I just finished Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman. I really enjoyed this book, and I’ve been waiting about 7 years to read it. Truth.

The summer after I graduated high school, I attended DC/LA, a big youth event in Washington DC (And in Los Angeles). Besides getting my jaw stuck open for the first time, I went to hear an incredible speaker named Bart Campolo who talked about Mission Year and said ‘groovy’ a lot. I really enjoyed his talk and one of the books he mentioned was Jesus and the Disinherited. Since that time I’ve tried putting the book on hold through numerous Inter Library Loans and never managed to get it and sit down and read it until now. Turns out a new neighbor did Mission Year and this was required reading, so I borrowed his book.

The book is only about 100 pages so I’d definitely recommend you pick it up yourself. Thurman wrote it in 1949, well before the Civil Rights Movement, in a country boiling with racial tension. His book seeks to address what Christianity and Jesus in particular have to say to the ‘man with his back against the wall.’ It’s a brilliant little book. The reality is Jesus’ primary audience were a group of people with their backs against the wall, they were the disinherited. Unfortunately, the assumption in the church then and today seems to be that Christianity is more of a guide for what to do to the disinherited, rather then acknowledging them as the main audience of the gospel.

My suggestion would be that you read the book, I’m sure I’ll extrapolate more, but for now I’ll just leave you with some of my favorite quotes:

Why is it that Christianity seems impotent to deal radically, and therefore effectively, with the issues of discrimination and injustice on the basis of race, religion and national origin? Is this impotency due to a betrayal of the genius of the religion, or is it due to a basic weakness in the religion itself? (preface)

It is the sin of pride and arrogance that has tended to vitiate the missionary impulse and to make of it an instrument of self-righteousness on the one hand and racial superiority on the other. p. 12-13

A man’s conviction that he is God’s child automatically tends to shift the basis of his relationship with all his fellows. He recognizes at once that to fear a man, whatever may be that man’s power over him, is a basic denial of the integrity of his very life. It lifts that mere man to a place of pre-eminence that belongs to God and to God alone. He who fears is literally delivered to destruction. To the child of God, a scale of values becomes available by which men are measured and their true significance determined. Even the threat of violence, with the possibility of death that it carries, is recognized for what it is–merely the threat of violence with a death potential. Such a man recognizes that death cannot possibly be the worst thing in the world. There are some things that are worse than death. To deny one’s own integrity of personality in the presence of the human challenge is one of those things. ‘Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do,’ says Jesus.” p. 52-53

One last part that struck me was how he made clear how radical the story of the Roman captain coming to Jesus to ask for help was. Roman’s regarded themselves as superior, that was the system that was set up, so when he comes to Jesus to ask for help he’s broken some major cultural and societal walls that were in place:

The fact that he had come to Jesus was in itself evidence to warrant the conclusion that he had put aside the pride of race and status which would have caused him to regard himself as superior to Jesus… The Roman was confronted with an insistence that made it impossible for him to remain a Roman, or even a captain. He had to take his place alongside all the rest of humanity and mingle his desires with the longing of all the desperate people of all the ages. When this happened, it was possible at once for him to scale with Jesus any height of understanding, fellowship, and love. The final barrier between the strong and the weak, between ruler and ruled, disappeared.

(thanks for already typing the quotes, just a google search away)