I received word yesterday that my audio recording about the importance of the parables of the Good Samaritan and Prodigal Son in Dr. Howard Thurman's life and thought ran on over 200 NPR stations yesterday. It also appears in The Academic Minute and in Inside Higher Education:
You can find the audio and the transcript here.
Who was Howard Thurman?
David Gowler, professor and chair of religion at Oxford College of Emory University, discusses Thurman’s influence beyond being an influence to Martin Luther King Jr.
David B. Gowler is The Dr. Lovick Pierce and Bishop George F. Pierce Chair of Religion at Oxford College of Emory University; senior faculty fellow at the Center for Ethics, Emory University; and the author of “The Parables After Jesus: Their Imaginative Receptions Across Two Millennia.”
Although Thurman may be best known as a "mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr.,"such accolades don't tell us much about the person or his work. Gowler, as historian and an ethicist, is telling us about the value of Thurman in history but also about his value as a thinker, a writer and preacher. We can learn more about our current national and personal challenges by studying Thurman's life and works themselves and, as Gowler does, connecting him to the historical/religious from which he spoke. History is the key to learning from our past so we can know and act responsibly, morally, and at the best level we can.
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