LUTHER SMITH: [On Thurman’s meeting with Gandhi] Here is someone who is leading a movement of social transformation, committed to the philosophy of nonviolence as a spiritual expression of who one is and a spiritual expression of faith, and that it's working toward addressing the powerful forces that seek to oppress the disinherited of the country. I think there's from Thurman reverence for Gandhi, in addition to the kind of respect that he had for Gandhi. And when Gandhi says to Thurman that it's perhaps through the Negro that nonviolence will be a force of transformation for the world, I think Thurman received that as more than a blessing but also an obligation to repeat that as something that he would be carrying from India back to the United States as a word that might inspire not only his own work but others in terms of the kind of transformation that is needed.

LERITA COLEMAN BROWN: Howard Thurman and Gandhi both believed that if you attack people back, you were basically spiraling into attack and violence and that does not transform people, it continues to separate them. So in order to create transformation in society, you needed to be more loving of the person that was hating you. It’s a challenge, people resist it still, they believe that they need to engage in some kind of violence with others, but Thurman really understood that it was really the love that transformed people. Perfect love casts out fear. And I think he encouraged people to be more loving, as opposed to respond to people who are acting violently with the violence. And he talked a bit about how when you do not respond to violence to a person it changes something in them, they have to think about that. Like, why isn't this person attacking me back and what does this mean really at a deeper level? So even though that may not have always been a popular stance he understood that underneath that was the spirituality and it was the love. And both of those were things that helped to not only challenge but transform those social times.

LUTHER SMITH: Thurman’s understanding of nonviolence is that the love ethic, which he believes informs the practice of nonviolence, is the only ethic that provides the assurance toward Beloved Community and therefore this is his commitment to nonviolence. Thurman is not an absolutist, he is not saying that violence has no role whatsoever in addressing the threats of community or the threats upon an individual.

WALTER EARL FLUKER: [With regard to World War II] Thurman remains a pacifist but not an absolutist. He sees his service still upholding non-violent resistance. He sees his service as to those who are part of the war. So he’s writing letters, especially to African American military people, men and women, and he’s also providing pastoral support. . . . But he does not ever go over to the place where he thinks that one needs to denounce non-violent resistance. . . . There’s some ambiguity there, there’s some contingencies there. So Thurman is not an absolutist. . . . He remains non-violent throughout, but he sees a ministry to those who are involved in the war and writes glowingly, especially about African American accomplishments in the war.

ALTON POLLARD: People sometimes do think that nonviolence was very endemic to the African American community as a way of life when in fact it was not. And even Thurman was very clear that nonviolence was a cultivated or a new kind of experience for most rank and file people including leadership in the movement, wherever the movement was being generated.

Nonviolence I think was perceived in the early 20th and even into the mid 20th century to African American communities and congregations as kind of a mysterious stance. It was not so much the philosophical, because people could make the connections with Jesus of Nazareth. It was not much of a leap to see that this was a movement that was very consistent with what they understood in the biblical narrative. But what they understood from their own historical excurses, what they had journeyed through for 400 years seemed to fly in the face of the nonviolent, contradicting the idea that one can progress or move forward if you turn the other cheek and do these other sorts of things. It had not been the experience of people of African descent that they could move forward even through violent means and now you're going to tell us that we should retract, withdraw? And if we do this that we’re going to make progress?

The concept of non-violence had been important to Thurman since his student days as a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an international pacifist organization. Later, his encounter with Gandhi and with Gandhi’s use of creative non-violence as a technique against oppression further cemented Thurman’s belief in the use of non-violence as a means of social change. Gandhi’s example revealed to Thurman that non-violence could and should have religious foundations, and Thurman later encouraged Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other American civil rights leaders to ensure that nonviolent social activism was founded upon spiritual principles. For Thurman, nonviolence was both a spiritual discipline and a way of life.

1. Do you consider non-violence to be a practical alternative in the face of violent oppression? Does it have the possibility of influencing or changing the aggressor/oppressor, as Thurman suggests it does?

2. For Thurman, non-violence is not just a tactic in opposing injustice, but also a spiritual discipline. How does considering non-violence as a spiritual discipline affect your thinking about it? Consider what “spiritual discipline” means to you, and whether you can envision a process for practicing non-violence as such.

3. What should be the Christian approach to non-violence? Can it be legitimately considered as a way of life? What would that look like?

4. In what kinds of scenarios do you imagine non-violence to be inappropriate or ineffective? Is it an “absolute” value (i.e. the right choice in every circumstance)? Do you think it was such for Howard Thurman? (Consider Thurman’s thought and action regarding the Second World War.)

5. The Quakers, or Society of Friends, are well-known for their historic embrace of pacifism, often refusing to serve in the military or to support any kind of warfare. Can you see their influence in Thurman’s own embrace of non-violence as a way of life?

6. Is it possible for a person to practice non-violence apart from a spiritual or religious commitment?

The disinherited man has a sense of gross injury. He finds it impossible to forgive, because his injury is often gratuitous. It is not for something that he has done, an action resulting from a deliberate violation of another, He is penalized for what he IS in the eyes and standards of another. Somehow he must free himself of the will to retaliation that keeps alive his hatred. (Jesus and the Disinherited, 107)

. . . hatred destroys finally the core of the life of the hater. While it lasts, burning in white heat, its effect seems positive and dynamic. But at last it turns to ash, for it guarantees a final isolation from one’s fellows. . . . The logic of the development of hatred is death to the spirit and disintegration of ethical and moral values. (Jesus and the Disinherited, 76-77)

[Grandma Nancy Ambrose said] ‘No one ever wins a fight.’ This suggests that there is always some other way; or does it mean that man can always choose the weapons he shall use? Not to fight at all is to choose a weapon by which one fights. Perhaps the authentic moral stature of a man is determined by his choice of weapons which he uses in his fight against the adversary. Of all weapons, love is the most deadly and devastating, and few there be who dare trust their fate in its hands. (Deep is the Hunger, 10-11)

. . . nonviolence is not merely a mood or climate, or even an attitude. It is a technique and, in and of itself, a discipline. In the first place, it is a rejection of physical force, a renunciation of the tools of physical violence. . . . But the psychological tools of nonviolence are of another order. Their purpose is to open the door of the heart so that what another is feeling and experiencing can find its way within. They assume that it is possible for a man to get real insight into the meaning of his deeds, attitudes, or way of life as they affect the life of his fellows. A man faced with nonviolence is forced to deal with himself, finally; every way of escape is ultimately cut off. This is why there can be no possible limit as to time or duration of nonviolent acts. Their purpose is not merely to change an odious situation, but, further, to make it urgent for a man to face himself in his action. Finally all must face the same basic question: Is what I am doing an expression of my fundamental intent toward any man when I am most myself? . . . . The purpose of [the] use of nonviolence as a collective device is to awaken conscience and an awareness of the evil of a violent system, and to make available the experience of the collective destiny in which all people in the system are participating. . . . this is, at last, the work of reconciliation. The discipline for all who are involved has the same aim—to find a way to honor what is deepest in one person and to have that person honor what is deepest in the other. (Disciplines of the Spirit, 114-15, 115-16, 119, 120-21; Essential Writings, 125-127)