When a new perspective clashes with our long-held beliefs, we don’t typically handle the tension well. Our tendency is either to villainize the messenger and dismiss the message, or, in time, to embrace the message so wholeheartedly that we judge as unenlightened those who still believe as we once did. 

There is an alternative, however, a way to listen with an open heart even if in the end we still disagree. 

Howard Thurman’s book Jesus and the Disinherited is a challenging read. It was chosen for the Renovaré Book Club because of Thurman’s startling (and remarkably relevant) insight into the connection between spiritual formation and acting for justice. In a recent note to Book Club members, Carolyn Arends expresses both excitement and apprehension about diving into the book…

Why Apprehension? Because there are aspects of Thurman’s spirituality that seem at times to be in tension with our emphasis at Renovaré on the highest possible Christology. That tension can create a fair amount of dissonance for me, and perhaps it might for you too. And yet, while I might wish Thurman was clearer on Christ’s divinity (and a little less wary of the Apostle Paul), I recognize that his emphasis on what Jesus can teach us in His humanity is a powerful counterbalance to those forms of Christianity that overlook the rather important fact that in Jesus we see what a human being is meant to be.

My excitement outweighs my apprehension, and while, in the end, I may indeed find I do not agree with Thurman on every point, I have no doubt that listening well to his wisdom, birthed in experience so very different from my own, will stretch and grow my soul in important ways.

I can’t wait for us to read this book together, especially if we will do so — to quote the Renovaré Covenant — in utter dependence upon Jesus Christ as our ever-living Savior, Teacher, Lord, and Friend.

So as we seek deeper transformation in Jesus, may we learn to listen without fear to brothers and sisters who see things from a different perspective.

Blessings, and for those in the U.S., Happy Thanksgiving!