Acts of worship must be tested by the degree to which they remain living channels for the direct release of God into the life of the worshipper. When they become institutionalized they are apt to become dead so the mystic seems always to be the foe of institutional religion. He is very sensitive to the crystallizing of acts of worship into dead forms. It is profoundly true that he does not stand in need of the institution or the institutional forms as such. Even in Catholicism any careful reading of the testimony of the mystics convinces one that the church has no real friend in the mystic.
— Howard Thurman
These words from Howard Thurman can be found on pages 114-5 of the book A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religious Experience and Public Life. The quote comes from a lecture series titled “Mysticism & Social Change,” which Thurman originally delivered in 1939 to Eden Theological Seminary in Missouri. “The mystic seems always to be the foe of institutional religion… the church has no real friend in the mystic.” Powerful words, indeed.
Almost 85 years ago, one of the leading mystics of American Christianity flatly declared that to be a mystic is to be called to a prophetic place where one no longer can simply confirm to the expectations of the institutional church. Mysticism implies a living and ever-present relationship with God, and that in turn implies a higher loyalty than one could ever offer to any human tribe or organization, not even one supposedly under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Make no mistake: Thurman is not saying we should simply reject communal faith altogether. He is critiquing institutionalism, not community. For Thurman a mystic “is very sensitive to the crystallizing of acts of worship into dead forms.” He is commenting here on the tendency in some (maybe all) churches for worship to become “crystallized” into “dead forms.” Is the social act of corporate worship a meaningful, living encounter with the Mystery, or simply a rote ritual that gets rehashed every week because “that’s the way we’ve always done it”?
It’s interesting to reflect on this quote from Thurman in light of the famous line from Karl Rahner, “the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist.” If we can be so bold as to put these quotations side be side, is perhaps the future of Christianity (as a community of faith) either an ever-diminishing cycle of institutionalized organizations that offer dissatisfying worship experiences, constrained by the ever-narrowing understanding of what is “acceptable” to the institution — or, alternatively, a renewed vitality that will come not through institutional structures, but only through each individual’s freely received and freely offered encounter with the liberating and life-giving spirit of God?
And keep in mind: Thurman is offering these thoughtful words before World War II, before Vatican II, before the explosion of interest in eastern and indigenous spiritualities that have shaped America’s religious landscape over the last half century. Today we live in a culture where more and more people choose to be spiritual but not religious, and the younger a person is, the more likely they will see no good reason for being engaged with church. Thurman’s nuanced understanding of the relationship between mysticism and institutionalism is a helpful reminder that the crisis facing Christianity today is not something that has just happened in the last 30 to 60 years. The problem has been around for a while.
If you have to choose between the intimate freedom of mystical spirituality and the conformist orderliness of institutional religion, Thurman is clear what his choice would be. Becoming a mystic means going to that place where you no longer need the institutional church. Of course, the church needs mystics — desperately so — even though there is much hostility to mysticism within the institution. Some mystics, like Thurman or Thomas Merton or Evelyn Underhill, remain embedded in the institutional church, as an act of service — like choosing to be a firefighter, entering a burning building to help rescue those who are trapped within it. But some other mystics may conscientiously choose to simply leave the institution that has become so unfriendly to mystics. It’s a choice that every contemplative must make for themself.
Howard Thurman is remembered first and foremost as a mentor to Martin Luther King Jr., but he is also widely regarded as one of the greatest African American spiritual leaders of the twentieth century. He is also the most widely recognized, and universally celebrated, of African-American mystics.
Over a long ministry, which included serving as dean of the chapel at Howard University and Boston University, he became renowned not only as a gifted preacher but also a prolific author of more than twenty-eight books. His writing and his sermons reveal a deep contemplative sensibility, grounded in the encounter with the God who is Love that informed his commitment to social justice and nonviolence.
Howard Washington Thurman was born on November 18, 1899 in Daytona Beach, Florida, the grandson of slaves; he graduated from Morehouse College in 1923. Ordained a Baptist minister, he befriended the Quaker mystic Rufus Jones; in 1935 he traveled to India and met Mahatma Gandhi, who shared with Thurman his commitment to promote nonviolence; Gandhi thought that the African American community could be the champions for nonviolence in America.
These prophetic words bore fruit in the spiritual friendship that blossomed between Thurman and MLK at Boston University in the early 1950s— shortly before the younger minister would change history when he led the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama in 1955–6. Throughout Dr. King’s leadership of the civil rights movement, he continued to correspond with Thurman, who counseled him to remain grounded in nonviolence, which was the way not only of Gandhi but also of Jesus.
It is said that Martin Luther King Jr. carried Howard Thurman’s book Jesus and the Disinherited with him at all times. This book, an unflinching examination of how racism continued to shape American life and American Christianity in the mid-twentieth century, could be seen as a spiritual manifesto that anticipated the Civil Rights movement. It is a deeply contemplative book, brilliantly considering how racism is both a matter of grave injustice and a profound spiritual problem requiring a spiritual liberation for all people. Few books that I have read, at any rate, so eloquently detail the essential unity of spirituality and justice.
