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Pitts Theology Library
The Howard Thurman Digital Archive
Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-811.mp3
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, lord,
my strength and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is my final broadcast until next September. I wish to express my personal appreciation to all
of you who have taken the time to write letters or postal cards, or make telephone calls
expressing appreciation for the weekly broadcasts. I wish for each of you a full, and restful, and
creative summer.
Because tomorrow is Memorial Day, I have chosen to read several poems having to do with
some aspect of this particular celebration. As the overall phrase covering what I shall read, I'm
using two lines from Hermann Hagedorn's poem about the unknown soldier.
And these lines are, we died, but you who live must do a harder thing than dying is. For you
must think, and ghosts shall drive you on. The first thing that I'm reading is from John
Drinkwater's "Abraham Lincoln", and Lincoln is speaking. I beg you not to harass yourself,
ma'am. I too believe war to be wrong. It's the weakness, and the jealousy, and folly of men that
make a thing so wrong possible.
But we are all weak, and jealous, and foolish. That's how the world is and we cannot outstrip the
world. Some of the worst of us are sullen, aggressive, but clumsy and greedy pirates. Some of us
have grown out of that, but the best of us have an instinct to resist aggression if it won't listen to
persuasion. You may say it's a wrong instinct. I don't know. But it's there, and it's there in
millions of good men.
I don't believe it's the wrong instinct I believe that the world must come to wisdom slowly. It is
for us who hate aggression to persuade men always against it and hope that, little by little, they
will hear us. But in the meantime, there will come moments when the aggressors will force the
instinct to resistance to act. Then we must act earnestly, praying always in our courage that never
again will this thing happen.
And then we must turn again and again to persuasion. This appeal to force is the misdeed of an
imperfect world. But we are imperfect. We must strive to purify the world, but we must not think
ourselves pure, above the world. And the next that I shall read is from the Arizona poet of the
desert, Badger Clark. This is about the Civil War.
My father prayed as he drew a bead on the gray coats. Back in those blazing years when the
house was divided. Bless his old heart. There never was truer or kinder, yet he prayed while
hoping the ball from his clumsy old musket might thud to the body of some hot eyed young
southerner and tumble him limp in the mud of the Vicksburg trenches.
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
That was my father, serving the Lord and his country, praying and shooting whole heartedly,
never a doubt. But now, what about me in my own day of battle? Could I put my prayers behind
a slim Springfield bullet? Hardly, except to mutter, Jesus, we part here. My country calls for my
body and takes my soul also. Do you see those humans herded and driven against me?
Pitts Theology Library
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Turn away, Jesus, for I've got to kill them. Why? Oh, well, it's the way of my fathers. And such
evils bring some vast, vague good to my country. I don't know why. But today, my business is
killing. And my gods must be luck and the devil till this thing is over. Leave me now, Lord. Your
eye makes me slack in my duty. My father could mix his prayers with his shooting, and he was a
rare, true man in his generation. Now, I'm fairly decent in mine, I reckon. Yet if I should pray
like him, I'd spoil it by laughing. What is the matter?
And then this by Edna St. Vincent Millay, written when she was a young woman. And as I
understand from an article which I read concerning her many, many months ago, she herself is
alleged to have repented the mood of this poem. Of this fact, I'm not sure, but I state it because I
feel that it should be said. And the poem is called "The Conscientious Objector".
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for death. I hear him leading his horse out of the stall. I
hear the clatter on the barn floor. He is in haste. He has business in Cuba, business in the
Balkans. Many calls to make this morning, but I will not hold the bridle while he cinches the
girth. And he may mount by himself. I will not give him a leg up.
Though he flicks my shoulders with his whip, I will not tell him which way the fox ran. With his
hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides in the swamp. I shall die, but that
is all that I shall do for death. I am not on his payroll. I will not tell him the whereabouts of my
friends, nor of my enemies either. Though he promise me much, I will not map him the route to
any man's door. Am I a spy in the land of the living that I should deliver men to death?
Brother, the past word, and the plans of our city are safe with me. Never through me shall you be
overcome. I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for death. And finally, this from John Bunyan,
"Mr. Valiant for Truth". After this, it was noised about that Mr. Valiant for Truth was taken with
a summons, and he had this for a token that the summons was true, that his picture was broken at
the fountain.
