1 10 7 https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/308f1e4b3c0a0cae0c97a42167660d42.pdf 31f91fb32d9d90894b7001a804eac528 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-562_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University --series for the next six or seven weeks on faith for living, a part of the 11th chapter of the Book of Hebrews, concerning whom-- or concerning which there is very little known as to its authorship. "Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it, the elders obtained a good report. Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous." [AUDIO OUT] --this morning about faith in the living of life. If it is possible to do so, I want to lay the groundwork for our thinking in the subsequent days. It is obvious to say to you that everybody lives by faith. It is so obvious that its meaning is rather obscure. We have faith in today and faith in tomorrow, a lot of little faiths based upon many little facts, faith that this roof will stay where it belongs, faith that our cars will hold up when we drive them along. That faith has to be revised constantly. [LAUGHTER] But there it is. We have it, nevertheless. Now, it is one of the common errors-- in my judgment at any rate-- of religious faith-- and that is the kind of faith in which I have a basic interest. It's one of the common errors of religious faith to turn with a kind of abiding enthusiasm to the fact that religion is not unique in its faith-- that the scientist has faith. And therefore, whether the scientist knows it or not, he has the same sort of thing that religious man has. Now, I'd like to talk just two or three minutes on that observation and on what seems to me to be the basic fallacy, with which you may not be in agreement at all. But the scientist, it is true-- and by "the scientist," I group all of the people who are dealing with the phenomena of nature and any of its aspects. The scientist does affirm and does assume the uniformity of the world of nature. He assumes that the world of nature exists. He doesn't know it. He can't prove it. He assumes also that he can understand the world of nature, which he doesn't quite know, but he assumes it. And he also assumes that he can interpret the findings that he observes. And on the basis of them, he can check the validity of his assumptions. He operates on what he calls scientific hypotheses. It's a working plan. And he has certain tests for an hypothesis. He says that an hypothesis is sound scientifically, for instance, if it is simple. If it's too complicated, then there's something wrong with it. In the second place, he assumes that the hypothesis has to cover all the facts. If there are any facts that his hypothesis cannot include, then the hypothesis isn't any good, so he scraps it. All the time, he's trying to find some generalization that will cover all the facts. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And then he assumes also, with reference to the validity of his hypothesis, that it will be productive. That on the basis of his hypothesis, if the hypothesis be sound, then he can predict accurately events that fall within the context in which he's working. That has been demonstrated dramatically over and over again. And I need not take your time to worry you with it. But always, he's working on the basis of an assumption, a working hypothesis. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, the religious faith differs from that in some respects. For the religious faith, with reference to that which stands at the center of its operation, is not an assumption, even though you-- at this point, you see, you manage to agree with me. I know some people who are listening are disagreeing with me very rapidly, but I shall see you later. [LAUGHTER] The religious assumption is that it isn't an assumption. That God, which is the center of the religious man's faith-- that God is categorical fact, not assumption. And it's interesting. You will note in the meditation for this week-- you need not look at it. I'll look at it for you. [LAUGHTER] "What if the sky falls, the earth quakes, the mountain turns upside down, the swelling sea dries up, and the sun comes down? What if all of this to one who has attained the perfect Lord?" Or in the prophet Habakkuk, "Though the cattle do not be in the stall, though there is no fruit on the vine, though all of the external world withers and die and there seems to be no point of reference by which I can validate the significance of my inner affirmation, my affirmation remains." Now, that's the difference. Now, I'll leave that. And we'll come back to it sometime before this series is over. Now, there are several things that have contributed to the breakdown of faith-- several things. One of them is that the context in which modern man is working, has been working and thinking and living, has begun to corrode and disintegrate. There seems to be nothing left upon which we may be dependent with any measure of security, tranquility. And of course, a person cannot be tranquil unless he has something about which to be tranquil. The economic order is shifting. Political order is in some sort of scramble. But what is there in our context upon which we may depend? At various points, the primary unit, like the family, seems to be falling apart. Even the mind, the tough thing that the mind of man is, that which has won its right against all kinds of tremendous difficulties and odds to-- won its right to be integrated increasingly. A tough thing like the mind, it seems to be cracking up. And those of you who read of the morning's paper about the written-an article about the mental health situation in the state of California will remember that this psychologist from up at Napa says what we have heard many times before-- that one out of every two hospital beds in the United States is occupied by people whose minds are cracking. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So we clutch for what is next to us that will give us some measure of stability, something that can give to our faith a chance to breathe. And we can keep going, for we have to have faith. Now, that's one of the reasons. Pitts Theology Library Emory University You see, the human spirit-- I don't know how I can clarify this. But the human spirit has to center itself upon something which it regards as ultimate. For whether you recognize it or not, my friends, every one of us lives his life, day by day, on the basis of what, to him or to her, is the ultimate meaning of existence-- the ultimate meaning of existence. If this is the kind of world in which purposes are meaningless, if this is the kind of world in which, finally, there can be found nothing upon which the human spirit can rest, then the automatic result from that great and underlying despair is a frenzy of disintegration. Now, there is a second thing that has made the necessity for faith so important in our time. And that's something that perhaps you haven't reflected upon. And that is the positive-- and please understand what I want to say now, because if it's quoted out of context, it will be very bad. The positive effect of the great negation that has moved over the world, growing out of the rise and development of fascism during the last 10, 12, 15 years. Now, let me break that down a little. You remember, during the First World War-- many of you are old enough to remember that. The First World War, there was a man whose name was Woodrow Wilson. Do you remember? And Woodrow Wilson gave to the war effort an interesting slogan. And that slogan was, "Make the world safe for democracy." Now, that was a very good slogan. And around that slogan, the hopes and fears and ambitions and dreams and efforts of millions of human beings were organized. It was a vague slogan, a general thing. And Mr. Wilson undertook to define it in terms of a concrete series of proposals that resulted in the League of Nations. But the League of Nations did not prove to be a rallying point for this great thing because the concept itself was not structured. And it wasn't structured because it did not have to deal with a corresponding concrete goal on the other side, on the side of the Central Powers, as they were called. Central Powers' goals were vague. "Save the world for democracy" was vague. So two vague things sort of got along together. But when the Second World War came, something tremendous had happened in the world. Here was an idea, an idea that was rooted fundamentally not in a political theory as such, not in some new theory about human nature as such, but a fundamental concept that was metaphysical in its significance. For one of the interestingly unique and terrifying things about fascism is the fact that fascism has at its center-[AUDIO OUT] [TAPE WINDING] --just face that thing. They had to dig deep, you see, to try to find-- if there be such a thing-- a deeply moving metaphysical purpose that would be capable of bringing about the effect in 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu democracies comparable to the intense loyalty and devotion that sprang up in the fascist countries. So this gap created a great sense of despair in the democracies. And you know how we worked it out? In an interesting way. This and aside, really. I shouldn't take time, but I will. Pitts Theology Library Emory University You know how it was worked out? Do you remember the first Atlantic Treaty? The Atlantic Treaty, Atlantic Pact, Atlantic something. Charter. Charter. Thank you. [LAUGHTER] When Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt met out in Iceland, or somewhere in the ocean, and they drew this thing up. And it was nicely vague. It was pretty concrete, but sort of vague. You could say that it meant this or that. You could say that it did influence all aspects of the common life, that it did invade the democratic process and give it structure and meaning and validity. Or you could say it's one of these general things. And you remember the rumbling that came from India when that was announced. And Mr. Churchill had to face the fact, does this apply to India? [AUDIO OUT] --general pattern of commitment. It's a general thing, an umbrella under which all the peoples will finally get their place. But don't get any ideas. [LAUGHTER] Any ideas. And as soon as that hit the international wires, Mr. Roosevelt had to say that the Atlantic Charter applied without discrimination, but with utter ruthlessness, to the whole gamut of the common life in the democracies. In other words, this was the statement of the centrality of purpose that was seeking for a metaphysical basis capable of providing an influence, a power, a vitality, a dynamic for restructuring all of the aspects of the democratic life in the light of this central purpose. So issues were drawn. And all the little people like us began trying to spell out the meaning of democracy, not in terms that were vague, but in terms that were concrete, that would have bearing on this ultimate struggle, you see, as defined. And then we discovered we didn't know very much about democracy. We discovered that we did not believe too much in democracy. And a general sense of skepticism and a kind of despair crept over us. And that is obtained even to the latest time. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University So now, as we face another kind of metaphysical purpose, as expressed in the orthodox position of communism, we are involved in every kind of scramble, trying to make all sorts of people sign all sorts of things in order that, by the word-- if we can get the word signed, then the word signed becomes a metaphysical purpose capable of generating a pattern of behavior that will make our country and other countries decent places in which to live. It is the anguish of the spirit of man as it faces the insistence of a terrifying metaphysical purpose that seems to be organizing one section of the human race around dreams and hopes and ideals that we may not be able to match. Now, that's why it's important that you and I begin working out for ourselves the basis of some sort of faith for living in these times. Now, there's a third reason. And that is the great advance that has been made in modern science. The vastness of this world is just something. There was a time when the Earth was the center of everything. And you knew that everything revolved around the Earth, and that was good. And the biggest thing on the Earth was man. And that meant that everything finally revolved around man. So that the first person who took exception to that and began talking about space that extended beyond the canopy of the heavens, organized religion and organized and orthodox science began persecuting him and trying to make him take his words back. We are caught in the vastness of the universe. And our little planet is but a tiny speck of stardust whirling mathematically through space. And we live in the Western half of that tiny speck of stardust, in the northern part of the Western half of that tiny speck of stardust, in one little state, in one country in the northern part of the Western half of that tiny speck of stardust, in one town. Many of us in one room in one town, in one county, in one state in the northern part of the Western half of that tiny speck of stardust, so that when you get to the spot that we actually occupy in the vastness of the universe, we are vanishing quietly. [LAUGHTER] And out of our sense of despair-- which is a despair that is different from the other kind about which I was talking. It is the despair that is a derivative from a sense of isolation, a sense of aloneness in the vastness of the universe. And in our aloneness and our isolation, we say, we cry aloud, and there is no voice to hear. If I could find something that I can do, something that will give to my life some meaning, some something that will give me a sense of being related somehow, I want that. I must have it. It's the only way that I can break this sense of isolation, the backwash of which is the kind of creeping loneliness that seems to be pervading our whole land as you talk with people. What is really at stake is this. The ultimate basis of our self-respect is at stake. Unless I can find some ultimate basis for my self-respect, then I have nothing that can stand up against all this vastness. So I try a lot of things. I try to find a job. Much of the vocational emphasis in our schools-- and even down to the grade level now-- is an indirect result of an effort on the part of the mind and the skills of modern man to deal with this problem of isolation of the individual. So if I can get a- 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu - if I can find a job, a task, some vocation that will test my life, then when I pass that test, I can use the results of that examination to fling my defiance into the impersonally cold deeps of space by which my little planet is surrounded. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And then when I look at the job I do, I realize that even though I think I do it all myself that I really don't do it all myself. Because however successful the job may be, my job is dependent upon you and you and a lot of other people that I don't know. They figure into it. So I can't get all the credit. So it's not a good test. And then as I look at myself, I say, but after all, at this point and that point and the other point, I got what I call a break. And that's why I was able to do what I did. So there's always the element of luck, the element that is accidental, as if it were a conspiracy on the part of life to take from me my reason for having a fundamental basis for self-respect. Because if what I do in my vocation is dependent upon you and due to a lot of accidental factors, then I can't get all the credit for it. And I must have credit. And then I-- so I try to identify myself as something else that's more [INAUDIBLE]. I say, well, there's one thing. If I can I can get money in the world, if I can get some sort of monument like that, if I can identify myself with something that will last long after I'm gone, then that'll be it. Even though I lost, but my echo is frozen in some monument somewhere. [LAUGHTER] And then I realize that even the economic power that I am able to generate or collect or realize upon is also dependent upon a whole series of forces-- stability of the economic order, laws, the thousands of people's labor, the general agreement under which men decide to do business. All these factors, forces over which I have no particular control as an individual, but with reference to which I am obligated. And therefore, I can't take credit for it myself. And then I find that I am driven to this position, that if there be any order in life, if there be any ultimate meaning in individual history and in human history, it must be related to a power, a vitality of mind in which I may participate, but the existence of which is not dependent upon my conception. And in my moment of greatest quietness, one by one, I strip myself of all the phony devices by which I undertake to give myself a validation and a self-respect. And in that moment, I face what, in the language of religion, is the scrutiny of God, with nothing between me and His eyes. And when God looks into my spirit, what can I say for myself? 