While his relationship with King alone would mark Thurman as a true, if under-appreciated, hero; when we consider also the rich mystical sensibility that characterizes Thurman’s sermons and writings, it is clear that he is one of the great twentieth-century Christian contemplatives. Indeed, I believe that, if America were not such a racist nation, Thurman would easily be as well known in contemplative Christian circles as his white peers like Thomas Merton or Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Thurman brought a keen intellect to his study of spirituality, but he always recognized that Christian mysticism is grounded in love. In his Pendle Hill pamphlet Mysticism and the Experience of Love, Thurman defined mysticism as “the response of the individual to a personal encounter with God within his own spirit.”Recognizing that God is love, Thurman understood that love calls us away from and beyond our human tendency to judge, and that authentic love is related to vulnerability, to freedom, and to the willingness to suffer with and on behalf of the beloved.
Thus, “God is Love” means something far more than mere sentimentality: it is an invitation into an awe-inspiring power that can literally change the world. “The mystic experiences unity, not identity, but it is a unity that penetrates through all the levels of consciousness and fills him with a sense of the Other,” wrote Thurman. “He discovers, however, that it is not possible to keep the consciousness of the presence of God alive at a high point in his experience over long time intervals . . . He comes upon the fact that deep within the structure of his own personality and life are the things which obscure and blot out his vision.”
For Thurman, the key to retaining the consciousness of such divine unity was found in what he termed “disciplines of the spirit,” including growing in wisdom, suffering, prayer, and reconciliation—all key elements not only in inner, spiritual growth, but also in the challenging but necessary work of struggling for social justice.
Although Jesus and the Disinherited remains Thurman’s undisputed masterpiece, I need to put in a word for his beautiful, and elegantly written biography, With Head and Heart. Meanwhile, Thurman has also been widely recognized for a quotation that was recorded by theologian Gil Bailie, based on a conversation he had with Thurman. Bailie recalls receiving this advice from Thurman: “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.” This conveys a profound mystical truth: that the heart of union with God (union with Love) consists precisely in awakening to who we truly are, and in such coming alive, we give ourselves joyously to God and to others.
Of course, there are the theological differences: many books present an image of God that is limited, narrow, and sometimes even abusive. And even the books that are theologically well-grounded are not always particularly contemplative. It is a rare treat to find a book that is both contemplative and shaped by a truly loving image of God.
But then there is a problem of literary merit. Frankly, some spiritual books are not particularly well-written. The writing can be tedious, ponderous, and overly abstract; other books suffer from writing that is too breezy, informal, and filled with clichés.
So I am always thrilled when I come across a book that balances a truly life-affirming understanding of God, with a deeply contemplative sensibility, and a literary quality that is poetic and a joy to read.
Yes, such books do exist. Kathleen Norris’s The Cloister Walk and Martin Laird’s An Ocean of Light are two examples of books that combine literary excellence, theological insight, and a contemplative heart.
If you don’t know about Howard Thurman: Thurman (1899-1981) grew up near Daytona Beach, Florida; his childhood was deeply influenced by his loving grandmother, who had been a slave in her youth. After studying at Morehouse College and Rochester Theological Seminary, he was ordained a Baptist minister. Spending much of his adult life in academic settings, he was the dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University from 1932 to 1944, and then the dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University from 1953 to 1965 — the first African American clergyman to hold such a position at a major historically white college. In between his years as college chaplains, he co-pastored a large interracial church in San Francisco. Dr. Thurman wrote many books, including The Inward Journey, Meditations of the Heart, and The Centering Moment. But he is probably best-known for Jesus and the Disinherited, a book that was said to be so important to Martin Luther King Jr. that he kept a copy with him at all times.
Howard Thurman is today best known as the godfather of the American Civil Rights movement — his profound spirituality shaped by a resolve to struggle for justice balanced by a firm commitment to nonviolence influenced MLK and others in the Civil Rights movement. But what is not so well known about Thurman: he was a true contemplative, and I would dare to say, a mystic — a mystic who deserves to stand with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Merton, Simone Weil, Evelyn Underhill and other great mystics who were his contemporaries.
I’ve read meditations by Thurman, along with some of his shorter works (like Mysticism and the Experience of Love) and have listened to the recordings of his sermons that are available online and as an audiobook, The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman. So in reading his autobiography, I expected to bask in his deeply authentic humility, his compassionate heart, and his keen sense of God’s presence, justice and mercy. But what truly blew me away about the autobiography was the evidence of just how deep a mystic he was — and the continual delight of enjoying his rhetorical skill as a writer.
