Jesus and the Disinherited is a 1949 book by African-American minister, theologian, and civil rights leader Howard Thurman.
In the book, Thurman interprets the teachings of Jesus through the experience of the oppressed and discusses nonviolent responses to oppression. The book developed out of a series of lectures that Thurman presented at Samuel Huston College in Austin, Texas, in April 1948."
The ideas encapsulated in the book had been developing for a number of years. In February 1932, Thurman gave an address in Atlanta on âÂÂThe Kind of Religion the Negro Needs in Times Like These,â which was an early version of what would become âÂÂGood News for the Underprivileged.â In the summer of 1935, he delivered âÂÂGood News for the Underprivilegedâ at the Annual Convocation Lecture on Preaching at Boston University. The address was printed in the summer 1935 issue of Religion and Life, and forms the basis of Jesus and the Disinherited.
He would deliver âÂÂChristianity and the Underprivilegedâ again in February 1937 at Union Church in Berea, Kentucky, and at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. On December 10, 1937, Thurman delivered the address âÂÂThe Significance of Jesus to the Disinheritedâ as the leader of Religious Emphasis Week at A&T College of North Carolina in Greensboro. A number of other addresses on the theme would take place in 1938, 1939, 1942, and 1947, with the lectures that became the book occurring April 11âÂÂ16, 1948 as the Mary L. Smith Memorial Lectures at Samuel Huston College in Austin, Texas. Thurman continued to speak on the theme, delivering addresses in 1949, 1951, 1952, 1957, and in 1959 delivered a 12-part sermon series in the Boston University's Marsh Chapel on "Jesus and the Disinherited."
Chapter 1 is ThurmanâÂÂs interpretation of Jesus. Thurman analyzes Jesus as a âÂÂreligious subject rather than a religious objectâ (5). He continues to say that one must consider the society Jesus had lived in and how that society might shed light on the relationship between Jesusâ teachings and the disinherited and/or underprivileged. Specifically, Thurman emphasizes the fact that âÂÂJesus was a poor Jewâ (7). Thurman explains the options of survival Jesus witnessed his people living in under the oppression of the Roman Empire. Thurman outlines three options: two forms of non-resistance and one form of resistance. The nonresistance options were imitation, in which Thurman ascribes to the Sadducees, or isolation, which Thurman ascribes to the Pharisees. The third alternative Thurman includes is armed resistance, which he ascribes to the Zealots. Because this was the environment Jesus had lived in, Thurman suggests that the religion of Jesus should be considered as a âÂÂtechnique of survival for the oppressedâ (18).
In Chapter 2,Thurman clarifies that within this section he will refer to a fear that is not of death, but is rather a âÂÂdeep humiliation rising from dying without benefit of cause or purposeâ (28). He continues on to contextualize this fear as a âÂÂsafety device with which the oppressed surround themselves in order to give some measure of protectionâ whether that protection be for their own mental health or from oppressors (30). One product of fear that Thurman emphasizes is segregation. He explains segregation as being an option only between two groups of unequal amounts of control and/or power. Later, he mentions Jim Crow Laws as an example of segregation. Thurman determines that segregation, when accepted as normal circumstance, removes social protection from the group of lesser power. In this acceptance, âÂÂthere is but a step from being despised to despising oneselfâ (33). The act of utilizing fear as a means for protection thus becomes âÂÂdeath for the selfâ (35). Thurman concludes that the religion of Jesus addresses fear by contributing to the value of the individual. The contribution is that âÂÂGod is mindful of the individualâ and that individuals âÂÂare GodâÂÂs childrenâ (39).
In Chapter 3,Thurman discusses deception as an ethical and spiritual dilemma.ÃÂ He defines three ways of morally evaluating the fact that the disinherited resort to deception: acceptance, compromise, and complete sincerity.
In regards to acceptance, Thurman claims that some do not think the disinherited have any other choice. In this reality, deception is a reflex of survival and circumstance. Because there appears to be no other alternative, the deception continues without moral hesitation. Thurman says that this option âÂÂtends to destroy whatever sense of ethical values the individual hasâ (53).
The second alternative grants that there is a moral choice in whether or not to deceive but regard the choice as a compromise forced by their situation. The disinherited choose life over truth.
The third alternative, complete sincerity, is what Thurman believes Jesus offers the disinherited and oppressed. Jesus chooses âÂÂto be simply, directly truthful, whatever may be the cost in life, limb, or securityâ (60). Complete sincerity revokes the power of the oppressors by removing âÂÂ[the edge] from the sense of prerogative and from the status of upon which the impregnability of their position restsâ (62). Thurman concludes the chapter by describing manâÂÂs relationship with God to be on the same level and significance as manâÂÂs relationship to man; in order to be sincere and true to God, one must be the same to other humans.
Chapter 4 is centered on the role of hatred in the lives of the oppressed. Thurman offers an âÂÂanatomy of hate,â as a product of groups without genuine fellowship. One of the main factors borne of the lack of fellowship, Thurman emphasizes, is bitterness âÂÂmade possible by sustained resentmentâ (69). Thurman considers hate as the means by which the disinherited and the oppressed justify moral disintegration. Because hate breaks down oneâÂÂs moral and ethical values, Thurman concludes that Jesus rejected hatred. In that rejection, Jesus offers the disinherited the only option: love.
In Chapter 5, Thurman discusses Jesusâ proclamation to love oneâÂÂs neighbor and oneâÂÂs enemy. Thurman especially considers the concept of loving oneâÂÂs enemy and divides âÂÂenemyâ into three different categories. The first category is the personal enemy; Thurman defines this as one who at some point was a part of the intimate group and was perhaps at some point loved but is not loved anymore. Loving this type of enemy is an act of âÂÂreconciliation, the will to re-establish a relationshipâ (82).
The second category of enemy recognizes those who have committed acts of betrayal to a person or to a people, and Thurman names the tax collectors as an example of this type of enemy in Jesusâ society. To love this type of enemy is to shed all bitterness one may have harbored from the social betrayal and âÂÂto recognize some deep respect and reverence for their personsâ (84). Thurman explains this is not loving what the enemy does, but rather loving the enemy because they are a child of God.
Finally, Thurman addresses the third category of enemy: the oppressor. Thurman names Rome as an example of this enemy, particularly within the context of Romans oppressing the Jewish people. This type of enemy is an enemy not just on a religious basis, but political as well. The ability to love this enemy, Thurman explains, is founded in the ability to strip the oppressor of their worldly titles; thus, the Roman is not a Roman, but a person, and more specifically, that person is a child of God. This method allows both the enemy and the neighbor to emerge as âÂÂtwo human spirits that had found a mutual, though individual, validationâ (85).
In his biography of Martin Luther King Jr., the author Lerone Bennett Jr. notes that King studied Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited during the Montgomery bus boycott.