And then he said, by my sword, I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage. And my
courage and skill to him that can get them, my marks and scars I carry with me to be a witness
for me that I have fought his battles. Who will be my rewarder? I shall die, but this is all that I
shall do for death. I am not on death's payroll.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, Lord,
my rock and my redeemer.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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We Believe (Television Series, 1958-1965)
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<em>We Believe</em> was a color television program that aired on WHDH-TV, Channel 5, in Boston on weekday mornings at 11:15. From 1958 to 1965, while Howard Thurman was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University, he was the host of the Friday morning show. Each message has a brief introductory section with bells and music before Thurman delivers his short meditation. Some recordings have been edited to remove the intro. In some cases, the Howard Thurman Educational Trust produced tapes with two messages on one recording.<br /><br />"These meditations are no longer than 15 minutes, but highly representative of his style, influence, and search for common ground." - <a href="http://archives.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman">the Howard Thurman and Sue Bailey Thurman Collections at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.</a><br /><br />
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>We Believe</em> program listing in the TV Guide, March 29, 1958</p>
<img src="http://pittsviva.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/webelieve-whdh-boston.png" style="float: right;" alt="webelieve-whdh-boston.png" />
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Descriptions by Dustin Mailman
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-811.html" ></iframe>
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Selections for Memorial Day (WB-7B), 1964 May 29
Time Period
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1960s
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WHDH-TV, Boston, Massachusetts
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394-811
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Thurman, Howard
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Selections for Memorial Day (1964-05-29)
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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1964-05-29
Description
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In this recording within the We Believe Series, Thurman reads three poems written by various authors speaking to subjects of war, conscientious objection, aggression, and violence. Each of these poems are read as a reflection upon the Memorial Day holiday. The first poem, by John Drinkwater, deals with aggression as it is related to war. The second poem, by Badget Clark, deals with a young man's decision to fight in the Civil War. The third, and final poem, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, speaks to conscientious objection while hiding a black child from people of power. Each of these poems emphasize Thurman's commitment to an anti-war ethic, pacifism, and the religion of Jesus.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
Abraham Lincoln
aggression
America
anti-violence
anti-war
Badger Clark
citizenship
civil war
consciousness
death
Edna St. Vincent Millay
evil
Herman Hagedorn
holidays
John Drinkwater
poem
prayer
soul
war
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Pitts Theology Library
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-652_A.mp3
[MUSIC - "BE STILL, MY SOUL"]
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
(SINGING) Be still, my soul. The Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide. In every change, he faithful will remain. Be still, my
soul. Thy best, thy heavenly friend through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
If I ascended into heaven, thou art there. If I make mine bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I
take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand
hold me and thy right hand shall steady me.
If I say, behold, the darkness covers me, even the night shall be light about me. The darkness,
hideth not from thee. But the night shineth as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike
to thee.
For thou hast processed my reigns. Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. In thy book, all
my members were written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of
them.
How precious, how precious are thy thoughts unto me, oh God. How great is the sum of them. If
I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with thee.
Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me, oh God, and know my thoughts and see if there
be any wicked way in me. And lead me in the way everlasting, everlasting.
[MUSIC - "BE STILL, MY SOUL"]
And this has to be part one of Saint Augustine, architect of a new faith as a continuation of our
series the end of the journey. As a background, may I read these two paragraphs from Augustine.
What do I love when I love thee? Not beauty of the body, not harmony of line nor brilliancy of
light so pleasant to thee's eyes, nor sweet melodies of every kind of song, nor the sweet scent of
flowers and perfumes and spices. Not manna and honey. Not limbs inviting to fleshly embrace.
Not these do I love when I love my God. And yet, I love a kind of light and the melody and
fragrance and food and embrace when I love my God. The light, melody, food, fragrance,
embrace of my inward man.
Where there shineth upon my soul what space containeth not and where resounded what time
stealeth not away. Where in fragrance, which a breath scattereth not, where there is flavor that
eating lessen it not and where there is an embrace that cannot be rendered asunder, this I love
when I love my God.
I asked the earth for God and it answered me, I am not he. I asked the sea and the depths and the
creeping things and they answered, we are not thy God. Seek thou above us.
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
I asked the breezy gales and airy universe and all its denizens replied, Anaximenes is mistaken. I
am not God. I asked the heavens, sun, moon, and stars. Neither are we, say they, the God whom
thou seeketh.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
And I said unto all things which stand about the gateways of my flesh, ye have told me of my
God. But ye are not he. Tell me something of him. And they cried with a loud voice, he made us.
He made us. He made us.
The decay of the Roman Empire had been set in motion by some forces that were subtle and
some that were obvious. There were many theories about why it had begun to disintegrate, this
empire which seemed to the human mind to symbolize in time and space the sovereignty of the
eternal, the point of referral that stood above all of the traffic of life, all of the conflicts of life.
And little by little, men saw that this empire itself was beginning to disintegrate. The stirring of
populations swinging back and forth across the frontiers, a movement of populations that has
continued down to the present time. This is one of the mysterious things as I think about human
history.
