In his two recent DMs, GG has lamented the small role religion plays in Europe today for those trying to imagine a more just future for humanity. He calls up the memory of the crusades, inquisitions, and religious wars in Europe. He could also, of course, have named the Holocaust and the role that antisemitism played through the centuries in leading up to that heinous crime.
We living in the Americas can name the genocide toward the indigenous peoples so often conducted in the name of “you are not saved, we will save you” as another example of what happens when Christendom linked up with empire in the fourth century and sent the church on a detour that I have come to call “Christianity 2.0.” Its shadow side shows its ugly head today in “Christian nationalism” and its many imitators.
But movements and individuals have chosen to resist all along. Surely the liberation theology and base communities that emerged from the Second Vatican Council were resisters. And the Council itself, which apologized to Jews and others whom the church persecuted over the centuries, and helped launch movements of deep ecumenism and interfaith, is being felt in many places around the globe today.
Gandhi told us that it was studying the gospels that elicited in him the non-violent protest movement that helped overthrow the British Empire’s colonialism, with hardly anyone losing their lives. (Gandhi lost his life in the name of religion, insofar as it was a fanatical Hindu who killed him). “I learned to say ‘No’ from the West,” Gandhi said. He tapped into the prophetic tradition of the West, as many movements from Francis to liberation theology in its many expressions and incarnations have tried to do.
Black resistance in America that brought about the civil rights advances was born of this tradition, too. Howard and Sue Bailey Thurman visited Gandhi in the 1930s and brought back to their community in America the philosophy of non-violence that thirty years later resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1965.
That Act cost 40 lives, including that of MLK Jr., and resistance by hundreds of thousands of Americans, mostly blacks but including many white, Jewish, and Asian resisters too. The same Civil Rights Act that Chief Justice Roberts and five other unsupreme court judges bludgeoned to death two weeks ago. And that the Confederate South is today employing to return America to “Jim Crow 2.0” as Senator Warnick has put it.
Howard Thurman declared that Christianity has “betrayed” Jesus and, in his iconic book, Jesus and the Disinherited, drew out the implications of Jesus’ teachings for the liberation of the oppressed.
He writes: What, then, is the word of the religion of Jesus to those who stand with their backs against the wall? There must be the clearest possible understanding of the anatomy of the issues facing them. They must recognize fear, deception, hatred, each for what it is. Once having does this, they must learn how to destroy these or to render themselves immune to their domination. In so great an undertaking it will become increasingly clear that the contradictions of life are not ultimate.
And also: The core of the analysis of Jesus is that man is a child of God, the God of life that sustains all of nature and guarantees all the intricacies of the life-process itself….This idea—that God is mindful of the individual—is of tremendous import in dealing with fear as a disease.
Action as well as self-worth results from this realization: The awareness of being a child of God tends to stabilize the ego and results in a new courage, fearlessness, and power. I have seen it happen again and again.
How important these insights are to carrying on today’s resistance and Civil Rights movements 2.0.
Banner Image: L: Mohandas K. Gandhi, portrait, at his residence at Delhi, 1946. Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons. R: “Howard Thurman” by On Being, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Queries for Contemplation
Have you witnessed a new fearlessness, courage and power emerge in yourself and/or others through the messaging of Jesus? And the ability to stand up to “fear as a disease”? How does this apply to resistance and renewal of humanity in our time?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations, pp. 205, 208, 209
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Sins of the Spirit, Blessing of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society
Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision For a New Generation
3 thoughts on “Howard Thurman on Jesus & Resistance & a New World Order”
My Faith and that of many others, of all religions and non religious around the world, is that the Divinity of Christ/Buddha Consciousness is sacredly within all human beings, conscious or unconscious, Loving, guiding, healing, strengthening, and transforming Us within, through, and among Us in Our Loving Diverse Oneness, in All physical/nonphysical spiritual dimensions/beings, towards incarnating/embodying God’s Kingdom~Queendom of Divine Love~Wisdom on earth as it Is in Heaven in the sacred process of the Eternal Present Moment….
Humanity is in need of a cosmic renewal; something that at this stage in our collective evolution we have not yet encountered or even seriously considered. Failing such a seismic moment I fear that our civilization will go over Niagara Falls without a barrel. Forty years ago I came across a set of teachings that indicated that Jesus is a Venusian, albeit from a higher dimension of existence. The Buddha came from the same realm and dimension. It is in our own destiny to develop along this same cycle of spiritual evolution. Inevitably, such claims are generally ignored or otherwise ridiculed. It takes a bravery and determination to take it more seriously and investigate the claim. This I did and it revolutionized my life. I link the website to my name, but for anyone who is equally dismissive of these claims, be reminded of this wise statement from Arthur Schopenhauer: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” In short, life goes on beyond death and beyond this world.
It seems clear that toxic masculinity breeds toxic militarism. Not all women are saints. We must continue to celebrate and honor the countless men past and present who have sacrificed themselves for peace and the common good. I see Alexei Navalny as a martyr for his people. His spirit now abides in the minds and hearts of many.