Another response to our Howard Thurman on the Parables book

Orbis Books recently received another review blurb that will be placed in the back cover of the book that Kipton Jensen and I introduced and edited, Sermons of the Parables, by Howard Thurman (again, it's not available until August).

The blurb was written by The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, the Dean of Marsh Chapel, Professor, New Testament and Pastoral Theology, and Chaplain to the University, Office of Religious Life, at Boston University.

Here is what Dr. Hill wrote about the book:

Professors Gowler and Jensen allow those new to Howard Thurman, and those of us already seized by Thurman’s spirit and confession of faith, to listen to him and to learn from him.  Thurman says here of the parable of the Good Samaritan, whose familiarity he acknowledges: “Now let’s work at it for a little.”  Yes, let’s do so! This fine, beautifully arranged and introduced collection give us that golden opportunity.

As you may know, Dr. Thurman was Professor of Spiritual Resources and Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University from 1965–1981, so we are delighted that Dr. Hill endorsed this book. Kipton and I really want to make these sermons available for those who already know and admire Dr. Thurman and to help make him  more people will become aware of Dr. Thurman's significant contributions.

Let’s be Honest: Paul Ryan would fire Jesus as House Chaplain.

A Reconstruction of a first-century male from Jerusalem

I mention three parables in the following commentary on fortune.com. 

Although I was pleasantly surprised that Fortune was interested in and would publish a commentary so direct about Jesus of Nazareth’s view on money and power, the editors requested that I cut many of the references and documentation, so I thought I would post the essay/article/commentary here, in case some of you would be interested in the additional details. The firing of the House Chaplain took place last week, but my essay just appeared today.

Again, the final version is found here, but the following submission has a few more details. 

Hats off to Fortune publishing it:

As a scholar of the life and teachings of Jesus, it is frustrating to listen to some “Christian” politicians hijack and, in fact, mutilate Jesus’s teachings. A recent example involves the recent firing of the House Chaplain, Father Patrick Conroy, which apparently occurred, in part, because Conroy had the audacity to pray for the fair treatment of the poor during the tax debate last fall. 

Although the Speaker’s Office denied that the Chaplain—the second Catholic to serve in that position and the first Chaplain to be fired midterm—was forced to resign because of a specific prayer, Conroy reports that he received complaints from the Speaker’s Office (“We are upset with this prayer; you are getting too political”) and from the Speaker himself (“Padre, you just got to stay out of politics”). 

In fact, if Jesus himself were House Chaplain, Paul Ryan would most certainly fire him. That’s assuming, of course, Jesus would want the position (which, despite his spending time with tax collectors and other sinners, he most certainly would not, since he preferred the powerless to the powerful).

The position of House Chaplain and beginning House sessions with prayers are themselves problematic, both on religious grounds (e.g., per Roger Williams) and political grounds (e.g., per James Madison). But setting aside the question of whether taxpayer funds should support a House Chaplain, why should Christians such as Conroy express concern for the poor and concerns about the behavior of the rich? 

Because they are trying to follow the example of Jesus of Nazareth, an impoverished, first-century, peasant-artisan Jew who was a member of a politically, militarily, and economically oppressed minority. The New Testament Gospels portray Jesus as speaking against the oppressors of his peoplewith prophetic words of judgment that focus extensively on issues of money and power:

• Jesus proclaimed good news to the poor and release of the oppressed (e.g., from debts; Luke 4:18-19; Luke 11:4; cf. Leviticus 25:10).
• Jesus proclaimed blessings on the poor (Luke 6:20) and woes on the rich (Luke 6:24), commanded his followers to give alms to everyone who asks (Luke 6:30), and called on his disciples to leave everything behind to follow him (e.g., Mark 10:28-31).
• Jesus’s parable of the Sheep and Goats proclaims that God will judge human beings on how they treat the “least of these,” the hungry, thirsty, stranger/immigrant, ill-clothed, and imprisoned (Matthew 25:31-46). Likewise, the wealthy in the parables of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) and the Rich Fool (Luke 12:15-21) are condemned because of their conspicuous consumption and their neglect of the poor.
• Jesus told a wealthy man to sell all his possessions and to give the proceeds to the poor. Jesus then told his disciples how difficult it was for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God (as likely as a camel going through an eye of a sewing needle; Mark 10:17-27).

