Browse Lecture Series (35 total)

In this series, Thurman discusses the concepts of freedom in the actions of an individual, how freedom is negotiated in a fluid world of logic, time, and natural order, and how communities can act in freedom.

We Believe was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on…

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…

In this series about the Search for Meaning, Thurman discusses approaches to finding meaning in things to which we choose to devote our lives and energy through the experiences of self, freedom, and love.

In this sermon series on the Parables of Jesus, Thurman walks listeners through the central themes of the parable. In the stories, Thurman finds Jesus pointing illustrating our deep human needs for community and wholeness. Thurman offers the sermons as invitations into Jesus' religious experience, which demonstrate for us what God is like, and what is required of us as disciples, children of God, and human beings in search of fulfillment.

In this sermon series, Howard Thurman illustrates the all-encompassing nature of religious experience. The encounter with God is a renewing experience in which one's very center is changed, rippling out into all of one's life. It is in this whole-bodied commitment that one comes into the creativity and responsibility of ethical life. This sermon series contains a number of Thurman's most familiar images, i.e. the inward sea, the sound of the genuine, etc.

In this series delivered at Fellowship Church from May 6 to June 10, 1951, Thurman discusses the meaning of loyalty in our private and public lives. For Thurman, loyalty is a steadfast dedication to a cause. This commitment summons all the power within the personality and dedicates it to the goal. To the extent that we experience loyalty, we feel involved with life, giving our lives a sense of meaning and significance. For Thurman, loyalty is the measure of our self-conscious commitments, in…

Toward the end of Thurman's life he held "sessions for spiritual renewal" through the Howard Thurman Educational Trust. These sessions were for emerging African American leaders around the United States who were open to "examine the bearing of these elements on the life and the fulfillment of those of us whose roots are in the Black community" (Against the Hounds of Hell, Eisenstadt, p. 376). These seminars were dynamic spaces of reading and reflection, with Thurman often reading a gospel text…

In this series delivered at Fellowship Church from March 9 to March 30, 1953, Thurman discusses encountering the divine in our everyday lives. Thurman finds God's logic in moments of personal crisis and chaos, as well as in our encounters with human need. Both crisis and human need can be dealt with at a surface level, but Thurman highlights the necessity of dealing with them at a deeper level – the level of religion. Do we dare search for God in our darkest moments? Do we have eyes to see the…

This collection includes an audio recording of part one of Howard Thurman's 1969 interview with Roberta Byrd Barr, originally aired in three parts with the title "A Creative Encounter" on Seattle-based KING-TV. All three parts of the interview are available on the Virtual Listening Room site by Boston University.