I know the answers that the sociologists give about why peoples start moving, why they get on
the march. But I'm not sure that this answer is a satisfying one. But be that as it may, the empire
was in flux. It had broken itself in twain.
And this, the tensions between the Orient and the Occident, the tensions between great racial
groups that had been rooted in a certain kind of culture and a certain pattern of life, a tension that
had been held at equilibrium as long as the Roman Empire spread its eagles everywhere. And
held, as if it were in one, vast continuum, all of these subtle conflicts.
Now when this outer rim cracked, all the built-in tensions began to emerge. And finally, it
expressed itself in the formal division of the empire between the East and the West.
Augustine, what about him? What words may I use to talk about him? He was a part of this flux.
He lived in North Africa, a North Africa that we cannot imagine now because when he lived
there, it was a lush land, full of all kinds of wonderful vineyards, green fertility, and the gods of
fertility flourished.
This was North Africa when Augustine was a boy. He had a wonderful mother, devout, pious,
who brooded over him with great tenderness, knowing somewhat within herself that if she could
pray long enough, she was a devout Catholic, if she could pray long enough, if she could hold
out without giving up, the pressure of her love would bring her wandering son into the fold.
His father had no interest in these things. His father was a man without any particular religious
convictions or faith. As a matter of fact, he's defined as being a pagan, a familiar phrase
[INAUDIBLE].
He had ambitions for his son. He wanted his son to make a mark in the world. So he put forth all
the effort possible to see to it that his son would get a good education and all the things that went
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
along with it. He wanted to protect his son from throwing his life away in riotous living. So very
early, he secured a kind of common law wife for his son.
All the time, his son's mind was growing and expanding, searching, seeking. And his seeking
finally took him away from home.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
He became a teacher at Carthage first and they did not have much discipline in the university.
Students did not pay their bills. Their bills were not due until the end of the semester. So students
would go to classes up to about two weeks before the semester was over. Then they'd change
teachers.
Well, Augustine couldn't live at this rate. So he left and he went to Europe. And I did not fill in
too many details about him.
But there he met a man finally, Ambrose the Great. He must have been a great preacher, for this
was the thing that first attracted Augustine to him. But through the influence of Ambrose, he
began to work out this matter of entering into the fullness of the new life which he found in Jesus
Christ.
Now, it's cruel to summarize his life in this superficial manner. But this is not to be a biography
of Augustine.
The first and most dramatic influences on his life as far as the things that shaped his mind was
the Manichean philosophy. And let us not be perturbed by the word. But this influenced his life
and at a critical point. And in my judgment, it continued to influence his life and to influence
[INAUDIBLE].
Manichean philosophy recognized some of the realities of human experience, the conflict
between good and evil, between the impulse to do that which seems to be right and the impulse
to do the thing which seems to be evil or which is evil.
And it's projected a metaphysical interpretation of existence that could account for the conflict
that goes on in the human spirit between good and evil. And they said that all of life is divided in
this way, between the powers of darkness and the powers of light.
And these two powers seem to be equally matched in human experience and in the world and in
existence. The human heart is the battleground when the tug of war between these two forces
goes on its way, that they are fundamentally equally matched.
Do you think so, if you were talking about this? Do we get a feel of it in the scripture lesson that
was read? Just the feel of it? There is going on all the time, this tension.
Sometimes, do you feel that the thing that is evil in you is stronger than the thing that is good?
Would you load it a little? What about us? Not what you think you ought to think, but how do
you think about it? What is it?
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Well this was a part of a Augustine. Now there was another influence in his life that was very
crucial, and that was the burying of the philosophy, the influence of [INAUDIBLE], as we
referred to last Sunday, this near-Plutonic influence that the world was created by gods, by the
creative whim.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
But as the world moved farther and farther to the edges of the extent of the mind, the creative
energy, that out of which everything moves, it became more and more material, more and more
contaminated.
And as a matter of fact, there's a hard line between the spirit and matter that the spirit could not
quite ever get into matter. And matter could not ever quite make the move in the other direction.
So that you get a [INAUDIBLE] seed between the things that are material and the things that are
thus spiritual.
And this is a little of the philosophy of the Manichean, that-- and if you somehow are sure that
the material things, your body, your flesh, that if you're sure that these things are set on their
way, that they cannot be influenced. That which is spiritual can't get into it and do anything with
it. And vice-versa.
If this is the case, then in terms of your practical living, you may decide that as far as the
expression of your appetite is concerned, since nothing that is material can have any effect, any
door by which it can reach over into that which is qualitative in life, then it doesn't matter what
you do. It doesn't matter what you do.
Because there is no way, you see, by which any activity of the body, any material functioning
can have any bearing on the other side of the chasm.
