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Review Summary: untitled |
Date: 2008-09-25 |
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Details: As someone whose early years were as a white person in the Jim Crow south, reading Thurman's book was a shocking look into the elevated mind of one who was "up against the wall" and who learned to work against the cruel status quo. Vincent Harding characterizes this book best as "the centerpiece of the Black prophet-mystic's lifelong attempt to bring the harrowing beauty of the African-American experience into deep engagement with "the religion of Jesus."" I am one of the guilty ones who am indicted by the book inasmuch as I participated in the exclusionary domination of the Jim Crow era, until I went to a historically black high school in 1972 and became aware of the rich diversity and morally uplifting spirit of my African-American classmates.
The effect of the book was probably experienced most directly through the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. who is said to have carried a copy around with him. Thurman was a spiritual advisor to King having gone to school with his father at Morehouse College in Atlanta, and also met with Gandhi in India to explore "spiritually based social activism."
Viewing the book within the context of 2008 America it is apparent that much progess has been made partially as a result of the publication of Jesus and the Disinherited, however much legal and economic inequality remains. |
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Review Summary: Jesus & the Disinheirited |
Date: 2008-09-15 |
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Details: The consumate work by this author, if you can read only one book by Howard Thurman, this is the one. |
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Review Summary: Great thoughts |
Date: 2008-03-12 |
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Details: A great treatise. Thoughtful, moving and sociologically insightful. I recommend this book and the fine writings of other theologians -- Abraham Joshua Heschel, Reinhold Niebuhr and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. |
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Review Summary: Timeless Discourse on Race |
Date: 2008-01-28 |
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Details: Howard Thurman's commentary on race and religion stands the test of time and addresses the major difference between modern society and true Christianity. It helps many of us who have lived through racism, desegregation and the new racism to obtain 'the same mind that was also in Christ Jesus'.
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Review Summary: Victory in respecting personality |
Date: 2007-07-26 |
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Details: I tracked down Jesus and the Disinherited after reading Richard Lischer's fine study of Martin Luther King Jr, Preacher King. Howard Thurman, I had learned, was an influence on Martin Luther King Jr. A scholarly Christian reflecting on the African-American experience, he preached non-violence long before it was fashionable. As the back cover states, this is "an influential book whose message helped shape the civil rights movement and changed our nation's history for ever."
Thurman compares the situation of African-Americans to that of the Jews in the time of Jesus. He analyzes the psychological effects of oppression on individuals. He describes the strategies oppressed people adopt for survival based on fear, deception and hate. Fear teaches our body to avoid confrontation with a member of the dominant community, we use double talk so as not to attract negative attention, and our only possible response becomes hatred which keeps us from moral disintegration.
Jesus' call to love enemies was revolutionary. Genuine love must be a mutual recognition of the dominant and oppressed communities as human beings. Genuine love at an individual level (I hate all Asians, but this person I know to be a human being) may lead to an exceptionalism which does not remove the deep hatred of the others collectively.
Thurman concludes, "What, then, is the word of the religion of Jesus to those who stand with their backs against the wall? ... They must recognize fear, deception, hatred, each for what it is. Once having done this, they must learn how to destroy these or to render themselves immune to their domination." (p. 108)
The power of this book derives from Thurman's own experience of oppression and his analysis of Jesus' own experience of minority. It is not betrayal to love our enemies; it is a victory when the dominant and oppressed communities respect each other as equals.
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out of 11 Reviews
