Jesus and the Disinherited

“This is a matter of tremendous significance, for it reveals to what extent a religion that was born of a people acquainted with persecution and suffering has become the cornerstone of a civilization and of nations whose very position in modern life has too often been secured by a ruthless use of power applied to weak and defenseless peoples.”

Thurman points out the irony of Christian churches that do not deal seriously with poverty and oppression. Jesus was a persecuted Jew, crucified by the Romans for his beliefs and preaching. Christianity should be the religion of equality and political revolution, but it has overwhelmingly been the religion of persecution throughout history.

“The men who bought the slaves were Christians. Christian ministers, quoting the Christian apostle Paul, gave the sanction of religion to the system of slavery.”

In the first chapter, Thurman establishes the gravity of his central question with an anecdote about a conversation with a lawyer in Sri Lanka. This quote is attributed to the lawyer, who tries to understand how a Black man can be a Christian when Christianity has always been the religion of the oppressor. Thurman cares deeply about establishing the stakes of his argument because he believes the future of Black Christianity depends on it.

“The striking similarity between the social position of Jesus in Palestine and that of the vast majority of American negroes is obvious to anyone who tarries long over the facts.”

Throughout the book, Thurman draws parallels between the Jews of the Bible and contemporary African Americans. Both live in a land where they have little say in affairs and are subjugated by the dominant group. This comparison is at the heart of Thurman’s arguments, as his contention is that Jesus’s message is particularly relevant and useful for Americans dedicated to fighting injustice.

“Such is the role of the threat of violence. It is rooted in a past experience, actual or reported, which tends to guarantee the present reaction of fear.”

Fear is more complicated and nefarious than a simple emotion that rises during times of danger. Communities learn fear from experience. When there is a persecuting force, there is constant tension, because anything could result in violence. Fear is therefore constant among oppressed communities, and it causes significant psychological trauma.

“Under such circumstances there is but a step from being despised to despising oneself.”

Part of the danger of fear and hatred is its reflexive nature. When members of a persecuted minority are bombarded with negative messages about themselves, they sometimes start to believe them. Likewise, hatred for one’s oppressors has a tendency to eventually turn inward.

“This idea that God is mindful of the individual—is of tremendous import in dealing with fear as a disease. In this world the socially disadvantaged man is constantly given a negative answer to the most important personal questions upon which mental health depends: ‘Who am I? What am I?’”

Thurman presents Christianity as an antidote to fear because it presupposes the divine in every human, insofar as we are children of God. This, then, is one of the first advantages of Christianity for the disinherited. It can provide self-worth, which can steel an individual against fear and anxiety.

“The doom of the children is the greatest tragedy of the disinherited. They are robbed of much of the careless rapture and spontaneous joy of merely being alive.”

Thurman is particularly upset about the effect that generational fear has on children. First, fear perpetuates itself. Parents teach their children to fear the dominant group because they have experienced trauma and want their children to know how to survive. This fear also robs children of their innocence and creativity, an important part of human development.

“It must never be forgotten that human beings can be conditioned in favor of the positive as well as the negative.”

Just as fear can be learned, taught, and perpetuated, love and dignity can be passed on and reinforced. If one believes in one’s own inherent dignity and divinity, one is more likely to also believe in the worth of others. Thurman’s overarching message is hope, and he believes that dignity for the oppressed is on the horizon.

“The awareness that a man is a child of the God of religion, who is at one and the same time the God of life, creates a profound faith in life that nothing can destroy. Nothing less than a great daring in the face of overwhelming odds can achieve the inner security in which fear cannot possibly survive.”

Christian faith may provide a foundation for self-worth, but it is never easy. Faith itself will always falter and requires bravery and discipline. Thurman believes, however, that it is able to conquer fear and the rewards for such an understanding are great.

“[Deception] tends to destroy whatever sense of ethical values the individual possesses. It is a simple fact of psychology that if a man calls a lie the truth, he tampers dangerously with his value judgments.”

After explaining several rationalizations for deception on the part of the disinherited, Thurman states that deception is still unacceptable, both as a moral stance and because it erodes personal integrity. One lie for a good cause leads to bigger lies for murkier causes, and an individual’s moral code is eventually obscured. For this reason, Thurman proposes Jesus’s radical sincerity as an alternative to deception.

“It is true that we are often bound by a network of social relations that operate upon us without being particularly affected by us. We are all affected by forces, social and natural, that in some measure determine our behavior without our being able to bring to bear upon them our private will, however great or righteous it may be.”

Despite his moral commands, Thurman acknowledges the challenges facing the disinherited. In this passage, he nods to larger philosophical questions of determinism and free will and admits that humans are influenced, to a large degree, by social forces outside their control. Individuals are obligated, nevertheless, to operate according to ethical standards to the best of their ability.

“Mere preaching is not enough. What are words, however sacred and powerful, in the presence of the grim facts of the daily struggle to survive?”

Thurman wants to create a philosophy that applies to the gritty reality of life. Throughout the book, he emphasizes the importance of practice and action in the development and implementation of love, sincerity, and forgiveness. These things are not easy, and, according to Thurman, the Christian church has done little but pay lip service to them over the centuries.

“Instead of a relation between the weak and the strong there is merely a relationship between human beings. A man is a man, no more, no less. The awareness of this fact marks the supreme moment of human dignity.”

Thurman is concerned with creating real-life situations in which members of different groups can meet on equal terms. Without explicit signs of power differential, they are more likely to establish loving relationships and affirm each other’s inherent dignity. Thurman believes the mixed-race church congregation is the ideal setting for these types of interactions.

“Unsympathetic understanding is the characteristic attitude governing the relation between the weak and the strong.”

Hatred is commonly understood as a feeling bred from a lack of understanding; Thurman argues that this conception is a mistake. He believes that opposing groups often understand each other well but feel animosity instead of sympathy.

“Hatred, in the mind and spirit of the disinherited, is born out of great bitterness—a bitterness that is made possible by sustained resentment which is bottled up until it distills an essence of vitality, giving to the individual in whom this is happening a radical and fundamental basis for self-realization.”

A long history of incalculable injustice is likely to breed significant bitterness and resentment, even if individual acts don’t spark outcry. Like faith and love, hatred seems to have generative capacity. Hatred allows for a common goal, bigger than the self. Thurman argues that this is an illusion, and hatred is always ultimately destructive.

“Hatred cannot be controlled once it is set in motion.”

Thurman compares hatred to a fire. It is hot and powerful but extremely dangerous. Even if hatred compels the hater to succeed in some vengeful act or spiteful creation, it eventually harms the friends and family of the hater or hater themself.

“When Jesus became a friend to the tax collectors and secured one as his intimate companion, it was a spiritual triumph of such staggering proportions that after nineteen hundred years it defies rational explanation.”

Jesus asks Matthew, a despised Jewish tax collector, to be his disciple. He practices love for his enemy and forgiveness of sin. Central to Thurman’s argument is the incredible revolutionary nature of Jesus’s teachings. “Loving thy enemy” was unheard of in Jesus’s time, and it remains a revolutionary concept today.

“Hatred cannot be controlled once it is set in motion.”

Thurman compares hatred to a fire. It is hot and powerful, but it is extremely dangerous. Even if hatred compels the hater to succeed in some vengeful act or spiteful creation, it eventually harms the friends and family of the hater, or the hater themself.