Lenten Book Study

 Formation Opportunity in Lent: Jesus and the Disinherited

Our Lenten formation opportunity this year will be an online book study, discussing Howard Thurman’s seminal work Jesus and the Disinherited. While written in the 1940s, this work is still resonant and relevant today. Thurman grounded the civil rights movement of his day on the spiritual foundation of Jesus’ witness, and that grounding can root and anchor us in our day as we learn about and respond to the disparities of our own time. “Restoring all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” is the primary work of the church, so come join in this important discussion as we train ourselves for further action.

Sign up for the study with this link  or by contacting the parish office. 

Use this link to join the meeting.

Here is a description of the book from the Forward:

           A superficial encounter with the title of Howard Thurman’s classic statement, Jesus and the Disinherited, could easily lead us to anticipate a 1940s version of liberation theology, with its now familiar message that God is on the side of the oppressed, with its powerful and prophetic condemnation of the oppressors and their cruel systems of dehumanization, with its urgent calls to repentance, resistance, and hope. But nothing in Thurman’s large and magnificently varied body of work ever yielded itself to superficial readings, and this invaluable half-century-old text is no exception.

            For although it is possible to glean elements of a liberation theology from its pages, this richly endowed, seminal work can be more accurately and helpfully described as a profound quest for a liberating spirituality, a way of exploring and experiencing those crucial life points where personal and societal transformation are creatively joined. It is the centerpiece of the Black prophet-mystic’s lifelong attempt to bring the harrowing beauty of the African-American experience into deep engagement with what he called “the religion of Jesus.” Ultimately his goal was to offer this humanizing combination as the basis for an emancipatory way of being, moving toward a fundamentally unchained life that is available to all women and men everywhere who hunger and thirst for righteousness, especially those “who stand with their backs against the wall.”

And here is a link to a review outlining more of the content of the book:

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/june-web-only/jesus-and-disinherited.html