And if you tried to live completely on the other side of the chasm, then the less attention that you
give to the demands of your body, the freer you are to give all of yourself to the other side so that
you can either get a libertinism out of this or an asceticism. And these were the things that were
at work in the background of Augustine's mind.
And then, when he became-- however, when he became a Christian, when he felt that the central
thing about man's existence was the fact that there was at work in the material, in the flesh a
creative and redemptive process.
Not merely that God could not be involved in the world, but that God was at work redeeming the
world through the doctrine and the experience of the incarnation through Jesus Christ. And
therefore, Augustine felt that the thing that was most evil in man was not that he was a victim of
this sort of dichotomy that I'm talking about.
But that he had a will that was in rebellion against the will of God, that God was not merely
creator, some impersonal, creative force moving and brooding over the stuff of life and making
the stuff of life yield more and more forms and shapes and manifestations. No, not that. But God
was a sovereign will, holding in the integrity of his whim all existence. And that the only sin of
which man really was capable was the sin of rebellion against this whim.
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
Now the sovereign will, this point of referral, this is the step that Augustine takes in his thought
that becomes the-- how shall I say this? That becomes the rallying point for the decaying,
disintegrating empire. Now, let me just pin that down so you can hold it until next Sunday.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, when a society begins to break up, when there is no point of referral outside of the
individual or outside of the liberal, political, or social arrangement, when there is no basis for
integrated behavior which the centrality, you see, the political centrality of the Roman Empire
provided for the whole civilized world at that time.
Now, when this fountainhead broke up, when it broke up, this left a vacuum so that there was no
point of referral, nothing that would give to people a basis for integrated behavior. They had no
sense of cohesion externally. And therefore, their sense of inner cohesion began to break up.
And into this vacuum Augustine projects the sovereignty of God. And this is very interesting to
me. This becomes the foundation of what to me in essence was a new faith. Jesus Christ, the
founder, the apostle Paul, the first great, creative interpreter and the mind and the will and the
brooding of Augustine, the architect for 1,000 years.
Suppose in 1917 in Russia, when there was no point, when the central point of referral had
broken up, what the Tsar symbolized was no more. So there was no basis for integrated action
for this vast land and vast people.
Why was it impossible for someone somewhere in the Christian movement to do, at that critical
time, what Augustine did for the collapse of the Roman Empire. Why?
And they had to find a point of referral in a very crude kind of persuasive dialectic. And another
great moment in the destiny of man passed.
What had we learned in the more than 1,000 years of dealing with this specific responsibility that
had been set forth back in the 5th century?
After the war, when the great German nation, loaded with guilt, began to do this with no point of
referral that was prestige-bearing, of prestige-bearing significance to provide a basis for the
integrated behavior of the nation. Why into that vacuum there did not move that which moved
into the vacuum created by the collapse, the formal collapse of the Roman Empire.
But instead, some resurrection of an ancient folk idiom clothed in new form and manifestation
moved through the central dominating spot in the minds of a nation and provided a rallying point
of dignity and meaning and significance for them.
And here we are now. Do you believe that there is, in the grounds and the experience of your
religion, that which is so utterly significant in its transcendence and eminence and redemptive
character as demonstrated in your own life that you feel that it can provide a point of referral on
the horizon that will be redemptive for our society? And give even to America a basis for
integrated behavior?
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Transcription
thurman.pitts.emory.edu
So that in the light of it, it can experience, it meaning America, can experience the kind of
redemption that will make it whole in which even here the bruised reed will not be crushed nor
the smoking flak quenched.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Or is your personal experience of religion too small that you would not run the risk of giving to it
such a far-reaching assignment? This is the question with which Augustine wrestled. And his
answer was yes, that which moved into my life redeemed my life, made my mind not a seeker
after truth, but put into my mind the kind of quality that enabled me to design truth and to follow
it.
This is of such timeless significance as demonstrated in what I have been through that it can save
not the world, but worlds. And because he felt that way and projected it for 800 years, the
Catholic church moved on the track he laid.
Thou has made us for thyself, he said. And our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee.
You believe that? I do. I do. I do.
Walk beside us, our father, in the way that we take. And leave us not to the weakness of our
strength or to the strength of our weakness this day and forevermore.
[CHOIR SINGING]
[MUSIC - "BE STILL, MY SOUL"]
6
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-652_A.html" ></iframe>
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Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts
Time Period
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1960s
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394-652_A
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Thurman, Howard
Title
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St. Augustine, part 1 (7); St. Augustine, part 2 (8), 1961 Dec 3, 10
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988))
Description
An account of the resource
This sermon is the seventh of nine in a series of sermons given in Marsh Chapel that are titled "The Inward Journey." In this sermon, Thurman explores St. Augustine's biography, specifically speaking to the influence of Manichean Philosophy on Augustine prior to his conversion to Christianity. Thurman notes of the dualistic nature of this philosophy, and the ways in which redemption for both the body and the mind are non-existent in this train of thought. Thurman continues by noting the significance of redemption in Augustine's theological imagination, and appropriates Augustine's construction of redemption towards the political landscape of Germany post World War I.
