The Howard Thurman Podcast

In this second lecture on "The Men Who've Walked with God," Thurman summarizes his teachings on mysticism and supplements it with a conversation on Laozi and the Dao. Laozi affirmed the Dao to be the creator of life that has no name or category. The Dao manifests itself in all of life. Thurman explains that experiencing the Dao requires detachment – not withdrawal from life, but rather...

This final section in Thurman's series on the Divine Encounter examines the encounter with God in human need. Throughout this series, Thurman has spoken to dealing with crisis, not just on the surface, but at deeper levels. By relating to the person, rather than the person's sickness, we are able to restore them at the level of personality. This is a difficult task because we often deal wi...

In Part 3 of this series on the Divine Encounter, Thurman remarks that "life is more than any experience of life." No single event, circumstance, or experience is capable of totally defining our lives. Any event that convinces us otherwise becomes God in our lives, which is why worry and anxiety are so despairing. For Thurman, remaining connected to the inexhaustible quality of our persona...

In Part 2 of this series on the Divine Encounter, Thurman continues to claim that all of life is supported by God's order, including life's crises. Thurman asserts that it is better to experience crisis than to have no crisis at all, for it is crisis that summons up the depth of the human spirit. For Thurman, all the universe shares the rationality of God with the human mind, and thus the...

In the first lecture of this series, Thurman discusses the Divine Encounter in the context of crisis. All living beings experience crisis in some form. These crises force us out of familiarity and comfort. Thurman suggests that, in the face of crisis, we have the option to retreat or move towards this challenge. Using examples ranging from biblical Jacob to Beethoven, Thurman offers that, even in...

Do you “believe in democracy?” Thurman poignantly begins his sermon by asking the congregation to give serious thought to their commitments to the democratic process. Democracy, he claims, rests on a fundamentally metaphysical presupposition that the world is “grounded in creativity.” Human thought experiments with the raw material of life and of living that exist all around us, which is “shaped a...

In the fifth sermon of this series, Thurman invites us into a reexamination of what it means to be human beings. "What am I? What are you?" he asks. Thurman suggests three answers to the question: 1.) We are dreamers, and our vitality is sustained by our dreaming. 2.) We are builders of worlds, and though our building never fulfills its blueprint, the greatness of our plans feed our dreams...

In the first of two sermons entitled “Man,” Thurman considers what it means for the human to be a spirit-possessing being. The spirit is fundamental to understanding all things that a person thinks and feels. It is what enables the human to respond to one's experiences. Thurman imagines spiritual consciousness as an elevated level of awareness, whereby a person resists being imprisoned within...

In the third sermon of this series, Thurman offers commentary on Jesus as a resource for faithful living into the fact of God. Thurman says that Jesus offered to his disciples a vision of God – not a metaphysic, not a theology, not a dogma – but an embodied vision of God. This vision revealed that God is near, and God is love, two principles that cannot be separated. No degradation, no waywardness...

In the second sermon of this series, Thurman extends his commentary on God as a centering force in human experience. For Thurman, the awareness of God always arises out of some present stirring, passion, concern, or, anxiety. The religious spirit, he says, emerges to “focus on the ultimate destiny” of the human race whenever there is “moral confusion” in the world. In these instances, God is the r...

In this seventh sermon on the prophets, Thurman highlights two points found in the prophet Jeremiah. Firstly, Jeremiah presents us with the problem of history and responsibility. Often we think our actions as our own, set into motion by our own agency, but in truth we act as a result of processes unfathomable to us. What then is the place of responsibility when it seems we have no control? Thurman...

In this sixth sermon on the prophets, Thurman turns to Jeremiah and the topic of mysticism. Some see mysticism as retreat from the world, whereas ethics and morality seeks to make a way in the traffic of life. Thurman rejects this binary. The life of ethics has to be supported by something. Thurman suggests that outer battles are not won in the events, but deep in the transformations of human spir...

