Browse Items (290 total)

In this fifth lecture on The Meaning of Loyalty, Thurman delves into Deutero-Isaiah. Isaiah, as prophet is dedicated to the restoration of Israel and Israel's ultimate destiny in God's plan. However, according to Thurman, Isaiah is disappointed by the people who do not seem to be sensitive to their divine duty. Thurman explains that through this disappointment, Isaiah comes to a great spiritual discovery: the significance of Israel is not measured in power or status, but rather "in humility of…

In this fourth lecture on loyalty, Thurman explores the story of Job. He wonders: How do we reconcile the logic of our minds and the loyalty of our hearts when it comes to God? The logic of the mind believes in order and justice – God being the arbiter of perfect reward and perfect punishment. However, we also find that the good and undeserving unnecessarily suffer, and thus God appears unjust. For Thurman, Job's answer to this dilemma is that Job's integrity to God and humanity remained firm,…

In this third lecture on loyalty, Thurman discusses the conflict between the individual and the state. For Thurman, loyalty to something supremely worthy is the ultimate basis for self-respect and significance. Thurman's word for this ultimate cause is God. Thurman posits that the state can either make itself a vehicle of this human striving, or it can become a competitor to it; the state can attempt to move into the space that only God should occupy. At best, political expression is a vehicle…

In this second lecture on The Meaning of Loyalty, Thurman discusses the problem of conflicting loyalties. We live complex lives with a hierarchy of causes that cannot be reduced to one. How do we resolve loyalty to our ideals in conflict with our loyalty to self-preservation? There is no simple answer, but Thurman poses that we become loyal to the experience of loyalty itself. This principle may be brought into any situation, and serves to ensure the integrity of the person.

In this first lecture on The Meaning of Loyalty, Thurman speaks to the ways in which individuals are involved in their social context. Loyalty represents the fusion of a person's inner will and an outside cause. This is not simply a social matter for Thurman, but also a fundamental structure of the universe. Loyal commitment brings all the disparate parts of the personality into a single whole. Thurman ends by describing what it means to be loyal to a person. "The thing that is primary is my…

In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman reflects upon a passage from 1 Corinthians to elaborate on his understanding of love. He defines love as "the experience of being dealt with at a point in oneself that is beyond all the good and beyond all the evil. He notes that the love of God functions as the exemplary love to which humanity should strive towards. Thurman's conception of love is not possessive nor transactional, rather, it is interdependent and comes from the…

In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman reflects upon a passage from 1 Corinthians to elaborate on his understanding of love. He defines love as "the experience of being dealt with at a point in oneself that is beyond all the good and beyond all the evil. He notes that the love of God functions as the exemplary love to which humanity should strive towards. Thurman's conception of love is not possessive nor transactional, rather, it is interdependent and comes from the…

In this sermon on commitment, Thurman suggests that the destiny of an individual is built upon one central assumption: either life is open and dynamic, or life is closed off and finished with no sense of choice and alternatives. Commitment, at its core, is about choice. It is one's capacity to give over their self-conscious will to something. Thurman describes this self-giving as a response to something that grips us. In commitment we experience a "singleness of mind" that synthesize our usually…

Thurman focuses on one of the central affirmations of Fellowship Church: "I affirm my need of a growing understanding of all men as sons of God." A growing understanding is one in which there is no total answer, but rather it is a response that is creative and in process. It is a present state that contains the potential of the future. Thurman says that the "sons of God" contains two meanings. On one hand, we are children of life deeply involved in our own self-preservation, which leads us into…

In this recording within the We Believe series, Howard Thurman draws from a quotation written by Kabir, who is a Hindu Mystic. The line Thurman repeats from the Kabir quotation throughout this reading is, "I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty," which is utilized as a way of speaking to our deepest longings resting within ourselves. Thurman notes that if one is seeking truth destructively, it will disintegrate one's inner life, and eventually, collapse one's outer life. While…