So, Thurman wonders, what does Christianity really have to say to the disinherited, the masses of people with their backs against the wall? His book is a guide for how to manage these and for how to love. Thurman’s book details how these dynamics hurt the disinherited psychologically, leading to fear, deception, and hatred. There is a fundamental misunderstanding of how relations of power work to maintain hierarchies along racial lines. But the weak ask for help and support, when they ask for the relational accountability that comes from common brother hood, the strong often respond with self-righteous contempt. Yes, there is a sort of moral self-importance in helping the weak. 11) Too often Christianity has been a movement of the strong over against the weak. He writes, “to those who need profound succor and strength to enable them to live in the present with dignity and creativity, Christianity often has been sterile and of little avail.” (p. Howard Thurman is wants the disinherited to find help in Christianity. I am documenting my reading of the book as a result of my appreciation for it and the legacy of the book in the work of Martin Luther King Jr. The Stanford King Encyclopedia says that during the Montgomery bus boycott King read and reread Jesus and the Disinherited. Howard Thurman was an influence on Martin Luther King Jr. Part 1: Jesus, an Interpretation, and Fear.
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