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By (1952, Fellowship Church, San Francisco, CA) Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, faith is more than a set of assumptions or affirmations about life. Faith, instead, is a literal fact to be acknowledged and drawn upon in everyday living. In this sermon series Thurman explores faith as a centering force in human life that orients us to the infinite worth of ourselves and others. It is this faith alone that can steer humankind to their ultimate destiny, for it is the expansive power of faith that sustains our cultures, our civilizations, our institutions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard & Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-562_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette A Faith To Live By #1 (Fellowship Church), 1952 Sep 14 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-562_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource A Faith To Live By, Part 1, 1952 September 14 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952-09-14 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Description An account of the resource 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 isolation and minuteness. God must be the focal point of any quest for self-respect and meaning for our living to “stand up against all this vastness,” Thurman says. Standing beneath the gaze of the divine strips men and women of all their phony devices – their strivings for self-validation – so that "a vitality of mind" might be achieved in which all may participate. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by ShaCarolyn Halyard aloneness Atlantic Charter communism democracy despair faith religious faith WWI WWII https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/804576a50ff1058588052eaf27b3a9dc.pdf 163500be47c3e35d8adb515307a4e284 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-565_B.mp3 --I think, is tied up in how one man relates to another man, and what one man means to himself. And in the light of that meaning, what the other man means to him. Pitts Theology Library Emory University There is a story told in the Old Testament about a king. The king's name was Ahab. Ahab was an oriental despot. He had absolute power over his subjects. He was a ruler with all that that means. And the will of the king was not to be questioned. The role of the king among the people was to some extant an absolute role. Now there was a little man in the kingdom who had a vineyard. And he had spent much time cultivating that vineyard. It was his vineyard inherited from his father, and his father's father, and his father's father. Ahab wanted the vineyard. So he said, I want it. And if it's necessary, I'll give you something for it. I don't want to steal it. But of course, the King can't steal. He takes. But we'll work out something. But Ahab said, I don't want to give it up. It's mine. It's my father's father's father's. And this is an extension of myself, and all of the meaning of my little life is wrapped up here. And in some magical mysterious manner, my sense of security is here. So you can't have it. I can get the feeling of this because I want you to hold it in mind as we work this out. The king, the absolute monarch, sees a little patch of land owned by a little man. And the king says, I want it. And the little man says, you can't have it. Can you think of the implications of that? And Ahab was powerless to take it, apparently. And then his wife Jezebel helped him work out the scheme. And the rest of the story is full of disaster. And the meaning of the story is that there was something inviolate in the life of the little man that even a king, who had little power, dare not trespass upon. There it is. I put over against that the significance of the ordinary man all, let us say, or in Greek philosophy. And I mention it not to many purposes it may seem to be full of exhibitionism. But the Greeks have influenced us so much and are so wrapped up in almost everything we think, that if you took the Greeks out of our civilization, I mean, their influence and their ideas, we'd be pretty barren. Of course, we don't have to recognize it as such but there it is. So let's look at it for a moment. You remember Antigone last year, when we gave Antigone in the Arts Festival, and the role that the Greek chorus played. Now the central figures in the play Antigone were kings, and queens. and blooded stock, as it were. You know whose blood was royal, whatever kind of blood that is. But they were royal. And they had the center of the stage. All the issues turned on that. They were involved in the meaningful experiences. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And what role did the little man play? What role did the ordinary man, manspeed, as we would say today, dost the little man? What role did he play? Pitts Theology Library Emory University He was the chorus, standing over here, not involved in the traffic, you see, not involved in the meaningful operations. He didn't count. He could only echo something, you see. Mr. And Mrs. Anonymous. But the people who really were it, the king, the queen, the people who rated. Now we see that same thing reflected in Plato, who has influenced us profoundly. The really significant people, are the people within certain classes, the business people, the philosophers, and the lawyers. But the rank and file of the people existed only as they guaranteed the life of this privileged few. Aristotle went even further than that. Aristotle cut out everybody but the philosopher. If you were a lawyer, that was all right. But you didn't really count very much unless you were a philosopher. If you were a philosopher, then the greatest service that the ordinary man can render, life, is to keep you going. work for you, take care of you, and sustain and support you. Because you were the spearhead of the forward movement of the human race. That's a wonderful feeling, I imagine. In Egypt, the ordinary man was the dust of the earth. The king is the great. When I was in India, in Hyderabad, the Nizam of Hyderabad put one of his 25 or 30 automobiles at our disposal. And he assigned us a Muslim chauffeur, who was to carry us everywhere we went for four days. Every time we came out, he was there with the car waiting to do whatever we wanted. For 3 and 1/2 days I tried to get some conversation out of this Muslim. He spoke English but he didn't speak any English to me. [LAUGHTER] He was silent, sphinx-like. The last day, when we were being driven to the railway station, I found out the quality of his voice, for I heard it for the first time. And what did he say as we were riding along, apropos of nothing? Only God is interested in a poor man. He is reflecting this whole thing. Why is this radical difference in the story with which I began and the other recital of the event, that here is an ordinary man who defies the king? Let's examine it because the basis of the democratic genius is wrapped up in this explanation, I think. There was an assumption that the individual man had a covenant, an agreement with God. Which covenant, which agreement was binding on him and on God? This covenant, stated in the language, that kind of language, this covenant was the basis, the root, the core of the individuals sent [INAUDIBLE]. He had a covenant with God. He rated having a covenant with God. The covenant which he had with God was binding upon God, as God was related to him. This covenant, which was the basis of his freedom and the meaning of his life, took precedence over any other relationship. 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University And if standing within the context of the meaning of the covenant which he had with God, he was required to do anything by any person that did violence to this covenant, then he was under moral obligation to defy that power, that force, whoever it was. To me, that is very amazing, very amazing, very interesting, and very terrifying. Do you get the picture that the covenant with God, which relates in a moral sense, the individual to God and God to the individual. So even Ahab, the king, has no right to put any kind of pressure upon me, the little man, said Naboth, if that pressure does violence to this covenant. There it is. Now it is for this reason, as it would seem to me, that when you say that logically, the next step, that all of the people who are related to you in terms of culture-- watch this very carefully-- the people, if you say quite logically, is the next step, that the people who are related to you by culture, by social pattern, by religion, by national origin, and so forth, that they, therefore, in a way that is unique as far as you're concerned, they are bound by the same sort of covenant. They are related to the creator of life in the same way as you are. Therefore, they become uniquely related to you. And the things that you are under obligation to do with them, for them, on their behalf, are identical with the things that the covenant dictates to you. Now on that basis, what starts out as the genius of democracy in the life of the individual becomes quite consistently, in its social implications, the basis for a group pride and a group arrogance. Let me say that again. I feel a vacuum. [LAUGHTER] Let's try it again because I hope I can get it. Here we are. The individual has the covenant with God, that's the theory, and the experience as is seen here in the story of Ahab. And it is this covenant with God that is unique in the sense that it is mine. Now you have one too. But I'm not talking about yours. This is mine. And it binds God morally to me and binds me morally it to him. On the basis of that covenant, the whole pattern of my behavior is dictated and determined. Now when I look at you and I find that you speak the same language as I do, you're part of my same culture, we are all here together, then very quickly, I assume that the covenant that binds me in a unique manner binds you. Because we are one in all these other ways, you see, language, culture religion, and so forth. But when I lift up my eyes and see someone way over there, who speaks another language, whose culture is different, whose whole orientation is radically different from mine, then it is quite reasonable, is it not, for me to assume that the limitations of the covenant and the ethical implication thereof are limitations that are bounded by common culture, common language, common religion. So that which starts out in me as the basis for my own self-esteem and selfestimate, and moves to you as the basis of your self-esteem and self-estimate, because you and I are of the same language, the same culture, same background, may become something that is fundamentally divisive, that makes for separateness, as I look out upon people whose language, culture, and so forth may be different from mine. So that the problem then in the movement of the democratic experience, and the history of mankind has been a problem, which has centered around the urgency and the necessity constantly to redefine the boundaries of the group. Because 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu if I do not define the boundaries of the group increasingly, so as to include more and more diversity, more and more differences, more and more radical alien backgrounds and orientations, then the genius of democracy itself, rooted in the spiritual relationship, becomes a device that makes for group arrogant and group superiority. Do you see what I'm talking about? Pitts Theology Library Emory University Therefore, therefore, the peril of the democratic experience in its very essence is rooted in the fact that the human spirit can never come to a place of rest with reference to the boundaries. Now you can see the kind of conflict that that precipitates in modern life, because there are all sorts of other interests that emerge. Let me illustrate it, if I can. I realize it's 12 o'clock but that's all right. You have three weeks to rest. [LAUGHTER] Let us look at the history of our own country in this regard, and you will see what I mean. We started out in America in a revolution. You will remember that. We were born in a revolution, a revolution against the king, against a certain way of life, and so forth and so on. On and on and on it goes. So that there is something in the genius, in the very throb of American life that relates itself almost instinctively, a sort of collective instinctive feeling, to all of the people anywhere in the world who are wrestling with the same thing, who are a part of the same respiration that caused us to come to life. Whether it's in Asia, or Africa, or Canada, or wherever it is, we respond to the pulse beat of people who are in the throes of the agonies that gave birth to us. That's what I'm trying to say. And the meaning then of the democratic notion, experience, insight, as far as one aspect of our common life is concerned, is to push the boundaries. And we have been responsive in that way. But along right beside that, there has grown up another kind of responsibility. We stand where we the king stood. We have position and power in the world that we didn't ask for. We have it for all these reasons, some of which I mentioned last Sunday. We are the central, or among the central figures on the world stage. And that relationship carries with it its own etiquette and morality because it is a position of power. And power has its own etiquette, its own morality, its own scale of values. And it may not be at all related to this other thing that gave birth to us, and it constantly feeds and gives us a sense of human dignity, and worth, and all those things. So on the one hand, we feel one with all the people in Indochina this morning who are in the throes of the kind of agony that gave birth to us. On the other hand, we feel as a people under very great obligation to sustain the French government in Indochina as a part of the etiquette of our position over here in the center of the stage as one of the world powers. So when we talk about democracy, when we deal with democracy within our common life, our problem is acute because at one time, we deal with it as if it were not rooted in this thing about which I've been talking for the last 25 minutes, but rather that is rooted in the central political power of political arrangements. So we feel that the only way by which you can hold the established order, the only way by which you can guarantee the perpetuation of the established order and therefore, live up 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu to the integrity of the power position, which is ours, is to strangle, strangle all of the prerogatives of the neighbor, the little man/ Pitts Theology Library Emory University So on the one hand, we believe in freedom of speech. That's over here. That's the Naboth dimension of the American democracy. Freedom of speech over here in the power end of it. If it has bearing on disturbance of the delicate balance of power in the world, then you better strangle it over here. Between those two things, you and I move, and live, and function. So if I ask you this morning, in which one of these dimensions of our relatedness to the democratic dogma you believe, what would you say to me? Would it depend upon what your position in society is? Would it depend upon the degree of your social or economic insecurity or security? Or would you dare let your sense of the meaning of democracy as the basis of your faith in today and tomorrow be rooted in the primacy of the individual's relationship to God? And what that relationship in and of itself may lead a man to say and to do? There is hope as long as men keep alive in themselves the kind of faith about which I've been talking. You may not use the old-fashioned language that you have a covenant with God. I don't care what the language is that you use. Every man wants more than anything else in the world to be sure that as a human being he has an importance and a value that is not related to the ups and downs of the standards, the whims, the fears, the anxieties of the society in which he is living. Every man, more than anything else in the world, wants to know for himself that his significance, his value is in some wonderfully, mysterious perhaps, but wonderfully exciting manner more important than anything he can do. A value that operates at a level in him that cannot be touched by whether he's a good man or a bad man, whether he is evil or righteous, whether he is holy or unholy. Every man must know at last that cannot be destroyed by any of these things. Therefore, I sing the hymn, the hymn of the conquered, the hymn of the low and the humble whose youth bore know flowers on their branches, whose hopes burned in ashes away from whose hands slipped the cries they had grasped at who stood at the dying of day with the wreck of their lives all about them, unheeded, unpitied alone, with death swooping down over their failures, and all but their faith overthrown. And if that's active in you, no tyranny can destroy it. No madness in the mind of man can unseat it. For it is God's gift to the human spirit. And it's so wonderful that it is true. 