Date
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1961-12-03
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Description by Dustin Mailman
America
asceticism
be still my soul
biography
body
Carthage
creative energy
discernment
dualism
Germany
interconnectivity
libertinism
Manichean Philosophy
mind
North Africa
prayer
redemption
Roman Empire
sovereignty
World War I
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ad5e90f212f7341b7a53622bae3b9f5f
PDF Text
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Pitts Theology Library
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thurman.pitts.emory.edu
394-609_A.mp3
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Always we are filled with a strange sense of the mystery and the miracle of life in our private
lives. We are mindful of so many little blessings. Some so intimate, so closely binding, that to us
they do not seem to be blessings at all. The ability to get tired and to be renewed by rest and
relaxation. The taste of food. The peculiar quality that only cool water has when we drink it. The
tender reminders of the love of mother and father, of sister, of brother, husband, wife, of child.
And the coming of daybreak, the experience of daylight, the intimate quality of twilight, and then
the mystery of darkness. And all the dimensions of meaning that each of us finds in this cycle of
movement that wraps us, and sustains us, and holds us with such security. The heritage, which is
ours. Ideas, notions, values, all of the monitors of our behavior and our living that nudge us on
the elbow when there is a fleeting moment that would lead us to disaster.
And to those things that would make our lives sad and broken. For our land with its resources so
abundant-- fresh vegetables to eat, climate that does not threaten too disastrously, the little wind
breaks that we build against the weather. Beyond all of this, a sense of being upheld, cradled, by
a feeling of strength that is not of our making. Something that gives to our lives a quality of
integrity and meaning, which we did not generate.
The whisper that comes in the heart telling us to lift up our heads and be of good courage. All of
the benedictions of our lives, we remember them, Our Father, as we sit here, or wherever we are,
remembering and waiting for the movement of Thy Spirit in our hearts and our minds. We offer
to Thee, our thanks because we want to love Thee. We want to make of our lives the sacrament
in Thy hands. Teach us how, Our Father. Lest our spirits die, and all the virtue disappear from
our living. And we vanish as shadows in the dark. We do want to love Thee. Teach us how,
Father. Teach us how.
I'm continuing our thinking together about the moment of crisis. And this morning, the moment
of crisis, in the life of Abraham Lincoln. I shall depart from what is customary, I think. I want to
do quite a bit of reading this morning.
First, I shall read from Benet's, John Brown's Body. This will establish the setting for what is on
my mind. Then I will try to say all that I have to say and in 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, or 16 minutes.
And then, the last part will be from the lips, from the pen, of Lincoln, himself. So I hope you will
just be.
"While I live and breathe, I mean to save the Union if I can. And by whatever means my hands
can find under the Constitution. I put the Union first and last, before the slave. If freeing slaves
will bring the Union back, then I will free them. If by freeing some, and leaving some enslaved, I
helped my cause, I will do that. But should such freedom mean the wreckage of the Union that I
serve, I would not free a slave."
If I may insert something here-- I remember the first time I read this-- not this-- from this book,
but the first time I read the words of Lincoln. Saying this, it exploded the myth that had been a
part of that which nurtured me as a boy. And for 10 weary years of my life, I could find no place
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in my mind and in my thought for this man. Because having been conditioned so early with such
terrifying stories about what slavery was like, as it came from the lips of the people who had
come through the experience, I could not understand how on earth, Lincoln, could say such a
thing. Changes came and it may be that in the 12 minutes it would be clear, maybe not.
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"All will have gone. I am a patient man. And I can wait like an old gun flint buried in the ground,
while the slow years pile up like moldering leaves above me, underneath the rake of time, and
turn in time to the dark fruitful mold that smells of Sangamon apples till at last there is no sleep
left there. And the steel event descends to strike the live coal out of me, and light the powder that
was always there. This is my only virtue as I see it. Ability to wait and hold my own, and keep
my own resolves once they are made, in spite of what the smarter people say.
I can't be smart the way that they're smart. I've known that since I was an ugly child. It teaches
you to be an ugly child. It teaches you to lose the thing you love. It's sticks your roots down into
Sangamon ground and makes you grow when you don't want to grow. And makes you tough
enough to wait life out. Wait like the fields under the rain and snow."