Jesus does offer one way for the wealthy and powerful to avoid this judgment: He told a group of wealthy men not to invite their friends or rich neighbors to dinner, but instead to “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” If such elites would help the poor without expecting anything in return, God would reward them “at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:12-14; cf. Matthew 25:31-46).

In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some politicians today still cite sayings of Jesus as evidence that he would approve of their neglect of the poor. John 12:8 is the most common example: “You always have the poor with you . . . .” Left out of that (mis)interpretation is the fact that Jesus is actually quoting a passage from Jewish Scripture that makes the opposite point: The continual existence of the poor serves as the fundamental reason for God’s command to assist them, to give “liberally and ungrudgingly”: “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land” (Deuteronomy 15:7-11).

Jesus was a first-century Jewish prophet who condemned the oppression and marginalization of his impoverished people by the Romans and other ruling elites that sought through their unjust system of taxation to extract as much wealth as possible from the majority of people to benefit the rich, powerful, ruling elites. In his first-century context, Jesus engaged in active, non-violent, political resistance against that oppression, and he died on a Roman cross because of it.

In reality, Paul Ryan doesn’t just have a problem with Father Conroy; Ryan has a problem with Jesus of Nazareth.

First response to forthcoming book on Howard Thurman and the Parables

The book that Kipton Jensen and I introduced and edited, Sermons of the Parables, by Howard Thurman (above), won't be available until August, but we received word from Orbis Books that the first review blurb for the back cover was submitted.

The blurb was written by Dr. Walter Fluker, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Ethical Leadership at Boston University School of Theology and the Editor and Director of The Howard Thurman Papers Project.

Here is what Dr. Fluker wrote about the book:

Sermons on the Parables is a rare gem, a distillation of the creative and intimate connections between the parables of Jesus and the spirit of a master storyteller and spiritual virtuoso, Howard Thurman.  The themes found in Thurman’s  lively imagination are rich and riveting; and they call us back to the primacy of religious experience and ethical accountability.

I am honored to be associated with this project. Hopefully even more people will become aware of Dr. Thurman's significant contributions.

Cover of New Howard Thurman Book on Parables of Jesus

So proud and honored to be associated with this project and with Orbis Books (who asks me to remind everyone that the book will appear in August, 2018, and that you cannot order it yet).  

Thurman is such an impressive human being. I used his book, Jesus and the Disinherited, this semester in my Ethics of Jesus course, and the book still really speaks to students ~70 years later.

My thanks also to Kipton Jensen, my co-editor. The project was his idea, and it became a labor of love for us.

New Howard Thurman Parables Book arrives in August!

I will soon return to the topic of Roger Williams, religious liberty, the separation of church and state, and the parable of the wheat and tares in future posts, but I wanted to give an update on our (= Kipton Jensen and me) forthcoming book with Orbis Books: Howard Thurman: Sermons on the Parables.

Orbis is not taking orders yet on this book; it's not even available on Amazon to pre-order yet--although The Parables After Jesus is!--but it will be published in August.

Kipton and I sent corrected proofs back to Orbis a couple weeks ago:

Later today I will try to post a photo of the proposed cover, but here is the manuscript (proof-stage) title page.

Roger Williams, Religious Liberty, and the Wheat and Tares Parable (I)

Roger Williams

“And your money says ‘In God we trust”

But it’s against the law to pray in school . . . .

Larry Norman, “The Great American Novel” (1972)

“The Governor shall annually proclaim the last Wednesday in September as A Day of Prayer for Kentucky's Students and shall call upon the citizens of the state, in accordance with their own faith and consciences, to pray, meditate, or otherwise reflect upon the students of this state as well as their teachers, administrators, and schools.”