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By (1952, Fellowship Church, San Francisco, CA) Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, faith is more than a set of assumptions or affirmations about life. Faith, instead, is a literal fact to be acknowledged and drawn upon in everyday living. In this sermon series Thurman explores faith as a centering force in human life that orients us to the infinite worth of ourselves and others. It is this faith alone that can steer humankind to their ultimate destiny, for it is the expansive power of faith that sustains our cultures, our civilizations, our institutions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard & Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-565_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette A Faith to Live By: Democracy, part 2 of 2, #7 (Fellowship Church), 1952 Oct 26, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-565_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By, Part 7: Democracy (continued), 1952 October 26 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952-10-26 Description An account of the resource 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 of democracy is the constant expansion of boundaries, to include more and more diversity and difference. Without this, democratic faith becomes nothing more than arrogance and superiority. Thurman urges that we must keep alive the faith that finds infinite worth in every human being, for this is the only faith that can keep alive the dream of democracy. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/507121db9d07c1531ba690866b6d5041.pdf 8e919bc7c52d0f6a0192e168453d56fb PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-563_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University This morning, at the point at which we stopped last Sunday, or somewhere in that general vicinity, we are beginning-- we began last Sunday's series on faith for living. And at the end, we suggested the human spirit is desperately concerned about finding an ultimate basis for self respect, something that will give to the individual a warmth and an assurance, that will break his sense of isolation as he is surrounded either by the vastness and the impersonal operations of the world of nature on the one hand, or as he is surrounded by the vastness and impersonal operations of the social order on the other hand. For despite the fact that we are all expressions of life on the planet, and despite the fact that we are all intimately, in one way or another, associated with other expressions of life-- both human and expressions that we do not choose to call human-- there is a sense in which every human spirit battles with his aloneness. Not his loneliness, but with his aloneness. And in his aloneness, he is apt to feel himself the subject of all sorts of unrealities. And as he tries to relate himself to people and to things that are external to himself, it is his way of defining the meaning of his little life. So that always we are trying to find some other than self reference, something, something, something that is outside of me but not altogether outside of me, something that is related to me but not altogether related to me, something that against which I can throw myself and bounce back so I know I hit something. It's that feeling that we want. And that's the only way that we can break our isolation. And I'm suggesting this morning that from within the context of religious experience, God is the [? great ?] other than self reference, without which life has no meaning and without which there can be no creative and dynamic faith. Now, I will not undertake to make a case for the existence of God because I can't make such a case that you can't easily disprove if you try. And I don't want to tempt you in that way this morning. But I'd like to talk with you about it a little, and why I feel that it is so necessary in our time, this loss of our nerve-- to borrow a phrase that was used in connection with the Roman Empire many years ago-- this loss of nerve that has given all of us a kind of paralysis and a great depression. It's interesting to-- and please do not get self-conscious now when I say this-- but it is interesting as I have to do a lot of talking in various parts of the place, it's interesting to watch, to look at the faces of the people. Everybody seems so tired and so weary. Not sleepy, just tired, you know-not tired from labor because there is something dynamic about healthy fatigue-- but a great weariness. I noticed it even seven, four or five years ago when I was working for half a year at the University of Iowa. And I had 375 freshmen in a core course in religion. They were just 15, 16, 17-year-old exuberances. But they had this, they had this weariness, this weariness. Now of course, you may sit there and say it is just a reflection of my own weariness. But that's all right. It merely relates me very definitely to all the rest of us. Now I think that the experience of God is one of the answers-- the answer in my book-- for a working and dynamic faith. It is interesting to me that the awareness of God seems always to be the creation of some kind of 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu prescient passion. I'd like to linger with that, that the awareness of God seems to me always to be in its initial moment, the awareness of some kind of acuteness, some kind of present ferment. Pitts Theology Library Emory University One of the very important contributions that a certain philosopher has made to the whole process of thinking on the part of man suggests that there can be no thought, no reflective process of mind, unless there be a problem. So this man who's no longer living says that all thinking arises initially out of a problem. If there be no problem, there can be no reflective thinking. And he goes on to sketch the process by which the thinking is oriented. He says that a man is aware first of a problem, something that interrupts the flow, the normal process of his movement and thinking and living. Now once this is interrupted, then the individual begins to become aware, not merely of the interruption, but aware of the process. And the first thing that he wants to do is to try to define it, locate this interruption, locate and define it. What is it? And when he locates and defines his difficulty, whatever it may be, then he begins to try to get out from under the difficulty, to try to resolve the difficulty. And as soon as he begins resolving his difficulty, or trying to resolve it, he suddenly discovers that he draws on all of the resources of his life up to that point. And quickly, he runs through the possibilities of this suggestion, that suggestion, the other suggestion. And he says, no, that won't work. That isn't the answer. Then he tries this, and oh, that isn't the answer. And then finally, something suggests itself to him if he be resourceful sufficiently. Then he says, now that, I like that. I think that's the key. I think that will answer the problem. I think will solve the problem. And then he develops, very carefully now, the bearings of this suggestion. And if, as he thinks about it, the suggestion seems to be fruitful and creative in terms of his problem, then he says yes, that's it. And he tests it. He validates it. He corroborates it by solving the problem. Now, it is in some situation of present passion, present concern, present anxiety, that the awareness of God first emerges. But the interesting thing is that even though it emerges in a concrete particular, with reference to some immediacy-- maybe some dire need-- it never rests there. For as soon as I begin to raise any questions about the meaning of my own life, as soon as I begin to raise any questions that cause me to reach out for answers to my particular problem, at once, I become involved in meanings that go beyond me. Why should my little life have meaning if all of life has no meaning? And soon, I begin to move out and out and out. Now, I require that-- and this is the first suggestion that I want to make-- that the human spirit requires of God two things. The first is that it requires-- and this is rather embarrassing to say the human spirit requires of God. That's not good. But I can't say it in any other way. It requires of God that he be-- let me say it this way-- it requires of life that there be a creator. That's much better. It requires of life that there be a creator. That quite rationally, as I look at the world, I can't be a sane human being and decide that the world just came along from nowhere, just got here, that here it is and that's all. There must be something of which this whole world is the for instance. Now, I can accept that, you see, without 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu being religious. You see, I don't have to be religious. All I need do is be rational that the world is a created fact. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now as my mind begins to work on that, it may decide, you see, that the world was created in whatever way. I do not know. But the world was created and set going. And in this creation of the world, I, my little existence was provided for. And I must take the world or leave it. I must take it as it is because I can't change anything. Now, if, as I live along, I run into things that, by my standards, cannot possibly be construed as good things, as decent things, as clean things, as right things, then I am driven, you see, quite rationally-- it has nothing to do with religion at the moment-- I'm driven quite rationally to decide that whatever created the world is much worse than I am because it also created all these things that are giving me all the trouble now. And I know that I would have done better than that, much better. Now if I decide that it is worse than I am in terms of character and so forth because of these things, then I know that I have still another problem. Because I'm not altogether bad. There are great, good impulses in me, good things that I do, good things that I feel. And always, I see more good than I am ever able to achieve. So that that was created also. And my mind keeps on working at it. And I decide that perhaps then, whatever created the world may be having as hard a time as I'm having. But if that which created the world is having as hard a time that I'm having, then there must be some other force in the universe with which that force was reckoned. And I'm driven, then, into the arms of two forces, at least, struggling for supremacy, but cannot ever find supremacy, one or the other, because they are of equal strength and equal relevance. So I say, well, maybe I can do something about it. I have a vote, one little vote, not a great big one, one vote. And that vote I'll cast on the side which I'm rooting. On which side are you rooting? I'll cast my vote on that side. But I know that all it means is my vote, and the extent of my little influence. Now in religious thought, in religious thought, provision has always been made for these two possibilities. So we have ideas of a devil, a devil who's in control of the evil part of life, and God who is in control of the good part of life. And we feel that, ultimately, sometimes, that ultimately, you might land with one or the other. And every time-- I don't understand this-- but every time a society begins to lose its nerve, one of the first manifestations of it is a loss of confidence in the idea of ultimate destiny. It's very interesting. And as soon as men begin to relax their insistence that, at long last, the human spirit lands somewhere, then little by little, all the meaning of experience at this level and that level disintegrates. So, the first thing that happens in a period of moral confusion is that the religious spirit rises up with an insistence that calls attention, not to the meaning of this detail or that detail or the other detail, but calls attention to the meaning of the ultimate destiny of man. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So, Jesus illustrates it in a very fascinating way. He takes, doubtless is reminded of those two verses in Ecclesiasticus about the man who ate and waxed fat, and then decided he'd make room for all of his new possessions. And then he woke up one morning dead. I mean, he didn't wake up one morning. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, Jesus takes those two little verses in Ecclesiasticus, two little verses in Ecclesiasticus, and what does he do with it? Here is a man, rich barns, rich harvest, and he says, I will tear down my barns and build bigger barns so that I may store up all this harvest that has come. And I will say to myself, be comfortable, eat and enjoy, all of this is yours. And when he does that, Jesus says, somebody knocks at the door [KNOCKS]. This night, you must face the ultimate meaning of your life. And for that, you are not prepared because you have been dealing in corn and wheat, harvesting, building barns, tearing down barns. Did you not know that however you decide the meaning of your life at the point that your life has meaning, you are making an ultimate decision. You are locking the door, unlocking the door to the secret of secrets, to the Holy of Holies. Now, the second demand that brings me to it is that God, that God be therefore intimate, intimate and in some way personal. Now, I know the difficulties there. But let's look at it for a moment. And this is a unique claim of religion. Any philosophy, any metaphysical interpretation of life can structure a creation and can account for an impersonal involvement. But it is the unique contribution of religion that God be intimate, and in some sense private, and therefore personal. For as the Inquisitor, the Grand Inquisitor says, in The Brothers Karamazov, everybody needs three things. He needs something to worship that is his own. I cannot rest until at last I find an altar before which I bring the precious intimacies of my living. However hard-boiled and impersonal and difficult my life may be, I must have some place where which I can share the deepest and most meaningful and most precious things of my life. Something that, some place I must find. So I must worship. And I hate myself if I find that I am offering the precious things of my life to that which I recognize as being unworthy of them. And that's why men finally can't worship money. That's why men finally cannot worship possessions. That's why men cannot finally worship other human beings. Because in the moment that I lay on my altar, the ultimate treasure of my being, when I look up into the face of the object before which I make my confession or my offering, I must not be ashamed or depraved by or disgraced by or humiliated by that which I see. That's why no positivistic theory, even of the social order, has been able to stand up under the withering pressure of the intimate demands of the human spirit. So, whatever it is then you see that is the altar, it becomes more and more the resting place for all my precious treasures of meaning. It is more than a symbol. In the Old Testament, when one of the heroes goes to sleep at night and has a vision of God and he wakes up in the morning and he places a pillar there, a stone, because here he met and wrestled with God. And all the travelers who came that way through all the generations, as long 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu as it lasted, when they saw the stones they picked up a stone and put it there. Because they said this is a holy place. It is a place where a man met the most precious, the most completely meaningful moment of his life. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, that becomes the basis for my values. But had you thought about it, it becomes the basis for my right and wrong. And it's very interesting. I may quite ethically and quite morally have, as all men, I think, have, a certain sense of right and wrong-- sometimes a gross sense of right and wrong, sometimes a refined sense of right and wrong. But it may not be infused and inspired by and with religious spiritual values that are rooted in the centrality of the worship of God. It may be moral and ethical, good, I may even be whole and clean, and not religious. But the moment, the moment I present myself before the altar-- and by altar, I don't mean a thing or a place-- when I present myself before the altar bringing all of my preciousness [AUDIO OUT] holes, now seems full of holes. What I thought was clean now seems unclean, or vise versa. Little by little then, I am able to give to this altar and its object the final word about what my values are. And that is why, that is why when men believe in God in this sense, they do not ever lose their hope about the meaning of the world and its destiny. Now there's one other thing that I'd like to say and I'm through. And that is that this does not answer, this does not answer the most persistent question that I must have answered. And that is, what can I do then with the tragic sense of life? Is there any way by which I can keep the tragedies of life from overcoming all of the positive and creative things that I may think privately? And it's easy for me to say to you, while you are wrestling with your tragedy, now I think that if you just think this way and this way and this way, it would be very simple. As the Zulu proverb puts it, the full bellied child says to the empty bellied child, be of good cheer. It's very simple. And it's simple until I'm called upon to deal with my tragedy, my tragedy. And now, is faith in God-- which is fact, not theory-- is faith in God any answer to human tragedy? Now I know all of the generalizations that I could give, which are part of my heritage and a part of my training. But I ask you, in what sense, for each of you, in what sense is your relation to your altar the answer to the tragedies of your life? Make contact, in the tragedies of your own living and experience, with something, someone who sustains you. Honestly now, do you? Or is it true that deep within your own heart, you are not convinced that there is any way by which you can lay hold on anything that is capable of providing a current that can float the cargoes of your life? Now, what I have found seems very crude and perhaps meaningless. But I will say it and I'm through. I have found that the love of God-- what I call the love of God-- gives to me a sense of tranquility and assurance that often makes no sense to my mind. Again and again, I have found that it seems that I must turn my back on the logic of the event and the incident in order that my spirit may be given the wings that I need to enable me to stand 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu whatever life can do. And sometimes it comes, the tranquility comes in prayer. Sometimes it comes in the midst of my anguish. Sometimes it comes at the end of a great exhaustion. Sometimes it just comes without announcement. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And it is then that I understand the meaning of the psalmist. Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid Thy hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain unto it. Nothing else matters then. Let the winds blow to their wake and death. Let the laboring bar climb hills of sea Olympus high, and dart again as low as hells from Heaven, even if it were now to die, to allow it to be most happy. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By (1952, Fellowship Church, San Francisco, CA) Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, faith is more than a set of assumptions or affirmations about life. Faith, instead, is a literal fact to be acknowledged and drawn upon in everyday living. In this sermon series Thurman explores faith as a centering force in human life that orients us to the infinite worth of ourselves and others. It is this faith alone that can steer humankind to their ultimate destiny, for it is the expansive power of faith that sustains our cultures, our civilizations, our institutions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard & Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-563_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette A Faith to Live By: God #2 (Fellowship Church), 1952 Sep 21 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-563_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By, Part 2: God, 1952 September 21 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952-09-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Description An account of the resource 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 spark the reflective process and confront evil and the tragedies of life. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by ShaCarolyn Halyard aloneness creator devil God spiritual values weariness https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/c2f1fb9daf56534f039665c0f3408dc9.pdf 6addb45f065992a34daed8767a18499f PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-563_B.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University What God was to the pantheist, man was to Him. He was the first to conceive the divided races as a unity. Before His time, there had been gods and men. And feeling through the mysticism of sympathy that in Himself each had been made incarnate, He calls himself the Son of the one or the Son of the other, according to His mood. More than anyone else in history, He wakes in us that temper of wonder to which romance always appeals. There is still something to me almost incredible in the idea of a young Galilean peasant imagining that He could bear on His own shoulders the burden of the entire world-- all that had already been done and suffered and all that was yet to be done and suffered-- the sins of Nero, of Caesar, of Alexander VI, and of him who was emperor of Rome and priest of the sun, the sufferings of those whose names are legion and whose dwelling is among the tombs, oppressed nationalities, factory children, thieves, people in prison and outcasts, those who are dumb under oppression and whose silence is heard only of God, and not merely imagining this, but actually achieving it so that at the present moment, all who come in contact with His personality, even though they may neither bow to His altar or kneel before His priest, in some way find that the ugliness of their sin is taken away and the beauty of their sorrow is revealed to them. With the width and the wonder of imagination that fills one almost with awe, Jesus took the entire world of the inarticulate, the voiceless world of pain as His kingdom and made of himself its external mouthpiece. Those of whom I have spoken who are dumb under oppression and whose silence is heard only of God, He chose these as His brothers. He sought to become eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, and a cry in the lips of those whose tongues had been tied. His desire was to be to the myriads who had found no utterance a very trumpet through which they might call to heaven. And feeling, with the artistic nature of one to whom suffering and sorrow are modes through which He could realize His conception of the beautiful, that an idea is of no value until it becomes incarnate and has made an image, He made of Himself the image of the Man of Sorrows and, as such, has fascinated and dominated art as no Greek god ever succeeded in doing. To continue our series on a faith for living, I invite you to think with me for a little while this morning about Jesus Christ. Faith, as we are thinking of it, is not merely a series of assumptions or affirmations or hypotheses about the nature of life, about the future, or the present. But religious faith, in my thought, is something that is literal fact. It is, as the Book of Hebrews suggests, it is "the substance of things," the essence of things-- not an idea about them. It has the element of the categorical. Now a part of the meaning of Jesus Christ and the experience of our culture and our civilization is summed up in terms of the bearing that the presence of this figure in human history and in the human experience means to all sorts of people who do not worship Him, who do not call Him God, as well as to the millions of people who do worship Him and who do call Him God, all the way from those who sing the hymn-- "my Jesus, I love Thee. I know Thou art mine. For Thee, all the follies of sin I resign. My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou. If ever I love Thee, my 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Jesus, 'tis now. I love Thee in life. I love Thee in death. I love Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath and shout when the death-dew lies cold on my brow. If ever I love Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now"-- to those who regard Him as just a good man who lived, experienced, dreamed, and died, and the echo of His life is an inspiration to other men who want to find for themselves the quality of life which He Himself experienced. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And in between these two extremes in our culture, there are those special pleaders, those partisan individuals. I remember years ago when I first came out of divinity school, I went up to the University of South Dakota for some meetings. And there, I met a professor of economics who two years before had published a book on Jesus in which he developed the thesis that Jesus was uniquely the leader of a certain kind of labor movement and the fourth ranks of which were the carpenters and all the generations-- from that, to the kind of special pleading that I myself have done in Jesus and the disinherited. And then in addition to all of these, there are those other human beings who regard Him as a source of disturbance because they cannot have any peace of mind without coming to grips with some of the things He said and then those who cannot excuse Him because of the influence that He's had on the people who bear His name and who in His name have done wicked things, who in His name have persecuted and done violence to the tender and the precious things in the human spirit and that great shadow that casts its long and terrifying darkness on the path of Western culture, the shadow of anti-Semitism. Much of its basic inspiration is drawn from the reading of the meaning of this strange man. But this morning, I don't want to talk about any of that, now that I've talked about it. I want to examine with you, if I may, the sense in which it seems to me Jesus is a resource in this whole question of faith for living. And there are two or three suggestions that I would make to you about it, none of which is a new one. The first is a preliminary suggestion, which has a lot of things in it that are negative. And that suggestion is that, that for some curious reason, we have identified the use of the name of Jesus and the celebrations connected with His life. We have identified that, all those things, with the spirit that was in Him so that when men aren't willing to call the name of Jesus, we tend to deny them the privilege of sharing in His spirit, which is a very interesting form of arrogance. You didn't understand that. Let me just say it again. We challenge the right of individuals to manifest the spirit which is identified with His spirit. We challenge the right of people to manifest that if they do not conform to the ritual and the ceremonial in connection with His life. And who are we to make such a demand? Well, we say, if you do not end your prayers with through Jesus Christ our Lord, your prayer isn't authentic. Who are we to say that? If we do not bow at a certain time before His altar, then the quality of our religious experience is not valid. Who are we to say that? If we do not mouth the right words in the ceremony in which we shall celebrate in this church next Sunday evening, if the formula, the accurate formula is not used, then we deny those people who do not use that accurate formula their participation in His spirit. Who are we to do that? 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu I remember some years ago preaching at a prep school in a certain state. It was a prep school that was built around a very interesting religious idea, a religious idea about that wide. But it was a good prep school. They did good education. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And the headmaster asked me-- he said, when you get through preaching, I hope you will dismiss the boys, give the benediction. So when I finished preaching, I gave my kind of benediction, and nobody moved. Everybody just stood there with head bowed. And so then I backed away from the pulpit, and the headmaster came and gave the benediction. And they all went out. That's what I mean. Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we told him that he couldn't do it because he did not belong to our group. And Jesus said, you had no right to do that. You had no right to do that. That's the first observation that I want to make about this. Because a man does not use our formula, because he does not walk down our lane, do we dare say that the spirit that moved in the mind and heart and life of Jesus, of which He became the living embodiment, do we dare say that such an individual does not share that spirit because he does not use the formula? And now, it seems to me, that Jesus Christ is a source of inspiration for faith, for living to a generation that has lost its nerve, as our generation has, because he gives to the people who surrounded Him and to the world. Therefore, a vision of God. There's nothing new about that, that statement. You've heard me say it many times. But I'd like to work at it with you for a little. He gave to the world a vision, to His disciples and to the people who know Him, a vision of God-- not a metaphysic, not a theology, not a dogma, but a vision-not a description of a vision, but a vision. And what were the elements in that vision? That God is not far away-- that's the first. When you try to do something with the rest of the time that's left, try to look at this through fresh eyes, as if you were hearing it for the first time. It will be very difficult. But try just as if you were hearing this for the first time and what it would mean. Let your mind run in various ways, working out the implications, that God is very near. Think of what that means-- not way up in the heavens on a throne somewhere, not even in the words of DeuteroIsaiah or First Isaiah-- "in the year the King Uzziah, I saw the Lord" on a great white throne high and lifted up, and His glory filled all the temple-- not up there, not remotely hidden in the archives of some ancient testimony about who God is. But He was one who said God is close at hand. He is in the lilies that grow by the roadside. Not even a little sparrow falls without His being mindful of the movement. Even the hairs on your head are numbered by Him-- close. You do not have to go anywhere to find Him. You do not have to go to this holy mountain or that holy mountain or the other holy mountain. You do not have to prostrate yourself in the presence of the altar, the Ark of the Covenant. Do not be afraid, my friends. He is close at hand-- always within reach. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Dost thou not know, says one of the ancient and unrecorded sayings, as far as the biblical canon is concerned. Dost thou not know that He is not far removed from any one of us? Think of it. Raise the stone, and there He is. Cleave the wood, split it open, and behold His face. And to such, there can never be a lonely moment again. That's what he said. God is near. And that's good news today. God is near. That's the first thing. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Near-- whether you're a good man or a bad man. He causes the sun to shine on the good bad and the bad man, the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. This is the good news to the prison bound, to the deaf, the blind, the skinned and cast down like sheep without a shepherd. This is the good news to those who've have lost their nerve, before whose eyes the civilization and the culture crumbles. Now the second-- that God is love-- that God is love. And His love is expressed in the way in which He deals with His children. Oh, this is so simple. It's naive. It's almost ridiculous in its simplicity, that God is love. And this cannot be separated, you see, from the idea of His nearness. So when he thought of the climax of human history, He referred to Jesus. When he thought of the climax of human history, what picture did He give us?