Then-- "I've never found a church that I could join. Although I've prayed in churches in my time,
and listened to all sorts of ministers-- well, they were good men, most of them. And yet, the thing
behind their words, it's hard to find. I used to think it wasn't there at all. Couldn't be there. I
cannot say that now. And now I pray to you, and to you alone, teach me to know your will.
Teach me to read your difficult purpose here, which must be claimed. If I had eyes to see, make
me just.
There was a man I knew near Pigeon Creek who kept a kennel full of hunting dogs. Young dogs
and old, smart hounds, and silly hounds. He'd sell the young ones every now and then, smart as
they were, and slick as they could run. But the one dog he'd never sell, or lend, was an old, half
dead, foolish looking hound, you wouldn't think had sense to scratch a flea unless the flea were
old and sickly too.
Most days, he used to lie beside the stove, or sleeping in a piece of sun outside. Folks used to
plague the man about that dog. And he'd agree to everything they said. No, he ain't much on
looks, much on speed. A young dog can outrun him any time. Outlook him, and out eat him, and
out leap him. But Mr, that dog is hell on a cold scent. And once he gets his teeth in what he's
after, he don't let go until he knows he's dead.
I am that old death hunting dog, oh Lord. And the world's kennel holds 10,000 hounds, smarter
and faster and with finer coats, to hunt your hidden purpose up the wind and bell upon the trace
you leave behind. But even when they fail, and lose the scent, I will keep on. Because I must
keep on until you utterly reveal yourself and sink my teeth in justice, soon or late.
There is no more to ask of earth, or fire, and water only runs between my hands. But in the air I
look. In the blue air, the old dog muzzled down to the cold scent, day after day, until the tired
years crackle beneath his feet like broken sticks. And the last barren bush consumes with peace.
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I should have tried the course with younger legs. This hunting ground is stiff enough to pull the
metal heart out of a dog of steel. I should have started back at Pigeon Creek from scratch, not 40
years behind the mark. But you can't change yourself. And if you could, you might fetch the
wrong jackknife in the swap. It's up to you to whittle what you can with what you've got.
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And what I am, I am, for what it's worth, [? hipple, ?] and legs, and all. I can't complain. I'm
ready to admit you could have made a better looking dog from the same raw material, no doubt.
But since you didn't, this will have to do. Therefore, I utterly lift up my hands to you. And here
and now, beseech your aid. I have held back when others tugged me on. I've gone on when
others pulled me back striving to read your will, striving to find the justice and expedience of this
case. Hunting an arrow down the chilly airs, until my eyes are blind with the great wind, and my
heart sick with running after peace.
And now, I stand and tremble on the last edge of the last blue cliff. A hound, beat out, tail down,
and belly flattened, to the ground. My lungs are breathless and my legs are whipped. Everything
in me is whipped, except my will. I can't go on. And yet, I must go on.
I will say this-- two months ago I read my proclamation, setting those men free, to [? Seward ?]
and the rest. I told them then, I was not calling on them for advice, but to hear something that I
meant to do. We talked about it. Most of them approved the thing, if not the time. Then Seward
said something that I hadn't thought of. I approve the proclamation, but if issued now, with our
defeats in everybody's mouth, it may be viewed as a last shriek for help from an exhausted,
beaten, government. Put it aside until a victory comes, then issue it with victory. He was right.
I put the thing aside, and ever since there has been nothing for us but defeat. Still no news. Oh, if
I had eyes that could look into Maryland. If I could move that battle with my hands. No it won't
work. I'm not a General. All I can do is trust the men who are.
I'm not a General, no, I promise this-- here at the end of every ounce of strength that I can
muster, here in the dark pit of ignorance that is not quite despair, and doubt that does, but must
not break the mind. The pit I have inhabited so long at various times and seasons that my soul
has taken color in its very grains from the blind darkness, from the lonely cave that never hears a
footstep but my own, nor ever will while I am a man alive to keep my prison locked from
visitors.
What if I heard another footstep there? What if some day there is no one but God? No one but
God who could descend that stair, and ring his heavy footfalls on the stone. And if God came,
what would we say to him? That prison is ourselves that we have built in being so, it's loneliness
is just. In being so, it's loneliness endures. But if another came, what would we say? What can
the blind say, given back their eyes? No it must be as it has always been.
But one thing I know, God is not a jailer. And I make a promise now to you, and to myself. If
this last battle is a victory, and they can drive the rebel army back from Maryland, back over the
Potomac, my proclamation shall go out at last to set those other prisoners and slaves from this
next year, then and forever free. So much for my will. God, show me what is yours.
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Ah, that must be news. Those footsteps in the hall, good news, or else it wouldn't come so fast.
What is it, hey? Yes. Yes. I'm glad of that. I'm very glad. There's no mistake this time. We have
the best of them. They're in retreat. This is a great day, Stanton. If McClellan, can only follow up
the victory now. Lord, I will keep my promise and go on your will, and much still being dark to
me. But in this one thing as I see it, plain.
