Browse Lecture Series (35 total)

This collection highlights individual lectures, sermons, interviews, prayers, and meditations given by Howard Thurman throughout his professional career.

Howard Thurman’s “The Temptations of Jesus” is a five-part sermon series concerned with how the spiritual attitude orients human encounters with dilemmas. In these presentations, Thurman reflects upon the biblical record of Jesus' temptations in the wilderness – bread, tempting God, and power – his decision to travel to Jerusalem, and his contemplation of death in the Garden of Gethsemane. This series shows that choosing divine purpose over egotism requires aligning with the will of God by…

”Quests for the Human Spirit” is an eleven-part lecture series focused on the creative process of self-actualization. Thurman shows how this process centers and affirms a person’s purpose in life. Discussing pursuits like freedom, stability, values, identity, and integrity, he illuminates the importance of questing in identity formation.

In the three lectures comprising this series, Thurman discusses the effects of personal experience on social change. He illuminates points regarding individual freedom, the expression of togetherness in community, and nonviolence as the individual’s attempt to broaden one’s circle of concern.

“Dilemmas of the Religious Professional” is a four-part lecture series by Howard Thurman focused on the religious professional who is distinguished by a sense of divine calling and unique challenges. The lectures address the uniqueness, duties, prayers, and words of persons elected into religious professions.