Kentucky General Assembly House Bill 40

Debates about religious liberty, separation of church and state, prayers in public schools, and the government proclaiming "Days of Prayer" are recurring, including bills introduced in various state houses about "sharia law" and "Days of Prayer" for a number of different reasons.

Such debates almost always begin with citing Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, so I thought it would be good to revisit this issue and explain again that the "wall of separation" language was first used in colonial America by the minister Roger Williams, and he use the parable of the wheat and tares (wheat and weeds) to argue his case.

A common misperception is that it is against the law to pray in school or that saying “Merry Christmas” in school is another casualty in the supposed “War on Christmas.” Neither is true. As the old saying goes, “as long as there are math tests, there will be prayer in schools.” Private, nonintrusive expressions of religion are protected under the First Amendment, so students can pray or meditate in private at any time.

The 1962 Supreme Court Engel v. Vitale 8-1 decision found that school-sponsored prayer violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .) means that students can pray in school anytime they want individually or in groups (a “free exercise of religion”), as long as they do so voluntarily and without disrupting others, but prayers in public schools must not be state sanctioned, sponsored, or mandated (“an establishment of religion”). As Valerie Strauss notes in The Washington Post’s “Answer Sheet”:

Schools are forbidden from initiating or sponsoring religious activities, including prayer, but religious groups are permitted to meet on school grounds after school, and students can pray to whatever or whomever they want at any time of day, as long as they do it privately and don’t try to force others to do the same. Religion can (and should) be a class subject — but not proselytized — in public schools, sacred music can be played in schools under certain circumstances, and schools can’t bar teachers or students from saying “Merry Christmas” to each other.

In 1976, Kentucky enacted a law sanctioning a specific prayer in schools—a “voluntary” reciting of “the traditional Lord’s Prayer” that it claims (unironically) is a history lesson about “the freedom of religion symbolized by the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.” The bill recently passed by the Kentucky House, though (see above), is less controversial since it does not sanction prayer by students in public schools; it instead would mandate a state day of prayer for schools, students, teachers, and administrators.

In debates about school-sponsored prayer and religious liberty, the most often cited historical reference is Thomas Jefferson’s famous “building a wall of separation between church and state” declaration in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists. 

Three notable things, however, are often overlooked about that letter, and I will turn to those three things in my next post (it will include the Roger Williams's reception of the wheat and tares parable).

New Book on the Parables in Production!

Dr. Howard Thurman

I have mentioned this possibility a couple of times over the past year or so, but I am delighted to announce that a new book that I co-edited with my friend Kipton Jensen, a professor at Morehouse College, is now in production by Orbis Books.

The book is another (like The Parables after Jesus) reception history project on the parables, but this one focuses specifically on Howard Thurman and the parables of Jesus: Sermons on the Parables by Howard Thurman.

Dr. Thurman is perhaps best known as a mentor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but Thurman’s importance goes well beyond his influence on King and others in the civil rights movement. Thurman played a vital role in laying the spiritual foundation for the early civil rights movement in the United States (including being one of the first ones to meet with Mahatma Gandhi and to include Gandhi's insights into his theology/philosophy).

The book contains fifteen sermons of Thurman on the parables of Jesus. Fourteen of them have never been published before. We transcribed these sermons from audios housed in Pitts Theology Library of Emory University.

Kipton and I also wrote an Introduction and Conclusion to the volume, as well as introductions to all fifteen sermons. The book also will provide links to online audios of the sermons so that readers of the book can also listen to Thurman's powerful sermons for themselves.

It was an exciting and meaningful project, truly a labor of love. As one sign of our gratitude to Howard Thurman and his family, Kipton and I are donating all royalties generated by the book to the Howard Thurman Educational Trust at Morehouse College.

It also was an honor to work with Orbis Books, a publisher that I have admired for all of my career. Kipton and I are delighted that Robert Ellsberg of Orbis saw the importance of Thurman's contributions and decided to support and publish this project.

In other news, I also have two other projects on the parables forthcoming (one book chapter and another book) that I will announce in the near future.