Mystic Monday: Howard Thurman 1899-1981
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” - Thurman
Any educator I have ever known will recognize this story. The longer one teaches, the more often this will happen.
A teacher will have students of every nature, temperament, and aptitude in his or her class. Inevitably, there is always that quiet one who sits in the back, appears shy, and rarely participates. She or he is not hostile, bellicose, or psychologically damaged. Sometimes, they’re just shy and that is their nature.
They will pass the class, sometimes with superlative written work, graduate, and move on into the adult world. Years, perhaps decades, will go by and then, one day, you will hear from them. It may be a stray letter, more often these days through social media, and they will thank you for inspiring them and quote back things that you once said; things you had forgotten yourself.1
You may find that they took what you taught them and brought it to its next level.
Rufus Jones, of whom we wrote last week, had a student in his classroom who may not have been particularly shy, but was certainly self-effacing as he came from a humble tradition. He was older than many of Jones’ students, had already earned his degree, was himself a college lecturer, was an ordained Baptist rather than a Quaker, and was Black.2
Other than that, he was just another student.
But Howard Thurman would become one of the most accomplished religious scholars of his day, his sagacity reaching beyond common categorization and permitting Jones’ theology to expand beyond The Religious Society of Friends.
He was a graduate of Morehouse College, the valedictorian of the class of 1923, then a graduate of the flagship American Baptist seminary in Rochester, New York, where he was valedictorian of the class of 1926, and pastor of the venerable Mount Zion Baptist Church adjacent to the campus of Oberlin College in Ohio from 1926 to 1928.
He then received an appointment as a lecturer in Religion and Philosophy at both Morehouse and Spelman Colleges in Atlanta, Georgia.3
Not yet thirty years old, Thurman had made his mark in the ecclesial and academic worlds. He would have been forgiven if he had found a comfortable place within that harmony to live an ordered, unchallenged life.
I recall my own days as an assistant headmaster at a non-denominational school and the interim rector of an Episcopal parish some twenty miles away. Both positions were comfortable, both permitted order and steadiness in my life. I would travel from school office to parish office, trading the different responsibilities, and feeling that sense of security and reward for accomplishment.
Then, one day, I wanted to push the envelope a bit more, and everything changed. Dramatically, but for the better, I think.
Perhaps something similar happened to Thurman. In 1929, he applied for “special student” status at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, specifically to sit in Rufus Jones’ classroom and explore things beyond his cosseted academic world and the established doctrine and discipline of the Baptist Church. This was, at the time, an unusual move for a Baptist pastor.4
He would become Jones’ most famous student, and a worthy acolyte of American mysticism.
The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men and women often calls them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires.5
His imagination inflamed by Jones’ theology, Thurman fashioned his own interpretation of Quaker pacifism and sought to answer a question that vexed him during his time at Haverford and beyond: "How can we manage the carking fear of the white man's power, and not be defeated by our own rage and hatred?"
A few years later, now the chapel dean at Howard University in Washington D.C., Thurman found this a platform that enabled him to expand his global knowledge and refine his mystic vision of possibility for Black Americans. In 1935, he was granted a six-month opportunity to study pacifism and non-violence with Mohandas Gandhi in India.
The practice of satyagraha, in English, “holding firmly in truth,” better known to us as non-violent resistance, which was Gandhi’s emphatic teaching as derived from Hindu mysticism, was of particular interest to Thurman, and that which he and the Mahatma discussed during those months in the sub-continent.
Their conversations would result in Thurman’s best-known book, Jesus and the Disinherited [1949], which would establish the foundation for what would become known in Christianity as Liberation Theology. It would be a standard text on seminary and divinity school reading lists, even into this century.
A Baptist pastor from Montgomery, Alabama would find his thinking and his life transformed after reading Thurman’s book, and thus would use its theology to construct his own proclamation. The Alabama pastor would also seek to become Thurman’s protégé.6
In the early 1950’s, Thurman would become the dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University and would remain so until his “retirement” in 1965. He would then spend the remainder of his days chairing an educational trust in his name and nurturing an interesting experience in congregational ministry.
The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men and women often calls them to act against the spirit of their times, or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires.7
In the mid-1940’s, shortly after returning from India, Thurman and others associated with reconciliation groups founded an experimental church in San Francisco, The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples. While non-denominational, Thurman was its first co-pastor, serving with a White pastor active in the same organizations. It has claimed to be “the first fully integrated, multi-cultural church in the U.S.”
While there are other churches, in less liberal areas of the country, that also make the same claim, certainly it was and is an extension of Thurman’s mystical understanding of reconciliation and its continued existence is testimony to that early radicalism.
Thurman would serve on the staff of The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples until his death.
Howard Thurman’s legacy is broad, and not just because of his mentorship of the young MLK, Jr. Episcopalians will note that, among his students was Pauli Murphy, a groundbreaking civil rights attorney and activist.
That Murphy was also the first Black woman ordained a priest in The Episcopal Church8 indicates the pan-denominational range of Thurman’s theology. As happens in contemplation of the mystic, the viability of good works becomes built around such inspiration.
Thus, that serious student in Rufus Jones’ classroom would take Quaker mysticism, give it a Baptist spin, add some Hindu mysticism and civil rights to the mix, and using his talent as a teacher and a preacher, disseminate it throughout mainstream Protestantism, even inspiring a trailblazing priest in The Episcopal Church.
Mysticism really isn’t the occult, is it?
There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.9
There are about a dozen readers of A Wandering Coracle who are former students of mine. I remember them all. Honestly, in the case of some, it surprises me as I didn’t think they were interested in either the subject matter or my style. Again, an educator never knows of what influence he or she will have.
While it was not common for Black students to study at Haverford College, unlike most other schools of the time, and in keeping with the Quaker tradition of openness, the institution did not have any racial limitations.
For those unfamiliar, Morehouse is a men’s college and Spelman for women. These days they are part of the Atlanta University Center in Georgia, a collection of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCU’s.
At the time, and in addition to his other endeavors, Jones was the leader of the Interracial Fellowship of Reconciliation, hence he was well-known in the Black Christian community.
Footprints of a Dream : The Story of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples [1959] by Thurman
Yes, it was Martin Luther King, Jr. People younger that fifty years old have never been taught that the Civil Rights Movement was a Christian mission. Many Christians don’t realize that it was the product of mystic theology.
Footprints of a Dream : The Story of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples [1959] by Thurman
Her feast day is July 1 each year.
The Sound of the Genuine [1980] by Thurman, which also served as the commencement address at Spelman College that year.
What a journey and life he lead! And this quote really resonates: "There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls." Thank you for sharing his story!