The Howard Thurman Podcast

In this fifth sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman reads from several pieces, each pertaining to the realities of war and the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Thurman says that, for the first time in human history, a single man could extinguish the entire human race, even accidentally. Religious tradition has always kept alive the possibility...

In this fourth sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman talks about the notion of the Self. At some point in our development, we begin to discriminate between ourselves and the rest of the world. When we build the bounds of Self, we also meet the social community in which our Self is embedded. We have a deep, original need for the fulfillment of community. To develop the Self in...

In this third sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman illustrates what it means to be a living creature. According to Thurman, life is always unfolding towards the fulfillment of community. Looking at human beings, Thurman sees that there is an organic harmony in our bodies, each organ working towards biological community. The mind, however, has been separated from this harmony,...

In this second sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman delves deeper into innocence. We are born innocent, with a sense of inner wholeness; however we eventually lose this innocence and find ourselves between our highest ideals and the reality of our lives. This tension between who we are and who we strive to be creates an inner need for balance. Thurman says that this is the na...

In this first sermon on "Community and the Will of God," Thurman describes community as a structure and a goal that is inherent in life. Everything is striving to fulfill itself in community. This movement towards harmony is what binds and interconnects the lives and actions of living beings. With this intertwining comes the reality of personal responsibility. To know that we are connected...

In the fourth and final sermon of the Freedom and Suffering series, Thurman takes his exploration of suffering a step further. Thurman suggests that we must learn to be worthy of our suffering. We should not seek out suffering, but when it comes to us, we must search for the meaning and dignity in it. Thurman also considers that human beings can only suffer because we are capable of loving. To lov...

In this third sermon in the Freedom and Suffering series, Thurman focuses in on the suffering aspect. Suffering is the common experience of human beings, and perhaps all living beings. Thurman says that the Christian tradition itself was born out of pain and suffering, and represents the human project of squeezing optimism from pessimism. Thurman adds that we are always trying to deduce the logic...

In this second sermon in the Freedom and Suffering series, Thurman adds grace into his discussion on freedom and failure. Human beings have the freedom to fail again and again, however we never fail totally and absolutely. In this there is grace. For Thurman, grace is our experience of something dealing with us beyond balance and beyond merit; it is an unexplainable outpouring that sustains, redee...

In Part 1 of this sermon series, Thurman claims that freedom and failure are twins. The gift of life is also the gift of failure, which is also the gift of freedom. Without the ability to choose, there can be no failure. Thus, human beings are free and fallible creatures. The ultimate and inevitable failure for a living organism is death. Thurman says that the human spirit must confront death and...

NA

In this third installment of “What Shall I do With My Life”, Thurman addressed the experience of community from the fluidity of consciousness. The line of delineation between life and death, love and hate, war and forgiveness are all discussed with regards to our own self-consciousness. Our experience of community is one with the unity of life and the aliveness of life. Still, it is the desire of...

In this final installment of Moment of Crisis, Thurman is discussing the response of religious communities to the marginalized in society. The salvation of foreigners in Isaiah 56 is discussed as the unnamed prophet referenced in this text was compelled to take a position against those other prophets and devout believers, who insisted on the utter exclusiveness, cultural exclusiveness, religious e...

In Part 5 of this lecture series on crisis, Thurman examines the tension between the private life and the transcendent experience. We have boundless freedom and responsibility over our own lives, but we may come to a point where we identify, not just with our individual destiny, but the destiny of humankind as a whole. Thurman suggests that it is through this expanded sense that the spirit of the...

This installment of Moment of Crisis focuses on Abraham Lincoln. Thurman shares an excerpt from President Lincoln’s memoir that speaks to the personal crisis he faced as he grappled with whether slaves should be freed in the interest of saving the Union. Lincoln, heavily influenced by the founding fathers, believed that slavery was a violation of the mind, spirit, and will of the founding fathers....

In Part Two of the "Thurman on Thurman" recording, Howard Thurman speaks about the story of the Syrophoenician woman in the Gospels. Thurman says that this story means a great deal to him because, for him, it is a clue into the inclusiveness of the faith. For Thurman, seeking out God's inclusivity is a responsibility to his own religious experience. Thurman says that the Syrophoenician...

In Part One of this two part recording, Howard Thurman shares a series of readings and stories that have been significant to him throughout his life. Put alongside one another, one can get a sense of Thurman's concerns and interests, ranging from God's mysterious hand in the working of history, the dynamics of life and death, to the insistent search for truth against all other temptations....

In this 1954 sermon, Thurman takes on the topic of commitment. Every expression of life is ordered around some structure or design, and Thurman reasons that human life is no different. To be committed is to put the demands of one purpose above all else, which in turns put all the resources of the universe at the disposal of the individual. Thurman says that the universe is in fact so life-giving a...

In this Thanksgiving sermon, Thurman reads from Oswald McCall's The Hand of God, followed by discussions of what it means to be thankful for all the lives that sustain our own lives. He also explores the "vast feeling continuum" from which all our feelings flow and how we should be faithful in our feelings and words, for our lives are not our own. Part of the Collection, Religious &amp...

In this final sermon on "The Men Who've Walked With God," Thurman talks about the dynamics of human values. We are each born with a fundamental sense of values, however our values might be put towards destructive ends. It is easy to lie and mislabel our values, whether it be by ignorance or for the sake of convenience. Thurman says that power and knowledge tends to have a particular co...

Thurman's 13th sermon on "The Men Who've Walked With God" examines "The Imitations of Christ" written by Thomas à Kempis. Thurman says that there is a part of our personalities that wants to give over control; we want to relate to something ultimate and reliable in which we can find stability and guidance. This authority, Thurman says, must be found deep within; therein lie...

In this 12th sermon on "The Men Who've Walked With God," Thurman talks about our outer and inner lives through Jacob Böhme, a Lutheran of the 16th century. Böhme felt that understanding the world entails more than simply experiencing it, but also relating to it from a center point. In dealing with the world, we need to bring a "double view" to all things. We must see one anothe...

In this tenth sermon on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman explores painter, Fra Angelico. Angelico's life shows us what is possible when we dedicate our skills and disciplines totally to God. Angelico, painting out of the ultimate loyalty of his heart, did not worry about judgments or critics or making money; for him, painting was the way in which the living God was project...

In this seventh lecture on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman examines Gandhi. For Thurman, Gandhi illustrates what it looks like to bring mystical insight into politics and the traffic of life. In the work of Gandhi, one sees that "it is possible to achieve effective, worldly ends by the use of... techniques that are, themselves, unworldly." By shining the light of spir...

In this fifth lecture on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman speaks on the Greek philosopher Plotinus. For Thurman, Plotinus's insight is the "double search" of mystical experience – the idea that as we seek out God, God also searches for us. Through this journey, one comes to share in the divine mind, or as Thurman says, "thinking God's thoughts after Him.&#3...

In this third lecture on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman examines mysticism through the Brahmanic mystics and the development of Hinduism. The insight of the mystics was that one's soul was identical with the world-soul. However, this presented an issue. If dying means that one will merge back into the world-soul, does life have any meaning? Thurman explains how the Doctr...