-- that here is the end of the age. All of the human beings and all the generations are gathered before an altar, before a throne, and on the throne is a king, a king who is like some oriental despot. And the peoples of the earth come before Him. This is in the imagination of Jesus. And they are divided automatically, on the right and on the left-- the sheep on the right, the goats on the left. And there's some wonderful quandary in their minds as to what is the basis of this division. And you remember the story, do you? He said, I was sick. You didn't come to see me. You were busy. I was hungry, but you did not give me food to eat. I was naked, and you refused to restore my self-respect by giving me clothes to cover my nakedness and my shame. I was in prison, and you did not visit me. When did we see this? When did we see you in prison or hungry or sick? And we withheld the sharing of the fruits of our life. Didn't you know that when you did this to John or to Elizabeth or Jane or Mary or Harry that you did it to me?-- If I had just known that. It is this idea of the love of God for His children that is responsible in the thought of Jesus and which makes it very inspiring, which is responsible for the fact that in the thought of Jesus, judgment, personal, social responsibility-- all are derivatives-- love. God is like a father whose son says to him, let me have what is coming to me. I want to enjoy it while you're still living so that if it doesn't turn out all right and you're still living, I can come back. He didn't mean it all together like that, but there it was. This was a little safe. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So he went, and he spent his money. And he did the various things that a young man would do who had some relative sense of responsibility but not too much. And then he fell upon evil days. But being his father's son, he didn't want to write back home and tell him because everybody knew that he was making a mistake. Everybody knew it except him. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And now if he wrote back home, everybody would say, I told you so. So he had a very difficult time. All the people that had enjoyed his money with him, when he didn't have any money, then they had lost their sense of joy with reference to him. They couldn't do anything with him. And then he found himself driven to very great extremities. He got a job. The only job he could get was to feed the hogs. And as he was pouring this food out, it looked very good to him. And so he said, well, since no one else is around, I think I'll just share a little of this. It's all right. The touch of Jesus-- I wish I had seen him. He took this Jewish boy. And in his extremity, He has a Jewish boy feeding the unclean animal, according to the Deuteronomic law-- and not only that, but actually taking some of the food of the unclean animal and eating it himself-- the last stages of a quivering degradation. And then out of the depths of his utter anguish, that which can never die, asserted itself. I was [AUDIO OUT] my father's son-- nothing can take that away from me. Nothing that I can do, nothing that can be done to me, nothing that life can do can rub it out, for the more life strips me bare, peels layer after layer away from me, the surer will there be revealed this essence of mine, which is His. And the tragedy of life and all the withering disillusionments of life end up, finally, as instruments of my redemption because it is these things [INAUDIBLE] for the individual is independent of the individual's character. That's what he's saying. It doesn't mean that I can traffic with it, but nothing that I can do can destroy it. Well, the love of God broods over all of His children with an infinite tenderness, without limit of time or circumstance. Think of what that means. Think of what that means. Think of it. Jesus illustrated, not for future generations, not for subsequent unfolding, because I do not believe that Jesus Christ was any play actor. I do not think He was doing anything as an example for anybody. I think He was caught in the great and exciting adventure of the unfolding of the life of God. And all who touch Him catch the contagion. He was not interested in precept and example-- the living embodiment of the domination of God on His mind and life, and He rested His case with the quality of His religious experience. So when He dealt with human beings, He was not dealing with them as the official Son of God around whom millions of people will build their hopes and emotions and establish the church and all of that. But when He dealt with human beings, He brought to bear upon that relationship the full-orbed realization of the validity of His own religious experience with His father. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So when the woman was taken in adultery and the men said here she is. She was caught in the act of adultery, and the law says that any woman caught in the act of adultery should be stoned to death. You say that you did not come to destroy the law but to fill it full. What is your judgment about this matter? You think she should be stoned? Pitts Theology Library Emory University If you say she should be stoned, then what's the meaning of all these things you've been talking about-- compassion and pity and sympathy and kindness and love and graciousness? If you say she should not be stoned, then you put yourself over against the law. Jesus looked on the ground and made little marks on the ground. There's very interesting speculation all through the years of what He was writing down there. I've heard some good guesses, but I won't tell you. He said to those men, the one among you who doesn't have a spot on him, you throw the first stone. After that, anybody can throw. But nobody can throw until a spotless person throws first. And nobody threw a stone. And then Jesus, not hearing any cry, lifted His face. And now for the first time, He looked into the face of the woman. He was such a gentleman. He did not want to look in her face and mingle His stares with the hostile stares of the other people. He looked on the ground as if He was shamefaced schoolboy. And then He looked in her face now. And He said, woman, where are those thine accusers? Does no man condemn thee? No. No man, Lord. Neither do I. Go. Go into peace, and don't do it anymore. Meeting her there, admittedly an adulteress, meeting her there with her shame and her guilt-- and He dealt with her there as if she were where she should have been. And by so doing, He believed her into the fulfillment of possibilities that for the first time were awaken in her. Meeting people where they are-- mean, prejudiced, sick, good, kind, malicious-- meeting them where they are and dealing with them there as if they were where they should be-- that's good news. That is what is meant by placing a crown over their heads that for the rest of their lives they are trying to grow tall enough to wear. Has that ever happened to you? Has it ever happened to you, someone who saw and understood and knew what a mess you had made of whatever it was? And yet, when that person called your name, it seemed as if your filthy rags became clean again, and the song was put in your heart, the music of which drowned all your sorrow and all your shame. Well, that's what He contributed to human history. And I love Jesus for what He has done to my faith in that regard. And when I look into His face, that is shown in the record. I am always ashamed of myself because I have some advantages that He didn't have, and I'm doing so little with what I have because I have the advantage of His testimony. So I can without worshipping Jesus as God join in the words of Tennyson-- "strong Son of God, immortal love, whom we, that have not seen thy face, by faith, and faith alone, embrace, believing where we cannot prove. Our little systems have their day. They have their day and cease to be. They are 6 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University but broken lights of thee. But Thou, O Lord, art more than they." And it is pity that such a statement as this should be made on the Day of Atonement in the Jewish faith. 7 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By (1952, Fellowship Church, San Francisco, CA) Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, faith is more than a set of assumptions or affirmations about life. Faith, instead, is a literal fact to be acknowledged and drawn upon in everyday living. In this sermon series Thurman explores faith as a centering force in human life that orients us to the infinite worth of ourselves and others. It is this faith alone that can steer humankind to their ultimate destiny, for it is the expansive power of faith that sustains our cultures, our civilizations, our institutions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard & Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-563_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette A Faith to Live By: Jesus Christ #3 (Fellowship Church), 1952 Sep 28, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-563_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By, Part 3: Jesus Christ, 1952 September 28 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952-09-28 Description An account of the resource 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 God's loving character. In the story of "adulterous woman," Jesus lives into this reality of God that sees us in the tragic state that we are, and yet believes us into greater possibility. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/fdac2fd99abc9520633639cc20d4a18d.pdf aeef604ee4d0eb591da6b2a69aa20e39 PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-564_A.mp3 Pitts Theology Library Emory University The section in our thinking together about a faith for living. And today, we are thinking about man. And I'd like to introduce our thinking by sharing with you a few excerpts from an amazing human document. It's a document that appears in a Canadian magazine called Maclean. And it is the story of Dr. Cassidy, who, at one time, was the director of the School of Social Work at the University of California and subsequently moved from the University of California to become the director of the School of Social Work at the University of Toronto. He's was one of the most creative and brilliant and resourceful men working in the whole field of human welfare. And he's left his impact upon the University of California. And then, perhaps, a more dramatic and telling manner, his impact upon the University of Toronto. Well, he died. And this long article-- I wish I could pass it around everybody to read-- is the story of what he did when the doctors told him that he had only a few more weeks in which to live. He died of cancer. At first, the doctors told only his wife. And for the first time his wife was required to carry on a demean that represented a barrier between her and her husband, because she could not tell him what she knew. And then one day, the doctors felt that he had arrived at a point that he should be told. And he was told on the morning of Wednesday, October the 10th, the doctor felt that his patient was ready to be told. While the doctor was making his daily morning visit, Cassidy asked, is this a return of the old condition? Yes, replied Farquharson. How long have I got? A week, two weeks, perhaps, three weeks. Cassidy paled. That was when he said, thank you for telling me. There is less time left than I thought. Then within a few hours, his wife came to the hospital to see him. And this is what she says. We got pencil and paper and then plan how we should spend the rest of the days. In the next 23 days, about 70 people made their way to the sick room. Some were summoned by the sick man. Others were friends and acquaintances who wanted to see him. Bea, that's his wife, reassured the visitors by telling them her husband knew the truth. And they could talk as honestly as they wanted to. Then she would bring them into the room and depart. I didn't want to spoil the privacy of Harry's interviews, she said. Then she sent, at his request, letters to his friends all over the United States and Canada. And this is what she wrote. Harry is dying, and he knows it. He would like to hear from you-- write as frankly as possible, tell him of your plans. And the days that followed the response was amazing, and so forth and so on. And in addition to all the people that he had to see to carry out unfinished plans and unfinished businesses, he wanted to spend some time with the members of his family, particularly. He was to see the children separately, as well as collectively. Several times he wanted to see them. One of his daughters says, I wanted to see him, but I was frightened. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu She was comforted to find her father serene and confident just as if he was returned to take another of his many trips away from home. Sensing her tenseness, he said, cry if you want to. She sobbed. And tears more father's eyes, just then, there was a knock at the hospital door. And then the father said, this place is as bad as my office. They don't even give us enough time to have a good cry together. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And then he saw his son. And he said to his wife after seeing him, be sure to explain everything to Mickey. He's young. He might not understand. And then in parting, he told his daughter, don't grieve for me. I've lived my life. And it seems a good life. It's yourself and the family you have to think of. And then he had several experiences with a man with whom he'd been working on detailed plans with reference to the development of the School of Social Work and conferences with politicians whose votes would determine whether or not the university's School of Social Work would get the grants that they needed in order to fulfill the dreams that he had set up. And then he talked, also, with the minister of National Health and Welfare. And after talking to him over the telephone, I'd like to read just this part. I won't take too much time on it further. He talked with Davidson. That's the minister of National Health and Welfare over the telephone. And a friend went to visit Davidson and rang the doorbell and rang the doorbell, but nobody answered. And finally after some 25 or 30 minutes of waiting, someone came to the door and was Davidson himself. And he said, I've just had a most unbelievable experience. I've been talking to Harry Cassidy. He stated that upon hearing that Cassidy was at death's door, he decided to phone his wife to express his sympathies. But immediately, the call was transferred to Cassidy himself. They talked about matters of mutual interest about their points of agreement and disagreement on social policy. He encouraged this man in the work he was trying to do. And he said, I was happy to have served on your team. I'm sorry that I'll not be around for the next 10 years. They're going to be exciting years. And then this is what Davidson had to say about it. I remember that voice just as long as I live. For me, it will always be the most powerful voice I've ever heard. Harry Cassidy was a greater man than we realize. And then one of his daily visitors was a Dr. Charles Fielding, who was the dean of divinity at Trinity College at the University of Toronto. This distinguished scholar was also Cassidy's next door neighbor. Fielding found in his friend a wholehearted acceptance of death. It wasn't a surrender, just a mature recognition of the natural life cycle. When Cassidy would awake and ask the cleric about the mysteries of death, he would reply, let's read some of the great ideas on the subject. And once, they read the parts of the 139th Psalm. "O Lord, thou has searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou I understandest my thought afar off." 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu And then, finally, in his final moment, he turned to his wife and said, dying is not so bad after all. His funeral services were held in the Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto. Dr. Arthur [? Cushman ?] Gifford, who was a friend of his, Pacific School of Religion when he was at University of California, remained to give the address. