I have long wanted to have an introduction to Dr Thurman’s life and teachings and this volume offers a great path into fulfilling that desire. His was an important voice in his lifetime and his messages are still relevant in our time.

Summary: The inner work of transformation through which God works to bring reconciliation, justice, and hope.

Plough Publishing is releasing its latest installment in the Plough Spiritual Guides series in September 2026. In this case, it is a collection of the writings of Howard Thurman. He was a pastor and theologian who mentored civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr. This guide, like preceding ones in the series offers a brief biography of Thurman followed by a guide to reading him, and then readings from Thurman’s works. Vincent LW. Lloyd, in the latter, observes this distinction between King and Thurman:

“If Martin Luther King, Jr. invites collective struggle to transform the political world, to end racism, Howard Thurman invites interior struggle to transform the self. There is no need for a choice between the two….Thurman demonstrates how we participate in God through struggle, how we struggle against false gods, against those individuals and systems and habits of mind that take themselves to be absolute authorities, and how the struggle within and the struggle without are intimately linked” (p. xxviii).

Lloyd thus offers a précis of the theme connecting the nine selections from Thurman’s writings. These selections, titled in the form of imperatives, offer nine ways we engage with God as we “engage the struggle without.” In “Know Thyself” he invites us to live in the present and in the disarming presence of God that strips us of illusions. Then, in “Love Your Neighbor” he connects our love of God and neighbor. He concludes with the wonder of “being completely and totally understood in the presence of God.”

But what does love have to do with our enemies? In “Love Your Enemies” he identifies three types of enemies the poor and disinherited face. He observes that even enemies are of infinite worth to God. Thus, it is worthy to try to make contact with this imago dei in the person’s life. We do this through forgiveness, leaving vengeance to God. Then, in “Choose Nonviolence” he addresses the nonviolent ethic of Jesus in both personal and national life. He offers the simple axiom that “No one ever wins a fight.” He discusses the choice of violence as the decision to will the non-existence of another.

Instead, we “Learn to Pray.” It is the acknowledgement that we do not want to be left to our own meagre resources. The chapter concludes with a wonderful prayer that models our dependence on God. An example of utter dependence comes from the slave experience and the spirituals that emerged from it. “Wade in the Water” speaks of coming to God in our vulnerability, trusting that God will “trouble the water” in healing. Finally, the road to dependency leads us to “Surrender to God.” Thurman describes in first person terms all the areas involved in full surrender to God.

This inner transformation has outward effects. For example, his call to “Attend to Nature” challenges us to “reverence for all expressions of life.” Likewise it results in an “at-homeness in the world.” Lastly, he calls us to “Live in Community.” He warns us against isolation and of ever thinking of “people” in merely abstract terms.

To devote oneself to seek God’s kingdom and pursue his reconciliation and justice in the world is a lifetime journey. We look for final fulfillment in Christ’s return. The wisdom captured in these nine short chapters from Howard Thurman’s writings capture the inner journey that transforms and sustains us as we seek societal transformation. The danger in any form of struggle against evil is to become like that against which we struggle. Thurman writes of the inner spiritual transformation that guards our hearts and makes reconciliation and healing possible.

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

This collection of Thurman’s writings felt like a balm for the soul in a deeply polarized world. His powerful reflections on contemplative prayer, community, and the bridge between interior faith and social justice offered me a beautiful, timely vision of spiritual reconciliation.

This newest volume in Plough’s Spiritual Guides series played to the strengths of this format. It opens with a really great biography and introduction, followed by 100 pages of selections from Howard Thurman divided into nine helpful chapters. Each chapter includes a handful of excerpts from various writings by Thurman—sometimes a few from one book, sometimes from multiple different books.

I greatly appreciated that the introductory material did not try to put on an objective stance but felt very personal. In fact, the introduction opens: “There are three moments in my life when I wish I had known Howard Thurman.” (You can read the full essay on Plough’s website: https://www.plough.com/articles/i-wis....) Howard Thurman is well known for being an influence on Martin Luther King Jr. “If Martin Luther King Jr. invites collective struggle to transform the political world, to end racism, Howard Thurman invites interior struggle to transform the self. There is no need for a choice between the two.”

The biography points to how Thurman embodied an ethos of love. “As a minister in Ohio and as a professor and administrator in Georgia and Washington, DC, he sought to join the life of the mind and the life of the heart by means of hospitality.”

The chapter are organized in a logical order. The progression of the first three chapters is “Know Thyself,” “Love your Neighbor,” and “Love Your Enemies.” Thurman says, “Most often you are brought face-to-face with yourself only when such an encounter is forced upon you.” Once we see ourselves, we also see others more clearly as their own Subjects, not our pawns. “In love, we do not seek the balance, as normal as it is. Love goes beyond the balance.”

I took the most notes from the chapter titled “Choose Nonviolence.” He says that in contrast to love, “violence embodies a will to nonexistence.” Ironically, to seek violence is ultimately a danger to ourselves: “Men are made for each other, and any sustained denial of this elemental fact of life cannot stand.” Each chapter fits well with the title Nothing Can Separate Us.

We can see Thurman’s influence on Martin Luther King Jr., especially in how he shows that nonviolence is not a strategy but an ethic of neighbor love. He claims that to use nonviolence only as a technique until it proves less useful “has the same moral basis as violence.” Later in the book, he explains that we are responsible for extending forgiveness, but “it is not my responsibility if the individual whom it moves rejects it.”

Near the middle of the book, we have a chapter on prayer leading into a few chapters on surrendering to God. Prayer is an admission that we cannot pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. “Again and again, we discover that our resources are not equal to the demands of living.”

Of these chapters, “Wade in the Water” is the most opaque chapter title, trying to encompass a tricky topic. This requires an extended quote to show. Thurman draws on biblical language to explain, “God is troubling the waters when we are sick. Not in the sense that he causes the illness, not punishing us with sickness; but rather, God is troubling the waters in human illness because inherent in the illness something rational is active, and if it is understood, its secret can be revealed so that all the overtones and creative possibilities that result from the radical interruption of one’s normal processes can be turned into the glorious and redemptive account.” However, this is an experience we mist live through—we cannot just think our way around it. “There are no completely satisfying ways by which this conclusion may be arrived at by mere or sheer rational reflective processes.”

The book concludes with chapters on nature and community. We are only fully human when we are in right relationship with nature and others. Thus, he defines a sinner as “one who is out of community.”

The title Nothing Can Separate Us speaks to the quiet confidence Thurman has in our connection both with God and with other humans. Through the selections, Thurman’s calm tone reminds me of reading Henri Nouwen, especially how he reassures us that we can rest in God’s love.