Listening to God in the Context of Oppression

A Timely Message from Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman https://www.flickr.com/photos/speakingoffaith/8447631569

The following is an excerpt from my doctoral dissertation on spiritual listening, which I successfully defended this week! I’m happy to share the pdf if you’d like to give it a read. Just reply to this email and I’ll send it over. You can also listen to a 15 minute AI-generated podcast overview of my dissertation here.

Howard Thurman, theologian, author, and Christian mystic, was born in Daytona, Florida in 1899 and was raised by his mother and grandmother, a former slave. As a black man in the first half of the twentieth century, he was no stranger to oppression. This was the context of his spiritual life. He said,

“Due to the vicissitudes of the social situation in which I have been forced to live in American society, it has been vital for me to find within myself the door that no man could shut, to locate resources that are uniquely mine to which I must be true if the personal enterprise of my life is to be sustained, despite the ravages inflicted upon it by society.”

By looking within, Thurman found strength to stand against systemic oppression in segregated America.

Mysticism and Social Action

Thurman describes his theology of mysticism and social action in his 1978 Lawrence Lecture at Berkeley Unitarian Church in California. In this lecture he says,

“It is the insistence of mysticism as it shall be defined for this lecture, that there is within reach of every man a defense against the grand invasions… He can become at home within by locating in his own spirit the trysting place where he and his god may meet.”

A secret meeting between two lovers is an apt image for Thurman’s mystical theology. He adds that God is always there, waiting for us to arrive.

Thurman goes on to clarify what can be heard when we silently commune with God. He posits that God has purposes in the world. And since this is true, “If I may enter into communion with such a God, such a Creator, then as a result of that communion I may be exposed to the vision of His purposes.” This is an important point in Thurman’s logic. Communion with God gives us the ability to discern God’s purposes in the world and therefore partner in these purposes. This communion with God therefore is of central importance to each person because it helps us not to stray from God’s purposes.

If this communion is of central importance, then Thurman argues the purpose of social action is to remove any barriers keeping ourselves and others from communion with God. Thurman posits that social action is not only meant to address broken systems that cause human suffering but also to remove barriers keeping God from “coming to himself in the life of the individual.”

Healing for the Oppressed… And the Oppressors

Social action while addressing systems also has a personal element of healing individuals separated from full communion with God by oppression. This is where Thurman’s line of thinking soars into brilliance. He says,

“My simple point is, that whatever there is that blocks the way to my own altar must be removed— or to his altar must be removed. For if your eye is a hindrance, pluck it out, says the book. When social action is viewed from this perspective, a very crucial problem arises. The problem that the victims of injustice, for instance, face is not unlike that which faces the perpetrators of the deeds that offend. The assumption here is that both parties, the sufferer and the offender, are both cut off from their own altars…I must not forget that the ill that a man does to others stands between that man and that man's own altar.”

For Thurman, communion with God is the end in which we seek. Being oppressed keeps people from fully experiencing this communion, but so does oppressing others. Social action then benefits the spiritual life of both the oppressed and the oppressor. Therefore, a mystic who has experienced the presence of God, who has seen the purposes of God, returns from this experience energized for social action hoping to free others to experience this divine communion.

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We are in a period of great political turmoil, and systemic oppression is baring its ugly head all around us. It’s easy to get sucked into doomscrolling and feel helpless. Making time for listening and communing with God will give you the clarity and spiritual energy you need to endure this season and work for justice and shalom for all people.