The Rev. George Adamik discusses the theologian and mystic Howard Thurman, who deeply influenced the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his enduring concept of non-violence.
The following excerpt, which Fr. George shares in his homily, is from one of King’s sermons:
To our most bitter opponents we say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory. (Read more…)
If you’re interested in reading Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited this Lent, you can order it through Amazon or your local bookstore.