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And after the funeral, his assistant [? Hendrie, ?] made his way to Cassidy's old office. While fumbling in the dark for the light switch, his foot touched something. When the light was turned on, he found that it was a letter. But it was no ordinary letter. It came from Jimmy Hunter, a blind veteran who was one of Cassidy's students. He had enclosed $10. He explained that he wanted this money to be used as a part of a fund to complete the unfinished business that Cassidy was so often to speak of. Even in his dying moments, research in the field of social welfare that would ultimately help the sick, the aged, and the mentally sick, and the delinquent. Hunter's challenge has been taken up by a group of distinguished scholars and industrialists. And the Harry M. Cassidy Memorial Research Fund at the University of Toronto has been formed. And then the writer of the article closes with this little paragraph. "When a man is alive, one is blinded by the flickering of his personality. And an appraisal of his stature is often not possible. Now, that Henry Cassidy has been still for several months, his friends and acquaintances speak of him as a great man. Shortly before his death, one of them sent him a copy of the [INAUDIBLE]-- hammer me, oh, life-- hammer me. If I be steel, I shall sing. If a fire storm-- if a fire storm, sparks will fly. If glass, let me be broken. Tried by the greatest crisis a human being can face, Harry Cassidy revealed the finest, the purest steel." Now, I did not share this with you in order to depress you. We are thinking together about man. When I consider thy heavens, the moon and the stars with thou hast to ordain, what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visited him? For thou has made man a little lower than God. Thou has crowned him with [? real ?] glory and honor. I was giving him dominion of all the things of the earth-- man. There is a spirit in man that is fundamental to all of the things that man thinks and feel and does. But one of the unique things about man-- and this may be true of other forms of sentient activity-- but I do not know. But one of the amazingly interesting things about man-- and this seems to me to be a part of the basis of our own faith in man-- man is a time binder, as well as a space binder. We know what it means to be a space binder. For each of us occupies or binds so much space on that much and some that much. But man is a time binder. That is man, somehow, seems always to be both a participant in the things that he is doing and an observer of himself as he is doing these things. It is for this reason that no experience that you've ever had is ever quite capable of completely including all that you are. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Nothing that you've ever done is an adequate manifestation, either of the quality of your intent or the extent of your ability with reference to that particular thing. I am always an observer of myself. And I'm always a participant in the things that I am doing. Pitts Theology Library Emory University There is something about me. There is a spirit-- a dimension of my personality that transcends time and space. For instance, since you've been sitting here, you have been into last week. You went back two weeks ago. Some of you are into this afternoon. Some of you went to dinner. Some of you went to the theater. Some of you did what-- various things. You did [INAUDIBLE], say. But all the time, you were sitting right here looking straight up this way as if you are completely absorbed and involved in what I was saying. And you want to talk. You are both a time binder and a space binder. You go right through a door right through a wall, right over the years-always, you seem to stand slightly outside of time, space, events. You ride high to events. And now and then, you hit a moment, which seems to you to be completely absorbing but not quite-- always a realm of awareness-- looks at what is happening and has judgments with reference to it. That's man. Now, this is the basis of man's imagination. Suppose you didn't have imagination. Then you see you could very easily and quickly be imprisoned by the moment-- imprisoned by the event-- imprisoned by the thing that is happening to you. But because we have this quality that we call imagination, which is really the expression of the time binding aspect of personality, because we have that quality, we are always, always faced with some possibility other than the thing that we are now experiencing. You see how tremendous that is? That whatever may be the fact or the body of facts with which I am involved at any particular time, there is always the possibility of an alternative. And because of this possibility of alternative, there is a quality of freedom inherent in man that becomes at once the door of hope not only for the present, but for the future. That's why man deals always in futures, even though he is evolved in a very gripping manner in the present. I go to prove my soul. I see my way as birds, their trackless way I shall arrive. What time? What circuit? First, I ask not. But unless God send His hail, His blinding fireball, sleet or stifling snow, at some time in his good time, I shall arrive. He guides me and the bird in his good time. I'm never able to be contained in the experience. Now, it is for this reason that men may lose confidence in John Smith. Men may lose confidence in an individual or series of individuals. But men do not ever lose confidence in man. Now, think about it. And, perhaps, the clue to that is the simple fact that you do not ever quite lose confidence in yourself. Now, of course, you may hear a man say-- or a man may be that he has no confidence in himself. You might hear him say that to his doctor that his doctor may say to him that, well, the thing you need is you need self-confidence. You don't have any confidence in yourself. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu What they're both talking about is something that is highly relative because, as long as you are alive, as long as you are alive, the basis of your hope about life, about the social order, about any of the dreams that may haunt you-- the basis of it-- is a fundamental confidence in yourself. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now, of course, you're not as good as some people think you are. You're not as whole as some people think you are. But you don't ever really give yourself up. Now, you may not admit to anyone the strangle hold that you have on yourself. But you don't ever give yourself up, because to have, to affirm confidence in one's self is equivalent to being alive. Now, let's look at just one other aspect of this. When we raised the question about confidence in one's self as rooted in this spirit that is in man, which spirit is expressed in the time binding aspects of personality? One of the things that we recognize is that we have, or I have a body. And that body has an order and a structure, which is not of my creation, even though I have been a participant in it. But there is an integration in my body. There is a harmony, a unity, a wholeness in my organism that suggests to me that I, as a person, I am some kind of synthesis. To illustrate what I mean, your digestion goes on automatically it seems, other things being equal. Even though you may be mentally deranged, you may be completely out of mind, as we say, and, yet, eat your food and digest it that there seems to be a control of an orderliness of my organism that is not related basically to what or how I think at any particular moment. So that standing behind or bottoming or surrounding-- I don't know what word to use-- this expression of me, which is my body, is a quality of togetherness, and inner harmony that is a synthesis that there is some kind of totality, some kind of wholeness. And the interesting thing is that whenever I express any aspect of my life or function and give to it this touch of wholeness, something tremendous takes place. When we see it in art or literature or even crafts, we say, this is genius. What are we talking about? It means that here in this deed, here in this manifestation, a quality of totality-- a quality of wholeness has touched this little clay this little canvas. And that which has been expressed in the clay or expressed on the canvas is something so comprehensive, so whole in itself that when I stand in the presence of it and look at it, I respond totally to it. And I say, I'm standing in the presence of a work of art. Genius has touched this. What do I mean? I mean that this spirit that is in man, this synthesis, this wholeness that has pervaded his organism, when that wholeness, when that synthesis becomes a part of the conscious operation of mind or when it becomes a part of the creative and spontaneous expression of spirit, we know in our response to it, which is always a total response that something more than just a functioning, sporadic, limping creature has been at work. And when you are in the presence of an individual who has looked at all of the agonies and the tragedies of life, and who has walked through those, and who has brought to bear upon the events by which his days are surrounded a total awareness of meaning, we say, when I'm in the presence of that person, somehow, I feel more whole than I've ever felt before. 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University I feel clean. I feel cleansed. I feel renewed. I feel integrated. What are we talking about? It means that here, the individual has brought to bear upon the events of his life, in some total sense, this quality that is manifest in the organism. That's why we say about man, heir of the kingdom beneath the skys. Often, he falls, yet, falls to rise, stumbling, bleeding, beaten back, holding still to the upward track, playing his part in creation's plan, god-like an image. This is man. That's a religious way to say that. What are they talking about? What do we mean when we say that? The basis of our faith about life, one of the bases rests in our confidence. And this quality, which we ourselves experience in varying degrees. But as soon as we experience it, we know that there is more to us in that moment than can be spelled out in the details of our lives. Therefore, wherever man is able to respond in any sense that is total to anything, even to a thing that is unworthy of him, wherever he is able to respond in any sense that is total to anything, he becomes in the totality of his response-- always, always something more than any event or any deed that his life may perform. Now, all of the people who set out to dominate and control the Earth know what I'm talking about. There is no dictator, for instance, who is blind to this thing, this resource, this dimension of personality. And it is for that reason, then, that wherever men have designs on the life of man, they are never content, merely, to amass things. They're never content, really, to overpower by power. What do they do? They seek to set up the kind of situation, the kind of climate that will do what-- that will elicit from every man a total response to the thing that they represent, because they know that every man potentially represents a total giving into the dead center over the churning emotions of men until, at last, this thing that you hold a dead center structures the emotions. And when these emotions are structured, there is the totality of response. And men become little gods with power, endurance-- all kinds of creative expressions, even of their diabolical enterprises. And that is the basis of our hope about man, because, potentially, he can respond totally. And when he responds totally, the meaning of the psalmist is clear. Thou hast made him but little lower than God. Thou hast given him dominion over the things of the earth, including the minds and the emotions. There is a spirit in man-- man, the time binder, the space binder. What are you going to do with that spirit on your answer turns the destiny of the race? 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By (1952, Fellowship Church, San Francisco, CA) Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, faith is more than a set of assumptions or affirmations about life. Faith, instead, is a literal fact to be acknowledged and drawn upon in everyday living. In this sermon series Thurman explores faith as a centering force in human life that orients us to the infinite worth of ourselves and others. It is this faith alone that can steer humankind to their ultimate destiny, for it is the expansive power of faith that sustains our cultures, our civilizations, our institutions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard & Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-564_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette A Faith to Live By: Man, part 1 of 2, #4 (Fellowship Church), 1952 Oct 5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-564_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By, Part 4: Man, 1952 October 5 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952-10-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Description An account of the resource 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 back to whatever is “total” in life and thus respond to life “totally.” Such acts are evidence, Thurman says, of what the psalmist means when declaring that humans have been made a “little lower than God.” He ends this message by asking all to consider what he or she will do with the inspiration of the spirit. Divine presence within the body, he avers, is what has the power to turn “the destiny of the race.” alternative freedom harmony imagination man order spirit https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/5b6c3d2ca2bd628ac1224bfe6861ee28.pdf 08bdfe02314e8dc9cb7088c2409bc71f PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-564_B.mp3 Personal worth. Pitts Theology Library Emory University It is a commonplace remark to hear these days that man is bankrupt. It is as if modern society has become afflicted with some weird disease that paralyzes hope, that settles the mind and the spirit with a deep and abiding futility. Whether we are talking about politics, and we say well, what difference does it make? Republicans and Democrats-- doesn't matter which party is in, they are all so and so and so and so or so and so and so. [LAUGHTER] And we will say there, oh, the two leaders of the parties who now are running for president are very wonderful men in themselves, but they are captives of one or the other of these things that are the same. Only their shape is different. Or if we turn to education-- well, of course, of public schools are all disintegrating. Nobody is getting an education. Now, when I was a child-[LAUGHTER] Or if you turn to the church-- well, it doesn't mean anything. People come on parade-- this, that, the other. Family-- well, families falling apart at the seams. Headlines in the newspapers-- tidings of disintegration and destruction. And the sensitive human spirit finds that either it must, in self defense, ignore all of this, and say, well, I will never listen to the radio. I will not read the newspapers. I won't read the magazine. I will shut out all of this mass sickness. That's where we are. And now, I'm suggesting, this morning, that we need to re-examine our thought about man. And I want to do it from a slightly different angle than last Sunday because of a very important insight that is on my mind. I raise the same question, what is man? Or perhaps, to make it more personal, who are you? Or what am I? If you were to stand up-- suppose this were one big discussion group-- and I ask anyone, who are you? What would you say? Well, you'd say, well, my name is so and so on and so and so. I am a man or I am a lady. Or you may say, I do so and so and so. But if I kept pushing you, what would you say in reply to that question? Who are you? As you begin thinking about it, you would discover that you would be more and more dealing with what you thought of yourself-- with what you thought of yourself. Now, in an effort to answer the question, I would like to make three suggestions, very simple, no one of which is original-- who are you? What am I? What is man-- different ways of asking the same question. 