hope in the minds and hearts of parents and children who are “the disinherited.” Thurman insists God is present in everyone, and therefore, transformation occurs within the greatest and the least of any society.The combination of  pursuing unity with God, attaining unconditional self-acceptance, and striving for a society that affords wholeness to its members are significant components of the “religion of Jesus.“

Thurman challenges anyone who professes any religious creed to withdraw from daily busyness to center themselves in God's presence. Withdrawal yields renewal and resilience which empower adherents to choose a mystic path wherein one becomes one with God by exemplifying God's unfailing love for humanity. The “religion of Jesus” rests, fundamentally, on a “New Law” and ethic of love. In fulfillment of the “Greatest Commandment,” mystics wholeheartedly love God and also their neighbor(s) as  themselves. A mystic  progresses towards self-acceptance and self-realization within an interdependent relationship with God while striving for a just and equitable society that affords everyone an opportunity to do the same

The Reverend Dr. D. Darrell Griffin serves as the Senior Pastor of Oakdale Covenant Church in Chicago, Illinois; his pastorate there exceeds a quarter of a century. He is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia where he earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in Religion. He holds the Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge.

BlogNotes

1. Howard W Thurman. Jesus and the Disinherited. pp 14-15

1. Ibid pp 14-15

1. Howard W. Thurman. With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman 

1. Luther E.Smith, Jt. Howard Thurman Essential  Writings. pp 20-21 

1. Howard W. Thurman. The Inward Journey. 

1. Howard W Thurman. Mysticism and Social Action: Lawrence Lectures and Discussions with Dr. Howard Thurman. 

Recommended Readings: 

Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996).

Howard Thurman, With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman. (Orlando: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1979) 

Howard Thurman, Mysticism and Social Action: Lawrence Lectures and Discussions with Dr. Howard Thurman. (London: International Association for Religious Freedom, 2014),

Howard W. Thurman, The Inward Journey (New York: Friends United Press, 2007),

Smith, Howard Thurman Essential Writings,