Part 1 of Jesus and the Disinherited. Begins by referring to Jesus' "working paper." Thurman's book was written about ten years prior, and he wants to take another look at these issues with consideration of all that has happened. He tells the story of his father's death and funeral when he was seven. As he grew he found he had a very intimate relationship with Jesus, even verbally discussing things with Jesus at night in the sand dunes. Jesus was a real personality to Thurman. However, he couldn't square this intimate, real "personality" Thurman had come to know with the things people said about Jesus. Later, when he traveled to India and asked why he was a Christian, when Christians had harmed the black people so terribly, even considering people like Thurman a traitor to his people by professing Christianity. That encounter led Thurman to go back and study the actual life of Jesus. He realized that Jesus was a Jew. Thurman began wondering how the Jewish people could have possibly endured all the suffering they had endured since AD 70 to the present, and in fact Jesus came out of that milieu of suffering community. He quotes Albert Schweitzer, and points out that people shall know Jesus by experience, even mystery, through the trials, sufferings and joys of life.

Part of the Collection, Jesus and the Disinherited (1959, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA)

Tags: Albert Schweitzer, black history, defense of Christianity, experience, father's death, India, Jesus, Jewish history, Jews, mystic, Saul Solomon Thurman, slave history, slave ship Jesus, traitor, working paper

Description by Ken Owens

Recorded in Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts

Citation: Thurman, Howard, “Jesus and the Disinherited, Part 1, January 11, 1959,” The Howard Thurman Digital Archive, accessed July 9, 2024, https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/items/show/1017.