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And yet, if Lee, slips from our hands again, as he well may, from all those last reports, and the
war still goes on. And still no end, even after this Antietam, not for years. I cannot read it. But I
will go on. Old dog, old dog, settle to the scent, and with fresh breath now from this breathing
space, Almighty God. At best, we never seem to know, Your Holy, but there is something left a
strange last courage. We can fail, and fail, and fail, but deep against the failure, something wars.
Something goes forward. Something lights a match. Something gets up from Sangamon County
ground, armed with a bitten and a blunted ax. And after 20,000 wasted strokes, brings the tall
hemlock crashing to the ground."
A crisis is the experience in which a man passes. When he senses that he is being pulled in
contrary directions by two forces moving in opposite directions. And he must go one way, or the
other. To make the decision, sometimes means a repudiation of one's past, as in the case of the
Apostle, Paul. To make the decision, sometimes means the confirmation of one's past, as in the
case of Jesus of Nazareth.
With Abraham Lincoln, the crisis came when he had retired from politics, against his will
somewhat, after having served one term in the House of Representatives, put all of his weight on
the wrong side, and was repudiated by his constituency. And he goes back, having shopped
around in Washington, to see if he could land something. Keep him going back home. Which is-still-- well, which does happen.
But he couldn't land anything. He couldn't even have anything to say about the patronage. So he
went back home and began the practice of law all over again. He was not a brilliant man. He was
a plotter. A man with a wealth of stories and humor. A man who was deeply, deeply ingrained in
the insight of the Founding Fathers. Because it is through them he felt that this country had been
projected. And one of the most important and exciting things about it was that the nature of the
freedom which had guaranteed. That there was no ceiling for the individual that was established
by the state. This is important.
He was attending to his business during this lull after his experience in politics-- practicing,
reading all the things he could get his hands on. The familiar picture that is given, as you
recognize. Having his horse set in the road that would go to the next town. He didn't have to
guide the horse. He could simply settle back in the buggy and read. And then, this horse met
another horse. He recognized him as his cousin. And they greeted each other and they went on.
Lincoln was understood.
Now, this was making of him a very good lawyer and he was making some money. As a matter
of fact, one of his peak years, he made as much as $2,500. And many years ago that was a lot of
money because it's a lot of money today. Now he lived with the other lawyers. You know, they
travel-- they made the circuits, you see. And you didn't have hotels in those days. So you lived in
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boarding houses. Sometimes as many as seven or eight lawyers would be sleeping in one room,
two in a bed, during court.
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All the time, Lincoln, was deepening his sense of history as affecting American life. And then-then, something happened. Douglas, who was in the Senate, and was the chairman-- he was in
the congress and was the chairman of the Territorial Committee. Reported out of his committee,
a bill, which opened up Kansas and Nebraska, finally, as territories. And these territories-- into
these territories, it would be possible for slavery to go.
Now if this is successful, then it would mean that, that interdiction which was a part of the
Missouri Compromise would be waved aside and slavery would be given a new lease on life. For
it could invade territory that was being opened up. And then, at last, it could go anywhere,
Lincoln felt. And this, in his judgment, was a violation of the mind and the spirit and the will of
the Founding Fathers. For they took into account, says Lincoln, and the other men, about his
time, who felt the same way. They took into account the fact of slavery, but they thought that if
they could confine slavery to a certain area, and freeze it there, then if it had no, no way by
which it could expand, it would die on the vine.
Whether this was right, or wrong, was beside the point. But this is the way they felt. And
therefore, when Lincoln saw that this whole new territory would be opened up, and that slavery
would move out now, and begin to grow, and develop, and finally become the universal in
America, he said, I was shaken to my roots as I have never been shaken before. And I knew that
I would have to put all of the weight of my mind, and my resources, and my experience, on the
side of the meaning of freedom under the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and
I could not, any longer, afford the luxury of merely withdrawing from the fray and being a
practitioner of the law at the bar.
And so, we find him now, snatched up by what seemed to him, rightly or wrongly, to have been
the movement of the hand of destiny interpreted by this man who was not a churchman, as the
act of the will of God on his life, that sent him out now to engage in the fray to put-- to do
everything that he could to save the Union, which to him meant, to save freedom not only for
America, but for all the world. And when he stepped out in to these debates with Douglas, with
this basic commitment becoming now the hard core of his purpose, and feeling that in so doing,
he was no longer Abe Lincoln, but he was the living instrument in the hands of him who
controlled the destiny of America, and who controlled the freedom of all peoples in the world.
