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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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Review Summary: Read this book! |
Date: 2007-01-09 |
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Details: Want to know the experience of an African American in America in the thirties and forties, the man who "discovered" Ghandi, went to India, and brought back his message, the man who then taught his students at Boston University School of Theology this message.
One of his students was Martin Luther King.
This short book should be bought, read, and shared. |
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out of 10 Reviews