This shouldn’t be surprising: Thurman was the Valedictorian of his class at Morehouse College. He was a brilliant man. But not all brilliant men are great writers, so it was such a joy to find that I could savor in his eloquence as much as in his keen spiritual insight.
Here are just a couple of examples:
When I was young, I found more companionship in nature than I did among people. The woods befriended me. In the long summer days, most of my time was divided between fishing in the Halifax River and exploring the woods, where I picked huckleberries and gathered orange blossoms from abandoned orange groves. The quiet, even the danger, of the woods provided my rather lonely spirit with a sense of belonging that did not depend on human relationships. I was usually with a group of boys as we explored the woods, but I tended to wander away to be alone for a time, for in that way I could sense the strength of the quiet and the aliveness of the woods. (page 7)
and,
What had I learned about love? One of the central things was that the experience of being understood by another was of primary importance. Somewhere deep within was a “place” beyond all faults and virtues that had to be confirmed before I could run the risk of opening my life up to another. To find ultimate security in an ultimate vulnerability, this is to be loved. (page 146)
Thurman had the gift of writing about something ordinary (like a school boy wandering in the woods or fishing) and using vivid language to make the experience come alive for the reader, while simultaneously finding the spiritual meaning even in the most mundane of moments. But then he could turn philosophical — waxing poetic on the meaning of love — without abandoning his skill as a raconteur.
His skill as a writer alone makes this book a joy to read, an insightful look at an important twentieth century religious figure who encountered numerous significant people in his life, from Benjamin Mays to Rufus Jones, from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. His description of life in the Jim Crow-era south was sober yet unflinching. His unfailing optimism — that racism can be overcome, that Christianity in particular offers a more hopeful vision of what it means to be human, a vision within our grasp — makes this book truly inspiring.
But like the late-night commercials say, “And wait, there’s more!”
For With Head and Heart is also the story of a contemplative life. And while Thurman, as a twentieth century Baptist, would not have had the same language to describe his inner life as someone like Merton or Underhill had, nevertheless he makes it clear that he had an ongoing, living encounter with the Spirit of God, that this encounter was nurtured by silence and solitude, and that at least at its peak moments it ushered him into a truly transfigured state of consciousness.
Once again, just a few examples:
More than forty years have passed since that morning. It remains for me a transcendent moment of sheer glory and beatitude, when time, space, and circumstance evaporated and when my naked spirit looked into the depths of what is forbidden for anyone to see. I would never, never be the same again. (page 128)
and,
That afternoon I had the most primary, naked fusing of total religious experience with another human being of which I have ever been capable. It was as if we had stepped out of social, political, cultural frames of reference, and allowed two human spirits to unite on a ground of reality that was unmarked by separateness and differences. This was a watershed of experience in my life. We had become a part of each other even as we remained essentially individual. I was able to stand secure in my place and enter into his place without diminishing myself or threatening him. (page 1219)
and one more:
As a boy in Florida, I walked along the beach of the Atlantic in the quiet stillness that can only be completely felt when the murmur of the ocean is stilled, and the tides move stealthily along the shore. I held my breath against the night and watched the stars etch their brightness on the face of the darkened canopy of the heavens. I had the sense that all things, the sand, the sea, the stars, the night, and I were one lung through which all of life breathed. Not only was I aware of a vast rhythm enveloping all, but I was a part of it and it was a part of me. (pages 225-6)
Daytona Beach. Photo by Darrell Cassell/Unsplash.
Whether a child on the beach, a young man on a mountaintop, or friends engaged in truly meaningful conversation, Thurman had the ability to recognize non-duality when it arose in his life. Not only did this ability to see impact his life’s work as a prophet calling for loving resistance to an unjust social order, but it also put him years ahead of the curve when it came to recognizing the spiritual unity that could be found beneath religious differences.
I had to find my way to the place where I could stand side by side with a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Moslem, and know that the authenticity of his experience was identical with the essence and authenticity of my own. There began to emerge a growing concept in my mind, which only in recent years I have been able to state categorically, namely, that the things that are true in any religious experience are to be found in that religious experience precisely because they are true; they are not true simply because they are found in that religious experience. It is not the context that determines validity. On any road, around any turning, a man may come upon the burning bush and hear a voice say, “Take off your shoes because the place where you are now standing is a holy place, even though you did not know it before.” I think that is the heartbeat of religious authority. (page 120)
A gifted preacher, a man of prayer, a social prophet, a gentle family man, and a companion to some of the most important figures of his age. Howard Thurman’s life story is fascinating, and his writing was beautiful enough to be equal to the task of telling the story.
• • •
We all know that America is a racist society. It is a matter for continual lament and, for whites, repentance.
Again and again, we run into evidence of this. And before I was even finished reading Howard Thurman’s autobiography, this thought occurred to me:
So friends, let’s do what we can to help get this book (and its author) the acclaim it (he) deserves. If you haven’t read this book, do so. You’re in for a treat.