When this happened, a dam broke in his spirit and in his life. And what was dead pros, a kind of
homespun, wooden pros, becomes now, shot through with the kind of glory that makes his words
carry the majesty of prayer.
Listen to the words.
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation,
conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are
engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to
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dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives, that,
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
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But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our powers to
add or detract. The world will little note, or long remember what we say here, but it can never
forget what they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought
here, have thus, so far, so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and
that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
And then, at a later time, on the occasion of his second inaugural, fellow countrymen at the
second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended
address than there was at first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail of a cause to be pursued,
seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations
have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still
absorbs attention and grosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented.
The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as
to myself. And it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all with high hopes for the
future. No prediction in regard to it, is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an
impending civil war. All dreaded it. All thought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was
being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the union without war, insurgent
agents were in the cities seeking to destroy it without war. Seeking to dissolve the Union and
divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war. But one of them would make war
rather than let the nation survive. And the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And
the war came.
One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves. Not distributed generally over the
Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful
interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, to
perpetuate, and extend this interest, was the object for which the insurgents would rend the
Union even by war, while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the
territorial enlargement of it.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude of the duration which it has already
maintained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before,
the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental
and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and prayed to the same God. And each invokes his aid
against the other.
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It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their
bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not that we do not judged. The prayers
of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully.
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The Almighty has his own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs
be that offenses come. But woe to that man by whom the offense cometh. If we shall suppose
that American slavery is one of those offenses, which in the Providence of God, must needs
come. But which having continued through his appointed time, he now wields to remove. And
that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as the war due to those by whom the
offense came.
Shall we design, there in, any departure from those divine attributes which the believers that are
living, God always ascribed to him? Fondly, do we hope. Fervently, do we pray that this mighty
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth
piled by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and every drop of blood
drawn from the last shall be paid by another, drawn from the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago,
so still it must be said, the judgments of the law are true and righteous altogether.
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in. To bind up the nation's wounds, to care for
him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his offer. To do all which may
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Our hearts are deeply stirred, and our mind refreshed by this witness of the movement of Thy
spirit in the heart of a man, Thy Father. Grant that in the way that we take, we shall do no
violence to that spirit. That is the things that we control, and in the things that control us, we may
be able to bring joy to Thy heart. And praise to Thy name that the time may never come when
Thou shalt be ashamed of us, oh, living Father of Thy living children.
[ORGAN PLAYING]
(SINGING) Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
7
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Moment of Crisis (1958, Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, MA)
Description
An account of the resource
In this series, Thurman uses the lives of the Apostle Paul, Jesus Christ, and Abraham Lincoln as examples of moments of crisis. He concludes the series with a message on the response of religious communities to the marginalized in society.
[Note: Part 1 of the series is not available]
Date
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1958
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Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard and Rodell Jefferson III
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-609_A.html" ></iframe>
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Edited - GL 7/6
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Marsh Chapel, Boston University, Boston, Massachussetts
Time Period
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1950s
Original Title
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Moment of Crisis, parts 4 and 5, 1958 Mar 2, 9
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394-609_A
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Thurman, Howard
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Moment of Crisis, Part 4, 1958 March 2
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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1958-03-02
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GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(-7915565.7490374 5213612.6443988))
Description
An account of the resource
This installment of Moment of Crisis focuses on Abraham Lincoln. Thurman shares an excerpt from President Lincoln’s memoir that speaks to the personal crisis he faced as he grappled with whether slaves should be freed in the interest of saving the Union. Lincoln, heavily influenced by the founding fathers, believed that slavery was a violation of the mind, spirit, and will of the founding fathers. Still, those who embraced slavery and those in opposition of slavery understood that lives would be lost should the country go to war. The implications if emancipation as it relates to the Confederacy are woven into this lecture as well.
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Description by ShaCarolyn Halyard
America
choice
crisis
slavery
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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democratic ideal and dream are a source of inspiration and hope in times when the social process
seems to be out of joint.
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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,
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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.
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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
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A Faith to Live By (1952, Fellowship Church, San Francisco, CA)
Description
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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.
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Descriptions by ShaCarolyn Halyard & Rodell Jefferson III.
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<iframe width="100%" height="820" frameborder="0" src="/files/players/394-565_A.html" ></iframe>
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Fellowship Church, San Francisco, California
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1950s
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A Faith to Live By: Democracy, part 1 of 2, #6 (Fellowship Church), 1952 Oct 19
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394-565_A
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Thurman, Howard
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A Faith to Live By, Part 6: Democracy, 1952 October 19
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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audio
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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1952-10-19
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<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.
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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.
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Description by ShaCarolyn Halyard
America
creativity
democracy
democratic process
Great Depression
option
Reinhold Neibuhr