Jesus in the Living Empire

1001 Books to Read Before Your Kindle Battery Dies, Part 113
Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited

Dedicated Christians believe Jesus Christ’s message holds true in all times and all locations. But Jesus himself existed in a specific place and time: Galilee and Judea, in the narrow window between Roman conquest, and Rome’s expulsion of Jews from their homeland. Jesus spoke to a powerless and occupied nation, delivering a message emphasizing how to live when society and empire wouldn’t permit painless living. Jesus’ original audience understood this.

Dr. Howard Thurman began life in segregated America, raised by a grandmother born into slavery. Concepts of empire and occupation weren’t metaphorical to him. Therefore, he read Jesus’ teachings as approaches to living in a nation that wrote inequity into its laws, and maintaining one’s dignity and creativity in adverse conditions. Though perhaps less well-known than peers like Dr. King or Fannie Lou Hamer, his insights are equally relevant today.

Thurman, who pastored America’s first intentionally multiracial congregation and later became America’s first Black dean of a majority-White seminary, In the wake of World War II, he published an article comparing Jesus’ historical context with the the-current conditions of Black Americans, a comparison that seems obvious now, but was probably scandalous. This short (barely 100 pages) book emerged from that article and the discussions surrounding it.

In this book, Thurman breaks down the common, intuitive ways occupied peoples in conquering empires handle their occupation. Though the responses often take nuanced form in response to specific situations, Thurman organizes them into three categories: Fear, Deception, and Hate. These categories correspond to mainline Hebrew responses to Roman violence, though they’re not uniquely Hebrew, nor are they necessary to Jewish identity. They’re just how ordinary Jews handled the situation.

Against these three categories, Thurman describes Jesus’ prescription: Love. This seems counterintuitive. The opposite of Fear is Courage, isn’t it? Not so, according to Thurman. Courage is respected in powerful people, but in conquered populations, it makes one a target. Instead, Thurman proposes Jesus’ response that cannot be broken. Those who have humility cannot be humiliated. Those who love their enemies don’t carry hatred’s frequently toxic weight.

Howard Thurman

Throughout, Thurman alternates between Jesus’ historical context, and Thurman’s own times. His examination of Jesus’ life and times isn’t an abstracted sociological experiment. Rather, Thurman published in 1949, as American wars in Germany, Japan, and later Korea enflamed national sentiment. As Thurman notes, racism frequently increases in America whenever official outlets gin up “patriotic” sentiment.

This insight isn’t original to Thurman. Historians like Greg Grandin have noted that, whenever American soldiers return from overseas wars, the homeland almost immediately sees increases in racially motivated violence. America’s commitment to World War II and its bastard offspring, the Korean War, segued directly into the racialized violence that motivated Dr. King, Malcolm X, and Kwame Ture. This book precedes the formalized “Civil Rights Movement,” but is unitary with its social conditions.

Thurman, a pastor first and therefore a veteran author of sermons, reinforces his exegesis with sermonic illustrations. He describes a sojourn in India, for instance, where he shared coffee and insights with a certain unnamed Hindu leader. Thurman elides any identifying details, but this leader may be Mahatma Gandhi, who Thurman met, and with whom he maintained a lengthy correspondence. Gandhi’s activism contributed directly to American Civil Rights, and Thurman was one important point of contact.

I don’t make the sermonic analogy flippantly. According to Thurman’s preface, much content within this short book began life as a series of lectures he delivered on multiple occasions, refining and clarifying his insights with each telling. His prose is thematically dense, but not impenetrable, and he writes without scholarly reliance on frequent source citations. His tone, rather, resembles a beloved teacher expounding important points you’ll need sooner than later.

This title’s current Beacon Press edition includes a foreword from historian and activist Vincent Harding. Dr. Thurman, like Jesus, addressed his teachings to a specific audience, which isn’t us. Professor Harding situates Thurman’s writing in his historical context, with the personalities and situations that Thurman’s original audience would’ve simply understood. Sadly, though our world continues changing, the underlying problems plaguing it don’t always change.

Yes, the world has changed since 1949, and American Christianity with it. But many problems remain fundamentally similar. The concerns of Black Christians which Thurman describes, are now understood to extend likewise to Hispanic, Native American, and LGBTQIA+ Americans who see themselves as part of the Christian fold. They too live, as Thurman puts it, with their backs against the wall. And they too have much to teach Christians.