"Thurman examines the pursuit of happiness. Life is both existence as well as the outreach of our human spirit and values and meanings. This outreach is so important that, in some cases, we may sacrifice our own existence to protect others. Happiness is something everybody wants. Thurman examines the wording of "pursuit of happiness." Note: the recording ends abruptly. " Descriptio...

"Thurman examines the Declaration of Independence and the significance of Locke's thinking that government is linked to all people being free and equal. This spiritual equality and liberty help government exist. Freedom means having a sense of alternative to the options in one's life. " Description from Expanding Common Ground, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston Univ...

"For Thurman, life, as a natural and universal right, is a combination of the mind and spirit balanced together in the body. He discusses protecting life thru self-defense and the rationalizing that occurs in times of war. He states that the sacrifice of one's own life, done to aid wrongs and help others, ensures spirit and life continue to the next generation. As long as that spirit conti...

"Thurman roots the idea of American equality in the historical and religious teaching of old Israel. He examines the temple tax as a symbolic tribute to all men being equal in the eyes of God before returning to the Declaration of Independence. He discusses how equality is weighted by each individual based on their understanding of their own worth." Description from Expanding Common Ground...

Thurman finishes his lectures on loyalty using Deutero-Isaiah to explore the relationship between privilege and responsibility. The privilege of being exposed to God instills one with a sense of ultimate responsibility. Equality of moral character is founded on equal responsibility to God. To finish, Thurman ponders the role of America which enjoys great privileges. Thurman asserts that we must re...

In this fifth lecture on The Meaning of Loyalty, Thurman delves into Deutero-Isaiah. Isaiah, as prophet is dedicated to the restoration of Israel and Israel's ultimate destiny in God's plan. However, according to Thurman, Isaiah is disappointed by the people who do not seem to be sensitive to their divine duty. Thurman explains that through this disappointment, Isaiah comes to a great spir...

In this fourth lecture on loyalty, Thurman explores the story of Job. He wonders: How do we reconcile the logic of our minds and the loyalty of our hearts when it comes to God? The logic of the mind believes in order and justice – God being the arbiter of perfect reward and perfect punishment. However, we also find that the good and undeserving unnecessarily suffer, and thus God appears unjust. Fo...

In this first lecture on The Meaning of Loyalty, Thurman speaks to the ways in which individuals are involved in their social context. Loyalty represents the fusion of a person's inner will and an outside cause. This is not simply a social matter for Thurman, but also a fundamental structure of the universe. Loyal commitment brings all the disparate parts of the personality into a single whole...

Thurman focuses on one of the central affirmations of Fellowship Church: "I affirm my need of a growing understanding of all men as sons of God." A growing understanding is one in which there is no total answer, but rather it is a response that is creative and in process. It is a present state that contains the potential of the future. Thurman says that the "sons of God" contains t...

In this sermon on commitment, Thurman suggests that the destiny of an individual is built upon one central assumption: either life is open and dynamic, or life is closed off and finished with no sense of choice and alternatives. Commitment, at its core, is about choice. It is one's capacity to give over their self-conscious will to something. Thurman describes this self-giving as a response to...

In this sermon on commitment, Thurman suggests that the destiny of an individual is built upon one central assumption: either life is open and dynamic, or life is closed off and finished with no sense of choice and alternatives. Commitment, at its core, is about choice. It is one's capacity to give over their self-conscious will to something. Thurman describes this self-giving as a response to...

In Part 6 of the Parables of Jesus sermon series, Thurman explores the topic of commitment through the Parables of the Tower Builder and the Warring King. For Thurman, to be a disciple is to be committed to the religious experience that "dominated, electrified, and sustained the life of Jesus." This sort of commitment is not just commitment of the mind, but rather it must be done with the...

In Part 5 of the Parables of Jesus, Thurman examines the Parable of the Good Samaritan. We are called to love our neighbor, but how do we determine who is our neighbor? Thurman suggests that the parable is inviting us beyond the distinctions that determine who we care for and who we do not. Love takes place beyond the worthiness or unworthiness of the beloved. This is the love that God has for hum...