Jesus and the Disinherited [B1334]

2022 PB printing of the 1949 original, with a new Foreword by Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas. Famously known as the text that Martin Luther King Jr. sought inspiration from in the days leading up to the Montgomery bus boycott, Howard Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited helped shape the civil rights movement and changed our nation's history forever. In this classic theological treatise, the acclaimed theologian and religious leader Howard Thurman (1900-1981) demonstrates how the gospel may be read as a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised. Jesus is a partner in the pain of the oppressed and the example of His life offers a solution to ending the descent into moral nihilism. Hatred does not empower--it decays. Only through self-love and love of one another can God's justice prevail.

From the many very recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "The Scriptural interpretation featured in this book puts forth a new angle on the stories and proverbs I've been hearing since my childhood. This book taught me how to look at the other in Scripture, and flowing from that, others in my world."; "Required reading for anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus... still as relevant today as it was when it was written in the late 1940's in post WWII America."; "So relevant. Impossible to believe it wasn't written yesterday! Lessons for the disinherited and privileged alike."; "6/5 stars if I could. The book that MLK always carried with him, written by his spiritual mentor. A profound and difficult theology of virtue for the oppressed, centered on the life of Jesus-how does cultivating love and inner integrity transform our actions in the world, when the world forces our backs against the wall? With practiced and robust wisdom, Thurman insisted that Christianity must speak meaningfully to the lived experience of the disinherited. He recognized that the version of Christianity we've inherited has too often been shaped by slaveholders and the powerful, despite the gospel. But Jesus stands not with empire, but with the powerless-calling forth love as the only response that frees, against the shackling alternatives of fear and hate. I will be revisiting Thurman often."