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In the introductory sermon to “A Faith to Live By,” Thurman reflects on the sense of instability humans experience when confronting the fact of their finiteness within the expansive universe. He argues, that when an existential awakening occurs, what anchors the religious believer is becoming conscious of God as a "categorical fact" that exists at the center of all reality. It is the fact of the divine and its relation to the human spirit that allows one to be lifted from the despair of…

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 reference point enabling creative and dynamic faith. One must turn to the altar of the divine to…

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 can rub out God's signature on us. We are redeemed, not by our own individual character, but by…

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 moments and events so that possibilities beyond immediate experience become visible. Here, one can speak…

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 and hopes, and 3.) We are children of God, beings of infinite worth. Thurman ends saying that a culture,…

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 and reshaped” in accordance with “great aspiring and great hoping and great dreaming.” Human…

In this final sermon of the series, Thurman binds together faith and the dream of democratic living. Drawing upon the language of covenant, Thurman says that we are morally bound to God as God is morally bound to us. Furthermore, this covenant relationship brings us into unique relationship with others who share the same covenant, the same religion, the same culture, etc. But this binding-together risks exclusion and conflict with others outside those bounds. Thurman says that the true challenge…

"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, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University

"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 University

"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 continues, the soul continues to exist even though physical life ends." Description from Expanding Common…