Paul Harvey
Eerdmans, 256 pages
Reviewed by Rachel VanKirk Mathews
Over the last year, I have heard Howard Thurman’s name many times. The senior pastor at the church I serve studied his book “Jesus and the Disinherited” with one of our adult education groups. Then, the PC(USA) featured Thurman in its 2020 Advent devotional. I confess that I did not know much about Thurman before this last year. I might not be alone in this. There is much to confess as individuals and a denomination in having homogeneous theological learning sources, undercrediting Black professionals of all kinds and having too little curiosity about the Black experience in America for too long.
In the introduction to “Howard Thurman and the Disinherited,” author Paul Harvey hints at the same. Though Thurman founded and contributed to the movement of progressive Christian denominations away from dualisms and toward mystery, away from hierarchy and toward mutuality, his life and work have been explored little compared to other theologians. Harvey’s book is the first comprehensive, scholarly biography of Thurman — and it is long overdue.
Several themes emerged throughout this biography that will both illuminate the foundations of one’s faith and transform one’s heart. Each chapter of Thurman’s life from childhood to retirement is given thoughtful recounting and interpretation. The reader should give the same amount of thoughtfulness in careful reading and reflection. Two themes that I pray can be as core to my own ministry as to Thurman’s are the inherit worth of all people and a sensitivity to suffering and creation.
Before the civil rights movement, Black theologians like Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, Benjamin Mays and Howard Thurman were cultivating and nurturing the ideas of pacifism and nonviolence for the religious and political Left. For Thurman, his work and gifts were in mentoring deeply dedicated “apostles of sensitivity,” not leading a mass movement. Through Harvey’s writing, one can feel the gut knowing of Thurman that pushes him to mentoring young Black preachers, creating intentionally diverse community, advocating for nonviolence and much more because he knew all people deserve a “crown on their head.” This sense was not a sentimentality, but a deep, gospel knowing that is transformational. Harvey writes about Thurman even extending his reflection to the discriminatory, white people of his youth. Jesus respected all people “by putting enemies under the umbrella of their own worth, an action that could lead them to understand their own deeds and complicity in oppression.” Thurman’s deep knowing of humanity’s universal worth rooted his preaching and action, transformed lives and furthered the civil rights movement.
I, and maybe you too, need to repent of how little attention I have given to Thurman and other Black theologians, pastors and activists whose work I benefit from. Thurman’s life and ministry changed and moved progressive Christianity in America. Knowing Thurman better is a path to knowing your faith and church better. Harvey’s biography is an accessible book, especially for adults with an interest in church history, saints of our faith or the civil rights movement. It provides a detailed, well-researched and systematic foundation for knowing and understanding Thurman. May Thurman continue to be a conversation partner for us all as we seek to be sensitive to suffering, moved to action by love and rooted in our oneness with creation. Thank you, Howard Thurman.
Rachel VanKirk Mathews is associate pastor at Maxwell Street Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, where she works with young people, deacons and the social justice ministry of the church.
