Celebrating Black History and Learning from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Mentor

In honor of Black History Month here is a reflection that I read at a university leadership meeting on MLK day a few years ago. In it I draw attention to a figure you may or may not be familiar with. You may know something of Howard Thurman, but I knew very little until doing research for my book on the parables and social justice. Thurman was an author, preacher, philosopher, theologian, and civil rights leader. He held academic posts as dean of the chapel at Howard University and Boston University, and also founded an interdenominational church in San Francisco. He has been called “A spiritual genius who transformed persons who transformed history” (Smith, xi). His particular relevance today is that he was a mentor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., It was reported that Dr. King always carried a copy of Thurman’s book, Jesus and the Disinherited, whenever he traveled. John Lewis and the freedom riders also circulated Thurman’s writings to encourage one another. In reading Thurman, it is really interesting to see the insights behind some of Dr. King’s powerful statements. As a leader at a Sisters of Mercy university, it is interesting too to see links with Sisters of Mercy.

Here I share five insights from Thurman and make some linkages to Dr. King, and to our work today at a Catholic, Mercy university.

Source: Howard Thurman: The Overlooked Civil Rights Hero

First, Thurman’s approach to social justice starts from the place of the value of each person. Each person has inherent worth as a child of God. Furthermore, this value is independent of social location, economic status, race or any other markers. For Thurman, this is the sense of identity as a child of God. At my university we speak of the value of the Sacredness of Creation which recognizes that we each hold this inherent value as children of God.

Second, for Thurman, this leads to a goal in human life of freedom to self actualize. To grow, to live, to live fully out of the center of who one is. A quote of Thurman’s you may have heard is this one: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” 

Third, recognizing this inherent value for oneself, one must also recognize this reality for others. And with this recognition comes a twofold threefold obligation: to work toward community (love); to support the freedom to live and grow for others (mercy); and to work against forces of oppression and dehumanization (justice). Ultimately, this amounts to working toward a community in which all may thrive; what Martin Luther King, Jr., called the “beloved community.”

Fourth, this activity is supported by the recognition of the inter-connectedness of all of life—humans and creation, because all of it is God’s creation, created out of love. So genuine religion, and in particular genuine Christian faith, aligns with love and fosters a sense of obligation for the well-being of all in the present world, regardless of its apparent brokenness.

Fifth, for Thurman, Jesus was the ultimate example of this, as well as the ultimate teacher. Coming into the world and living, teaching, and dying with the Jewish people under the domination of the Roman Empire, among the oppressed, his was a message for the disinherited. That they could live effectively in that chaos with the recognition that they were children of God. The kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed could be defined broadly as the conceptual space in this world where God’s highest values are enacted in human lives. Put more simply, the kingdom of God is the enactment of and participation in loving community. 

With those five points as background, I would like to return to one of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, quotes that has resonated with me in recent years. The quote is from his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” There is a lot of Howard Thurman behind this. In addition, King’s concept of the beloved community is one that is undergirded by Thurman’s insights on the value of all people, and the critical importance of working toward a community which supports all its members, and in which each person is free to thrive.

Having worked at a Sisters of Mercy university for ten years, it is so interesting to see that these statements connect at a deep level with the Sisters of Mercy concept of a more just and merciful world. They also resonate with Catholic Social Teaching and in particular the theological virtue of solidarity—a virtue which is much needed in our present, fractured world.

Bryan Massingale is a contemporary scholar who writes on racial justice and the Catholic Church and also points to the importance of solidarity. He cites Pope John Paul II who defined solidarity as a “firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all” (116). Massingale also used King’s words to explain that “solidarity is based on the deep-seated conviction that the concerns of the despised other are intimately bound up with our own, that we are, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., ‘bound together in a garment of mutual destiny’” (116). Massingale also notes, “Solidarity entails a constant effort to build a human community where every social group participates equitably in social life and contributes its genius for the good of all” (117). These words inspire a powerful vision for the kind of world we all would like to live in.

As we wrap up our celebration of Black History Month may we all remember the legacy of leaders who have come before us, may we acknowledge the work still to be done in the struggle against the evil of racism, and may we make every effort to live into the best aspects of the rich heritage which we have each been given as we face the challenges of this moment.

The Parables of Jesus: An Invitation to Reflect on Our World in 2025

I recently had the opportunity to read a brief selection from my book, Social Justice in the Stories of Jesus: The Ethical Challenge of the Parables, at a dinner. I chose to read from the concluding chapter where I drew out the shared themes of the parables, those ideas that are touched on in different ways in different parables, but seem to be reflected in the parables as a whole. With that reading in mind, I am reflecting on the impact of some of the recent executive orders that many (including me) are experiencing as disruptive, disturbing, and cruel, and some of which the courts have paused due to their being illegal or unconstitutional. I am trying to discern my own response, particularly as it is informed by my work at a Catholic university, my scholarship as a theologian, and my values as a Christian. As part of that, I thought I would revisit the themes of the parables as I explored them in my book and see what insights that exercise might offer.

Here are eight themes of the parables as I discern them:

1. The parables of Jesus assert the dignity, value, and worth of every person.
2. The parables are infused with the theme of concern and responsibility for the needs of those whose dignity is compromised or overlooked.
3. The parables show us that compassion is not merely an obligation but rather a visceral, human response to the suffering of others that motivates action to relieve that suffering.
4. Parables remind us of the reality of the interconnectedness of all persons, whether it is recognized or not. Pope Francis put it concisely this way: “We are all really responsible for all.” Theologians connect this theme with the ancient concept of the Common Good—a state of being where everyone has what they need in order to thrive.
5. Just as they promote compassion, the parables draw explicit attention to matters of justice. True mercy attends to matters of justice and injustice and seeks to remedy injustice out of concern for those who suffer as a result.
6. In many parables Jesus gives attention to the beauty and intricacy of the created world, inviting readers to see themselves as part of this larger community of life. As an expansion of the notion of the interconnectedness of all persons we encounter in the parables the interconnectedness of humans with all of the natural world. Humans, while unique, are not separate from the natural world, but actually quite literally part of it.
7. The parables highlight that the small moments, actions, and choices of daily life are, in the divine economy, the big moments. Ordinary daily life encounters and decisions may seem insignificant but they are actually where God’s kingdom is enacted or contradicted.
8. Parables do not give simple instructions to do this or that but rather invite readers to open their eyes and imagine their world differently in light of values of love, mercy, and justice, and then to live accordingly. What that looks like will be different in each new and unimagined circumstance we find ourselves in.

Ultimately the parables offer an imaginative vision of a just and merciful world in which readers are invited to contribute to human flourishing. It is a world where all creatures are reverenced and respected as a part of all that exists. It is also a world in which pain, suffering, and injustice exist and must be faced. In such a world of chaos and struggle, compassion for others and a concern for the well-being of others motivates a response of love and concern for all such suffering. In addition, the response of love is one that faces reality head on, while recognizing the limited scope of our individual grasp of it. In such a way, the person who lives in mercy recognizes their need of others, and even the need of the oppressor to receive and experience mercy, so that the community can be restored and achieve its highest potential. The parables do not seem to assume that all will embrace this mercy and live into it; but they present the listener with the reality that the time to choose it is the present moment, and the place to experience it is wherever one is at the moment.

With these thoughts in mind, my hope is that we all may find in this moment of challenge an invitation to revisit our own values, consider the forces which shape our beliefs, and discern what love, mercy, and justice might look like in 2025.