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu The first thing in reply that it is, that I am a dreamer-- a dreamer. You are a dreamer. A dreamer of dreams. Pitts Theology Library Emory University What kind of dreams do you dream? This may not be a very good sermon this morning, because I want you to preach it. But what kind of dreams do you dream? About yourself-- or have you stopped dreaming about yourself? Is all your life-- the quick, the vital part of you-- is all of that in the past? Are all of your dreams-- about yourself now-- but memories, so that you have turned your back on the future and are looking at the past, deeply engrossed in the past, as you back into the future? What about that? We need not hurry over it. Let's take our time. Are your dreams about yourself fantastic dreams made up of the alchemy and the magic of all of the denials that you have experienced-- what about it-- so that your dreams are peopled by the millions of your protests against life? and your bitterness, and your resentments-- so that your dreams, with reference to yourself, are always tinged with the vindictive? What about it? Or are your dreams but extension of the unfulfilled possibilities of life as you are living it day by day, so that your dreams represent the overtone, the extra, the plus, that's just beyond your immediate horizon? So that the more you live, the more dynamics you generate that pursuant to the achievement of the dream-- you know the best and the simplest analogy I know of the things in my head is-- what is it? Is it the running high jump? The track man runs, and then he gets to a piece of wood or something. And when he hits that place, he leaves the ground. Now, there's a very intimate relationship between what he does when he leaves the ground and what he did from the time he started until he got to the spot where he left the ground. Because the running high jump, or running broad jump, or running whatever it's called, is called that because the man runs and then leaps. And the momentum that he generates from his running pushes him forward when he's in the air. Are your dreams related to your life in that way? What about it? What does the fact that I'm able to dream dreams say about me? Does it suggest that it is possible for the human mind and the human spirit to brood over even the most stubborn and unyielding aspects of life and to hold one desiring, one's hopes, one's longings, one's purpose, at such a center of focus over the raw materials of one's living, until, at last, dreams take shape, take body, become manifest? But you see, I must therefore be very careful to see to it that my dreams do not die. How terrible life is for a man or a woman that all of his or her dreams perish. Where do you stand in that particular? 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Well-- all right, let's look at the second thing. What am I? What are you? What is man? Pitts Theology Library Emory University We are builders. We are builders of worlds. We are builders of worlds. It's very interesting, about the human spirit, how we are never quite content with the world we have built or are building. That there seems to be, at the very center of the pulse of the individual living, something that is profoundly tragic. And some philosophers refer to it as the tragic sense of life. And what is it? That the world that I have made-- or to state it another way, the thing that I have done, that I have accomplished-- is not ever quite in keeping with the thing that I thought I was going to do or achieve, that there is a discrepancy between what I am finally able to fashion as the builder and the blueprint that I was using. So when I keep my eyes on the blueprint, I sit in judgment on the thing that has been created. And the difference between the thing I have created and the blueprint marks the measure of my tragic sense of life. Now, if I look at the world I have built and compare that world with the world you have built, then I am apt to become a very arrogant human being. Because, as I look at my world and compare it with your world, I will say, I wonder what does he think he's doing? And I will be very careful to select the kind of world to compare mine with that is surely worse than mine. There are some I'll overlook. I won't look over that way, because over there that person has some advantages that I don't have. So it will be fair. But I will compare mine with one of these rundown worlds just over here. We are very wonderful, wonderful creatures. Wonderful. Now, I cannot escape the tragic sense of life. You see, because this tragic sense of life is a thing that helps me-- I don't know quite how to put it-- measure my significance. For even though, as I look at the world's I'm building-- whether it's my private world, the world of my family, the world of my vocation, or whatever it may be. Whatever these worlds are-- there are many worlds. We are all builders of worlds. When I look at them in the light of the plan, the whole thing as I sensed it, then my little worlds-oh, I may be very ashamed of it. I may say, oh, that's no good. And if I dwell on that aspect, then I become the sort of human being who disposes of himself in a discount market. And then I remember that the plan was a great plan, that the model was a great model, the concept was a tremendous concept, the ideal was an overwhelming ideal. And therefore, with my little mind, with my limited powers, with all that I know about myself that is delimiting, if I could quiver in response to something so great, then I must be something more than the little world I'm able to build. Oh, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for? Or as another contemporary puts it, I said, when I get there the struggle will be over. I will have achieved, I will have built my world. But when I got there, I found that it wasn't over-- that it will never be over. No, not even in death. And it is a tragic sense of life that is the perpetual spring that feeds the dreams, the hopes, the theologies that have to do with the immortality of the soul. That's where it springs. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Now, if the world that you are building is a shoddy one, and you know it's shoddy, if you deliberately put cheap materials that you know are cheap materials, then you are as the figure that Jesus gives of the man who built his house on sand. I am a child of God. You are a child of God. We are children of God. And that's a very tremendous thing. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And now, there's just one other part of this. What am I? What are you? What is man? Our religious tradition has been deeply afflicted in dealing with man in this dimension. The great bishop of Hippo of North Africa at Saint Augustine, in his monumental work the City of God, did a great service to the Greco-Roman world of his period. But in some other ways he did a terrible service to any subsequent thought about the dignity of man. For in the City of God, man is utterly in himself depraved. He is essentially a creature without hope, born in sin, nurtured in iniquity, burdened with the weight of the sin of Adam that curseth every man that cometh into the world. And in this monumental treaties in the City of God, Augustine says that is the story of man. But says he, the church, the custodian of salvation, the church that has been given into its keeping the medicine of salvation will dispense this medicine to all who seek it with all their hearts and are willing to conform to the details of the prescription. And if you receive this, then it doesn't matter if the Roman Empire disintegrates. It doesn't matter that this whole social order is cracking up, and the barbarians are spilling the frontiers, and the very heart and the pulse beat of the Roman Empire are being strangled to death. And that was his great contribution. For in the time of the loss of nerve and the collapse of the society, he offered this hope. And around that hope, civilization survived. But in doing so-- in doing so-- man, the individual, paid a fearful price. Namely, being driven to admit that he was not a child of God. And then Milton, with his great genius, gather up all of the aroma of the dogma in the City of God and dreamed it into something that we call Paradise Lost. And Paradise Lost is the seed bed of much of the doctrine of man that has emerged in our Christian thinking about man. He has the devil, who is not the devil at first, losing his battle in heaven and is thrown out of heaven. You are familiar with it. And he falls, and falls, and falls, and falls. And finally, he lands on the Earth. And there are some great lines in it. I look to the right, there's hell. I look to the left, there's hell. I look before me, there's hell. I look behind me, there's hell. Behold, I myself am hell, he says. And then, in a more reflective mood, he says, "Is this the region-- this the Clime-- this the seat that we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom for that celestial light? Be it so, since he who now is Sovran can dispose and bid what shall be right-- fardest from him is best." "The mind is its own place, and in itself," can make a hell of heaven or a heaven or hell. Man-depraved worm-- no. 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Pitts Theology Library Emory University All of medieval theology and philosophy, all of the Dualism of the Persians, all of the mystery religions of northern Egypt-- all of those have moved into the stream since the Galilean spoke his simple words. Dear children of my father in heaven, I say unto you, love your enemy, do good to those who do not do good to you, that ye may become children of your father who is in heaven. Behold all the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. Yet your heavenly father takes care of them. Are you not worth more than lilies? Consider the birds of the air, they gather nothing into barns. Are you not worth more than birds? Oh, man, said he, how little you trust him. Seek ye first his kingdom, his righteousness, and everything else falls into place. For you, your are God's child. You are God's child. What am I? I'm a child of God. And the psychological corollary to that in the human spirit is what? It is this-- that deep within myself that the individual is of infinite worth, as seen by himself that all of the radical doctrines of the equality of man are derived. Well, there is only one equality that exists between human beings, and that is the equality of infinite worth as seen by the individual experiencer himself. And that is why, again. Jesus says, what would a man in exchange for this increment of infinite worth? Nothing. Nothing. Now, the degree to which a culture, or a civilization, or an institution, be it the family, the state, or the church, the degree to which any of these gives full recognition of this dimension of the human being, to that degree is it a culture, or a civilization, or an institution that can survive because life is on its side. But the degree to which a culture, or a civilization, or an institution refuses to give recognition to this, to that degree are the seeds of death already at work in it. Whether it has power, money, education, everything, if there is not room enough in it for the human spirit to give expression to this sense of infinite worth, it were better that it had never been created. What am I? What are you? What is man? Dreamer of dreams, builder or worlds, child of God. What a wonderful thing that is. 5 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By (1952, Fellowship Church, San Francisco, CA) Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, faith is more than a set of assumptions or affirmations about life. Faith, instead, is a literal fact to be acknowledged and drawn upon in everyday living. In this sermon series Thurman explores faith as a centering force in human life that orients us to the infinite worth of ourselves and others. It is this faith alone that can steer humankind to their ultimate destiny, for it is the expansive power of faith that sustains our cultures, our civilizations, our institutions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard & Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-564_B.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette A Faith to Live By: Man, part 2 of 2, #5 (Fellowship Church), 1952 Oct 12, Side B Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-564_B Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By, Part 5: Man (continued), 1952 October 12 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952-10-12 Description An account of the resource 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, civilization, or institution that recognizes this dimension of humanity can survive – but one which refuses to do so is already bound towards death. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by Rodell Jefferson III. https://thurman.pitts.emory.edu/files/original/0f8d38c0274c7b05dd3e297e10f78ecc.pdf 7d0544edbd561a204c45be1e0017f7ce PDF Text Text Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu 394-565_A.mp3 I'll come almost to the end of our series on faith for living. We have one more for next Sunday and we will conclude the series. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And today we are thinking together about democracy as one of the elements-- one of the crucial elements-- in our faith for living. It is very difficult to talk about this, because almost everything that anyone has to say about the meaning of the democratic dogma sounds like an old, frayed story that we have heard many times. But nevertheless, even at the risk that is involved there, I do want to think as creatively as possible with you about it. Because the point at which democracy lives or dies is in the human heart and the human spirit. And however accurate and technically consistent may be the political and the economic structure or blueprint, the implementation of the dogma has much to do with the faith of the people. So I'd like to ask you a question this morning-- do you believe in democracy? Do you? I remember hearing Ryan Oliva say one day that he believed very much in democracy when he was functioning in his capacity as a professor in the Union Theological Seminary. But when he was functioning in his capacity as a member of the board of trustees of the Eden Theological Seminary, he didn't believe very much in democracy. It depends, I suppose. While you are posing that question in your own mind and against the context of your own private living, explore with me the-- what seems to me to be the subsoil, the ground, and the technical sense upon which the whole democratic dream and the hope and dogma rests. There are two or three fundamental things to which I'll call your attention. The first is that either this is a world, a universe in which it is a reasonable thing to have purposes, to have goals, dreams, that sort of thing. Or it is not. For if, in its very structure, life is finished, is complete, is rounded out whole or, in its very structure, life is fluid, dynamic, unfinished, incomplete. Now if it be true that life is finished, complete, rounded out, then all hope about life and its meaning-- either private or public, personal or impersonal-- which is not a definition of life as it is, is futile hope. For it means, you see, that you can't basically do anything about anything if the thing is fixed, finished. The only thing you can do is wait. I remember, once I went over to British Columbia-- to Toronto, I guess it was. From there, I went way up 150 miles-- 200 miles-- north to a Canadian student conference. And while I was, two young people were taken ill with polio. And we didn't know it. It was-- kept it very quiet. And then-- so I came down to Toronto on Saturday morning, and stayed with a friend until Sunday evening. And when I finished my work Sunday evening, I got a train and came back to New York and then on to Washington, where I was living. I'd been in the house about a couple of hours on that particular Monday morning when the telephone rang. And the telephone-- person on the other telephone said, "This is the United States Department of Health. We have been informed by the 1 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu Department of Health of Ontario that you have had a primary exposure to polio and that you escaped across the border without being quarantined." Well, I didn't know a thing about it. Pitts Theology Library Emory University So I said, well, now, under such a circumstance, what does one do? He said, one simply waits. And if you get a something, a nose irritation, just a subtle head and spine, then you call me-- day or night. Of course, for 24 hours I had the worst head. It's almost a terrifying thing-- to wait. For you know that the thing is going to fall. You know what it is, and it's even more terrifying if you don't know. So then if, you see, life is finished, then fundamentally, the human spirit is stripped of all options-- except