The first paper explores Howard Thurman’s role in founding the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco. The author investigates his correspondence with Louise Brown, a Conservative Quaker minister, as a way of examining Thurman’s pastoral theology. The second paper presents ideas for theological development among contemporary Friends as they engage with climate justice. The respondent will explore the role of Quaker theology in various movements for social justice.
In 2025, the United Nations Development Program and the World Council of Churches each committed to a decade of climate justice action. For full participation in response to the demands of climate justice in collaboration with faith and secular partners, the faith and practice of Friends need review, renewal, and re-elaboration. The paper will introduce the problem and suggest initial ideas for needed theological development.
The author, minister and prophet Howard Thurman (1899-1981) self-identified as a member of the Wider Quaker Fellowship. Yet the most important part of his pastoral experience transcended Quakers or indeed any religious denomination, in his role in founding the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco.
One important collection of Thurman's letters has not been explored yet; that is his correspondence with Louise Brown, a Quaker minister from the Conservative branch of Friends. This extensive correspondence over many years had a distinct pastoral dimension to them, as Brown struggled with a separation from her husband, a marriage that Thurman helped to heal. This paper will sketch out the course of this correspondence and the import that this has for Thurman's pastoral theology.
This exploration will be set in the context of recent publications on Howard Thurman, and on Quaker pastoral theology.
| David Harrington Watt | dhwatt@haverford.edu | View |