In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the figure of Howard Thurman. It is rather apparent that the polarization stemming from political conflict, religiously motivated violence, genocide, border and immigration issues, sexism, classism, racism, and environmental disasters, among other pressing concerns, has driven people to pursue new strategies for survival, adaptation, and resilience formation. As it is observable in many divinity schools, the vocabulary of trauma and reconciliation permeates theology classrooms and is increasingly included in recent curriculum modifications. The demand for spiritual caregiving in an interfaith setting is also ever-increasing, evidenced by a growing number of chaplains from non-Christian traditions. Consequently, some theological institutions are becoming more receptive to the vision of collaborating with different religious traditions. After all, more and more are testifying to the grave consequences of colonial Western Christianity around the globe as Western theology has a protracted history of rationalizing and supporting colonialism, slavery, gender discrimination, ethnic cleansing, cultural genocide, and environmental brutality.
In present theological conversations around trauma, chaplaincy, education, worship, preaching, meditation, resilience, and interfaith dialogues, Thurman, who wrote and spoke addressing grave issues of his era that are intricately linked to our present bio-political and geo-political challenges, couldn’t become more relevant. My essay will focus on highlighting Thurman’s creative pedagogy as an educator in responding to collective trauma, racial and class discrimination, and other forms of systemic oppression that our world shares that silence our bodies. Borrowing Gustavo Gutiérrez’s metaphor, We Drink from Our Own Wells, I contend that Thurman drank from several wells—that is, he taps into various resources: spiritual traditions, nature, poetry, and friendships, and invites himself and others to transcend the boundaries of a life contained by a dominant, totalizing narrative.
Thurman was receptive to learning from anyone, adaptable, and fluid, and believed that a person’s religious contemplation is perpetually evolving and has no definitive end. This element is an essential feature of his religious philosophy that I will highlight, as its open-ended nature is in stark contrast to the conservative nature of the evangelistic Christianity that he rejected, which was incapable of adapting and revising itself. Additionally, I will display how Thurman’s fluidity that allowed him to be a versatile educator came from unexpected and underappreciated resources: poetry and nature. Another underexplored theme of Thurman’s ministry is that he wrote and preached with an interfaith imagination. Rejecting the exclusive nature of evangelistic Christianity that marginalizes people of color, Thurman employed terminology from different religious traditions, as evident in some of his sermons, to unmask life’s possibilities. I will focus on two of the most influential encounters during Thurman’s life, his time with Rufus Jones, the Quaker educator, and Mahatma Gandhi, and demonstrate how these encounters shaped Thurman’s religious imagination.
In the observation of a Quaker scholar, Stephen Angell, Thurman’s experience with Jones amplified his conviction that Christians were not the only ones who possessed spiritual wisdom. Angell also claims that the Quakerism Thurman embodied from Jones was a specific type of Quakerism: “a form of modernist reinvention, a Quakerism that stoutly resisted the innovations of altar calls and Wesleyan and Calvinist theologies that Quaker evangelists had introduced in the generation that preceded him.” Jones referred to the “inner light” rather than the traditional notion of the inward Light of Christ, which Quaker founder George Fox used. “Inner light” evokes more inclusive and universal associations because it implies that divine light exists in all humans. The significance of this viewpoint cannot be overstated, as it asserts that Christians can learn from the spiritual wisdom of non-Christians on all matters.
Thurman’s encounter with Mahatma Gandhi was another profound watershed moment. The months spent in India gave him a unique mystical exposure. There was an “inner stirring that could not be defined” as his body occupied a wholly different space, an entirely different society where “the Christian religion is not part of the heritage and culture.” As the first African-American Christian to meet Gandhi, Thurman was an intermediary between two divergent cultural histories, and other black leaders eventually adopted the Hindu-Buddhist philosophy of ahimsa (nonviolence) as the centerpoint of the civil rights movement. Thurman’s interspiritual experience demonstrates how interreligious collaborations in the face of systemic oppression, imperialism, and colonialism require urgent consideration.
Thurman knew by experience that he had to “drink from a different well” to become a free person. He could not accept the discriminatory nature of the doctrine of election that underpins evangelistic Christianity because the narrative that God only elects some is a harmful, totalizing imagination that has caused so many power and spiritual abuses. The difference between evangelistic Christianity and Thurman’s Christianity is that evangelistic Christianity believes in its self-sufficiency—it tries to master the future by stating that what it has in its repository and canon is final and requires no further correction. It shows dominance by subjugating and silencing other forms of knowing, demonizing them, and presenting itself as the only well. Nonetheless, Thurman’s Christianity is always unsettled—a “life working paper” that is open to new inspirations and revisions. I will present how, through interdependence by means of interreligious belonging as well as eco-spiritual coexistence, Thurman is convinced that the divine visits him through the presence of other living beings as alive ‘sacred texts.’
By primarily incubating his imagination and that of his audience, both as a writer and preacher, Howard Thurman draws from various resources: spiritual traditions, nature, poetry, and friendships, and invites himself and others to transcend the boundaries of a life contained by a dominant, totalizing narrative. This essay dives into a common theme that unites Thurman’s writings: the stretching of one’s vision and desire for interconnectedness amidst the vicissitudes of life, collective trauma, racial and class discrimination, and other forms of systemic oppression. Multiple religious belonging adds more taste buds to Thurman’s religious sense, metaphorically speaking. Thurman drank from several spiritual wells. Following my examination of Thurman’s spirituality, which finds roots in inter-spiritual experiences, I will reflect on Thurman’s spiritual fluidity and his philosophy of interdependence.