those that bear directly on that which is. You see? But if it isn't-- if the nature of life is of such that life is dynamic, is fluid, is essentially creative, then purposes, aspirations, utopias-- if you please-- may take on a relevancy to life and where it's going. And to have dreams and hopes and aspirations, purposes, goals, not only then becomes a possibility for the human spirit but it becomes mandatory. Now democracy-- one of the basic presuppositions upon which it rests, a metaphysical presupposition, is that this is the kind of world that is grounded in creativity. That it is essentially dynamic. That potentials are an important part of any present consideration or predicament. See what that means? It means that life, then, and time, are both on the side of that which is unfulfilled, that which is on the make, that which has not arrived. So when the human spirit broods over the stubborn and sometimes unyielding and recalcitrant aspects of chaotic human relations, it does it with confidence that it is possible for the raw materials of experience and of living to be fashioned and refashioned, shaped and reshaped, in accordance with great aspiring and great hoping and great dreaming. Now that is one of the basic pillars upon which the whole democratic experience of the race rests. Now you see what that means when you begin to apply it? For democracy insists, you see, that you can arrive at a sense of direction, a sense of goal, a collective sense of direction, a collective sense of goal. And if you can establish-- in your relatedness to people, if you can get a sense of a group experienced by individuals in the group, then there will become increasingly available to the group and therefore, to the individuals who participate in the group experience, a wisdom and an insight that no one of them working alone could gather unto himself or herself. So we hear a great deal about the democratic process. And sometimes it's quite a nuisance because it takes time, and often, you don't have the time-- that is, you don't think you have the time. I remember once when our younger daughter was just five years old and we were living in Rochester, New York, for the winter. And I wanted to get a train 45 minutes from that time, and I had to finish a chapter from a book that I'd borrowed from the library. And she came rushing 2 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu into the room wanting me to do something-- I don't even remember what it was-- but something very urgent. And I said, but I can't do it, you see? I'm reading here, I'm studying, I've got to do this before the taxi comes to take me to the railway station. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And she said, but I want you to do this now, daddy! And I said, but don't you see, I can't do it-you're wasting my time! But she kept insisting. So I just-- I closed the book for a minute, and then I put a new rumble in my voice and just surrounded her with a general climate of violence. I didn't do anything but that. And she bristled- being her mother's daughter. And stood her ground and finally rushed out of the room-- but back just like that. Now I thought about it on the train. Now I could have worked the democratic process. All the raw materials were there. I could have first established a sense of community in another dimension. With a little imagination, I could have put myself in her place and looked out through her eyes-- as I remained myself, you see, in my place. And then I could have taken her by the hand and put her in my place, so she could look out through my eyes, and keep breaking it down all the time until she could see it. And then maybe we would have arrived at a sympathetic understanding of what was involved, and a collective decision-- privately arrived at-- would have been unanimous. But that would have taken about two hours. And I had only about 35 or 40 minutes. Now that is why confidence in the integrity of democracy is so hard to maintain. Now let's jump way into another dimension to see exactly what I'm talking about. Because-- now bear in mind that the fundamental point that I am making is that this-- that democracy is grounded in this dynamic, this creative thing that is inherent in life and therefore, it is possible to shape. Ends. To set up goals, to move towards it, to bring to bear, upon that kind of commitment and conviction, the complete resources of one's personality. And to hold one's plan or goal at dead center, over the raw materials in a chaotic society until, at last, those raw materials begin to take on the objective manifestation of the inner hope. Now during times of war, what happens in our own democratic process? We tend to suspend the democratic process in times of social crisis. It's very interesting that we do that. During the Depression in 1932, Mr Roosevelt became president of the United States. And the banks closed and a lot of other things happened-- not because he became president but they closed. And Congress did what? Day after day-- we were living in Washington at this time-we'd just moved to Washington. Day after day, Congress merely bloop! Just put a rubber stamp on paper after paper that came from the White House. Why? Because everybody was scared to death and they couldn't risk the democratic process. Because the time interval that was involved was one that tended to undermine confidence in the integrity of the proposal and the experience itself. 3 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu So in time of war, we did it. We had a man, Jimmy Byrnes down in South Carolina, who was the czar of something during-- czar of defense or czar of something-- one man. And they even dubbed him a czar. Now that's the first thing. Now there's a second thing I want to do with that thing. Pitts Theology Library Emory University And nobody thought a thing about it because everyone was scared. So you could trust the time is against you when the emergency is on you-- unless, in your mind, there is fixed, in a very definitive and clear-cut and invasive fashion, that time is always on the side of that which has not matured. That democracy is rooted in-- not only in this metaphysical thing about the nature of life and its creative character so that in developing processes, and so forth, there's always the predisposition on the side that deep within the individuals, or deep within the group, there is the wisdom which is needful in order that the group might move in the direction that is creative in song. Now the second thing is, is what it has to say about the attitude towards people. That human beings are ends in themselves. That-- quite how to put this? You remember last Sunday, I mentioned the fact that in the religious insight that man is a child of God, that spelled out in practical terms, that [INAUDIBLE] that man sees himself as being one of-- a person of infinite value. Now I'd like to pick that idea up and put it here. For all of the insistence in democracy about equality has nothing really to do with equality of gifts, with equality of talents, with equality of abilities, with equality even of superficial position. But what, fundamentally, the genius of democracy insists upon in its notion about equality is this-- that the only authentic equality that there is, is the equality of infinite worth. I am not better than you or you are not better than I am. Those categories mean nothing. But this says that I know that I, myself-- as far as my little me is concerned-- that there is nothing in the heavens above or the earth beneath that can equal what I think my little life is worth to me. I may not be worth anything to you. So the equality is an equality of quality rather than an equality of quantity. Therefore, it is the insistence when democracy begins to express itself in behavior patterns. It is insistence that human beings should never be used as means to other ends, that human beings should never be tails to other kites, but that a human being is an end in himself. And that is why, if there is a conflict between human values and property values, democracy insists that human values should take precedence over property values. Then on and on we could go. Therefore, as long as human beings regard themselves as being of infinite worth, however long it may take them to project that sense of infinite value in terms of social forms, and political and economic behavior patterns. But as long as men feel that they are of infinite worth, the 4 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu democratic ideal and dream are a source of inspiration and hope in times when the social process seems to be out of joint. Pitts Theology Library Emory University Now I'd like to say just one little word about America in this regard. I think often about America- a strange country-- but it seems to me, and I hope this will not sound to you as if I am talking on the 4th of July in some sort of chauvinistic rallying point. But this is a part of the faith and I'd like to take time to say it to you. That I think God, through the instrumentality of life and the life process, is always at work on the revelation and the demonstration of creative purpose. That's the basic proposition. It is no accident, for instance, that in the period between the 8th century BC and the 2nd century AD, that every single, basic, philosophic, and ethical insight known to modern man emerged-- just in that little period of a thousand years. Every one. All the great religions, all the great ethical insights, the philosophers-- just in that period between the 8th century BC and about the 2nd century AD. Which seems to suggest, you see, that life was trying to get a backlog of social insight, of ethical and religious insight, as a part of the heritage of the race before the secrets of nature became available to the minds of men. And we are alarmed now because we wonder whether or not there is enough character, in modern man, to structure the tremendous power that is his as a result of the way in which he has discovered the secrets of nature. What would be our alarm and amazement if that discovery antedated this 1,000 years. So I think life is alive with a sense of moral incentive and purpose, and that's an illustration of it. Now I think that the same thing applies in America. Is it an accident that between these two oceans-- I want you to hear what I want to say about this-- even though it's after 12:00. Between these two oceans, people from the ends of the earth-- think of it-- from the ends of the earth came. In a climate that is ideal-- for the most part-- with natural resources that in some ways seem to be boundless and limitless. And not only that but the one place in which, from the beginning of the country itself, certain political and ethical ideals were a part of the immediate climate. Isolated. Forced to experiment effectively with neighborliness or not survive. Exposed, in the intensity of the isolation, to a far-reaching and radical political and ethical theory-- expressed in the democratic dogma and in the Christian ethic. As if life said, somewhere on the planet, I must set up a laboratory against the time when time and space would be reduced to zero. Now if time and space are annihilated, and men have not had a chance to develop a sense of neighborliness, then they will quickly in self-defense destroy each other. But if somewhere on the planet a laboratory can be set up so that men can experiment, creatively and effectively, in relatedness and neighborliness and so forth, then it may be possible that when time and space are annihilated through the secrets of nature being revealed to the mind of man, 5 �Pitts Theology Library The Howard Thurman Digital Archive Transcription thurman.pitts.emory.edu that the sense of the family of the human race will step into the vacuum created thereby, and make the world a safe and a decent place for all the people who haven't had a chance or time or opportunity to experiment with neighborliness. Pitts Theology Library Emory University I'll be speaking a language that the rest of us didn't understand. One generation, two generations, three, four, five removed, that's all. Looking like somebody who calls attention to the meaning of this, so as to keep alive the focal point of the purpose of the impersonal forces of life through which God is operating. Now suppose we knew about atomic energy, and there had been nowhere on this planet-- I want you to hear this and think about it, whether you agree or disagree offhand, it doesn't matter. But suppose that all of the development of atomic energy was available to man, with the result in the annihilation of time and space reducing of those to zero. Suppose all that had taken place on this planet, and nowhere on the planet there existed, or had existed for any length of time, the things we take for granted in American life. What would be the result? And therefore, I say to you that I don't think that we are in a position of leadership in the world because we are rich or because we have industrial know-how like all those incidental-accidental-- incidental, rather-- I'll put it that way. But I think that we are in the fateful position of being the only nation on this planet that has had 300 years of primary exposure to something like the democratic ethic and the Judeo-Christian ethic, in an environment so isolated that it could be relatively under control, and with the richest cross-section of human beings collected anywhere else in the world. And who are we that such a privilege could be given to us in order that we might strike and throw our weight around to dominate the earth. No, that isn't the meaning of it. The meaning of it is that we have been given this-- we have been sent to school by life, by God, to develop confidence and faith, technique, methodologies for implementing the dream of one world, one family that God has for the human race. And school is out. School is out. There isn't enough time to do any teaching now. Just time enough left for contagion. Either we demonstrate or die. There's no alternative left. And I wonder what God thinks about his students? I wonder. 6 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By (1952, Fellowship Church, San Francisco, CA) Description An account of the resource For Howard Thurman, faith is more than a set of assumptions or affirmations about life. Faith, instead, is a literal fact to be acknowledged and drawn upon in everyday living. In this sermon series Thurman explores faith as a centering force in human life that orients us to the infinite worth of ourselves and others. It is this faith alone that can steer humankind to their ultimate destiny, for it is the expansive power of faith that sustains our cultures, our civilizations, our institutions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard & Rodell Jefferson III. AudioWithTranscription Audio that is shown through the 3Play Media embedded interactive transcript Audio with Transcription <iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-565_A.html" ></iframe> Location The location of the interview, speech, lecture, or sermon Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California Time Period The decade in which the recording was produced. 1950s Original Title Title as transcribed from tape cassette A Faith to Live By: Democracy, part 1 of 2, #6 (Fellowship Church), 1952 Oct 19 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 394-565_A Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Thurman, Howard Title A name given to the resource A Faith to Live By, Part 6: Democracy, 1952 October 19 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952-10-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-13627798.925371 4550756.1096806)) Description An account of the resource 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 imagination is the fundamental pillar upon which the hope of democracy rests. More than the individual working alone, “collective imagining,” he says, yields wisdom and insight in their highest manifestations. Building consensus, however, takes time. People often feel that they do not have the time. In the fall of 1952, Thurman believed the proverbial clock was ticking. While the American experiment in democracy remained imperfect, Thurman was sure this “laboratory” for the democratic process could be instructive for societies across the globe. He calls upon the nation to resist dominating the world and rather, shed light on the divine path toward a more united human race. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Description by ShaCarolyn Halyard America creativity democracy democratic process Great Depression option Reinhold Neibuhr