Anchored in the Current


Book Description

Howard Thurman was famously known as one of the towering giants of American religion in the twentieth century. His writings have influenced some of the most important religious and political figures of the last century, from Martin Luther King to Barack Obama. Theologians such as James Cone and Cornel West regularly signal their indebtedness to him. He was a mystic, a preacher, an educator, a theologian, and much more. It is impossible to understand the African American church today without an appreciation for his contributions. And yet, while Thurman's name is often recognized, his seminal ideas have not received the attention they deserve. In this volume, internationally known leaders like Marian Wright Edelman, Parker Palmer, and Barbara Brown Taylor invite the reader into creative engagement with Thurman's writings. Anchored in the Current illuminates how Thurman’s life and wisdom lead these influential names on the ancient quest to connect with the Ultimate, all while discovering the contemporary need to seek racial justice and sharpening the minds and faith of those who come after us. Readers will find important and enduring answers in the works of this indispensable prophet and teacher.




Biographical Dictionary of African Americans, Revised Edition


Book Description

For centuries, African Americans have made important contributions to American culture. From Crispus Attucks, whose death marked the start of the Revolutionary War, to Oprah Winfrey, perhaps the most recognizable and influential TV personality today, black men and women have played an integral part in American history. This greatly expanded and updated edition of our best-selling volume, The Biographical Dictionary of Black Americans, Revised Edition profiles more than 250 of America's important, influential, and fascinating black figures, past and present—in all fields, including the arts, entertainment, politics, science, sports, the military, literature, education, the media, religion, and many more.




What Makes You Come Alive


Book Description

Howard Thurman served as the spiritual godfather of the civil rights movement. What wisdom might he offer us today? Lerita Coleman Brown beckons everyday seekers and activists into a mentorship with Thurman and his mystical and liberating spirituality. Thurman's work enlivened an entire movement, and it may inspire us to authentic action today.




Jesus and the Disinherited


Book Description

“No other publication in the twentieth century has upended antiquated theological notions, truncated political ideas, and socially constructed racial fallacies like Jesus and the Disinherited. Thurman’s work keeps showing up on the desk of anti-apartheid activists, South American human rights workers, civil rights champions, and now Black Lives Matter advocates.” –Rev. Otis Moss III, author of Blue Note Preaching in a Post-Soul World and senior pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ A commemorative edition of the work that inspired Martin Luther King Jr. and helped shape the civil rights movement In this beautiful gift edition of the classic theological treatise, complete with a place-marker ribbon and silver gilded edges, celebrated theologian and religious leader Howard Thurman (1899–1981) revolutionizes the way we read the gospel. Thurman lifts Jesus up as a partner in the pain of the oppressed and reveals the gospel as a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised. In this view, the example of Jesus’s life shows us that hatred does not empower—it decays. Only by recognizing fear, deception, contempt, and love of one another can God’s justice prevail. With a new foreword by acclaimed womanist theologian Kelly Brown Douglas, this edition of Jesus and the Disinherited is a timeless testimony of faith that demonstrates how to thrive and flourish in a world that attempts to destroy one’s humanity from the inside out. Having witnessed firsthand the depths of white supremacy and the heights of human civility, Thurman reiterates the inherent dignity of all of God’s children.




Liberation and the Cosmos


Book Description

These imagined dialogues between the elders on freedom, liberation, and more offer rich reflection and a unique vantage point for understanding the luminaries of liberation through the generations. An important resource for the contemporary task of Black liberation.




A Darkly Radiant Vision


Book Description

The third and final volume in the first comprehensive history of Black social Christianity, by the “greatest theological ethicist of the twenty-first century” (Michael Eric Dyson) The Black social gospel is a tradition of unsurpassed and ongoing importance in American life, argues Gary Dorrien in his groundbreaking trilogy on the history of Black social Christianity. This concluding volume, an interpretation of the tradition since the early 1970s, follows Dorrien’s award-winning The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel and Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel. Beginning in the shadow of Martin Luther King Jr., Dorrien examines the past fifty years of this intellectual and activist tradition, interpreting its politics, theology, ethics, social criticism, and social justice organizing. He argues that Black social Christianity is today an intersectional tradition of discourse and activist religion that interrelates liberation theology, womanist theology, antiracist politics, LGBTQ+ theory, cultural criticism, progressive religion, broad-based interfaith organizing, and global solidarity politics. A Darkly Radiant Vision features in-depth discussions of Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Samuel DeWitt Proctor, Gayraud Wilmore, James Cone, Cornel West, Katie Geneva Cannon, Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Traci Blackmon, William J. Barber II, Raphael G. Warnock, and many others.




Hope Is Here!


Book Description

Joyful and daunting opportunities to live into God’s dream of justice and beloved community are compelling and available. Hope, says Luther Smith Jr., is essential to the needed personal and social transformations that prepare us for such sacred opportunities. Yet genuine hope is often confused as merely wish fulfillment, optimism, or perceiving better tomorrows. In Hope Is Here! Smith describes how we truly perceive and join “the work of hope,” enlivening us to a life that is oriented toward immediate and future experiences of personal fulfillment, justice, and beloved community. Interpreting five spiritual practices for individuals and congregations to experience the power of hope, this book prepares us to engage racism, mass incarceration, environmental crises, divisive politics, and indifference that imperil justice and beloved community. It delivers the inner resources necessary to work for change through its interpretation of hope. Additionally, each chapter ends with questions that prompt readers to examine their experiences and their readiness to journey with hope. Written for Christians who want to commit themselves to justice and beloved community, this book will provide helpful guidance for a life sustained by God’s gifts of hope and love. Hope is here for our “responsibility” and “response-ability” to live the fulfilling life that God dreams for us.




The Seeker and the Monk


Book Description

What if we truly belong to each other? What if we are all walking around shining like the sun? Mystic, monk, and activist Thomas Merton asked those questions in the twentieth century. Writer Sophfronia Scott is asking them today. In The Seeker and the Monk, Scott mines the extensive private journals of one of the most influential contemplative thinkers of the past for guidance on how to live in these fraught times. As a Black woman who is not Catholic, Scott both learns from and pushes back against Merton, holding spirited, and intimate conversations on race, ambition, faith, activism, nature, prayer, friendship, and love. She asks: What is the connection between contemplation and action? Is there ever such a thing as a wrong answer to a spiritual question? How do we care about the brutality in the world while not becoming overwhelmed by it? By engaging in this lively discourse, readers will gain a steady sense of how to dwell more deeply within--and even to love--this despairing and radiant world.




Living the Questions of the Bible


Book Description

Living the Questions of the Bible presents questioning as a viable and faithful Christian practice. We may think the Bible is only about getting answers, but the Bible is also a question book, revealing how the life of faith is a quest with and for God. By exploring various passages in the Bible, this book attempts to invite readers into an interrogative spirituality, one in which we learn that even God questions. Faith seeks and keeps on seeking. It may reach understanding, or it may not. Either way, our questions are a way to live the Christian life honestly, faithfully, and doxologically.