Creative Encounter With God in Worship - A Critical Reflection on Howard Thurman

8/14/2019 Creative Encounter With God in Worship - A Critical Reflection on Howard Thurman

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Critical Reflection

on

The Creative Encounter, by Howard ThurmanEvidencing its meaning and implications for both the private and the corporate Christian Worship1

Presented to

Lisa M. Allen, Ph.D

By

Alcenir Oliveira

For

Christian Worship

ICAM 866

Interdenominational Theological Center

Atlanta, October 18, 2006

Introduction

The inwardness of Religion


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The individuals self understanding, the search,

encounter and understanding of God

This self realization and encounter with God and its

meaning and implication with private and public

worship

The outwardness of Religion

The perspective of the whole community where the

individuals are in search of God

The community encounter with God and its meaning and

implication with private and public worship

The inner need for love

What the inner need for love has to do with God

What the inner need for love has to do with private and

public worship

The outer necessity for love

What the outer necessity for love has to do with God

What the outer necessity for love has to do with private

and public worship

Conclusion

Introduction

The human being life comprises a two side perspective, very clearly stated by

Thurman. First, there is the private side of the individuals life. It involves his whole

idiosyncrasies and needs. Second, there is the interaction of the individual with others in

the community and the way they interfere with his life and how he influences their world.


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In this direction, Thurman develops a great reflection about the individuals need for

love, as well as the whole community necessity of being cared for.

The inwardness of Religion: The individuals self under-standing, the search, encounter and understanding of God.

The self awareness is very important in our understanding of self relationship with

God and with the world. In Luke 10:27-29, Jesus not only says that it is important to love

God and neighbor, but when we read the text carefully we notice that he points to the

importance of self love, as he commands to love our neighbor the way we love ourselves.

It means that we should love the neighbor with the same intensity which we love

ourselves. It is implied that we love ourselves naturally, so it does not require acommandment. The command of Jesus has two assumptions. The first is that we love

ourselves. If we love ourselves, weve got to love our neighbors in the same way. The

second is that the statement implies the possibility that some people could not love

themselves. In this case, you should not love your neighbor the same way you love

yourselves.

One important principle we have to be aware of when we reflect about love is that

to love anyone or anything we shall know, understand, the object of love. It applies to

self also. It is in this direction that Thurman leads us in his discussion of the inwardness

of religion. He calls it a private life, where the great issues of our lives are

determined, he says. He also says that it is cut off from immediate involvement in what

surrounds us. This inner formation is going to determine how one interprets the

significance of his religious experience, Thurman says.

The encounter with God in his/her search depends upon the individual realization

of self identification or of self awareness, as well as understanding the existence of God.

This experience then involves two persons or two parties: self and God.

The experience of God by the individual, according to Thurman, happens when

God meets his/her needs, as though as at the level of his understanding of Gods

meaning. I allow myself not exactly to disagree with Thurman but to point that Gods


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The private and public worship is profoundly connected with the individuals self

acknowledgement of his/her inner being, his/her private life, in relation to his/her

acknowledgement of God. In private worship self enters in communication with God,

whereas the self consciousness of creature and creator being is the way to allow this

exchange. According to Thurman, this religious experience comes to reality through

prayer, which means the method by which the individual makes his way to the temple of

quiet within his own spirit and the activity of his spirit within its walls. He gives a two

steps concept of prayer. First, that it is a communication with God and second, that it is

the readying of the spirit for such communication.

In terms of public worship, I believe that the argument of Thurman about the inner

experience is that the inwardness is a sine qua non condition to enter the first

moments of public worship. Without the inwardness may be impossible to open

communication with God. It will happen at the very moment that the inner reality

becomes open to the reality of God. The human being story, says Wimberly in African

American Pastoral Care, is Gods unfolding story. In fact I believe that in worship there

is an intersection of human being story and Gods story. Thurman seems to come close to

Wimberleys statement when he makes it clear that in worship the person opens up

his/her inner being towards Gods care. He uses an example of a woman that used to fallasleep during worship and apologized to him, but he found out that the only place in the

world she would have peace enough to fall asleep was during worship.

A clear description of the grounds where and how the encounter happens is, in his

words, if man is emptied of creatureliness, then God has no alternative but to fill him up

if He does that, there is no difference then between God and man except in the rather

tenuous boundaries of the self.

The outwardness of Religion: The perspective of the whole

community where the individuals are in search of God.

The inner encounter, the realization of self, the understanding of private life is very

important in experiencing God. Nevertheless, human being is social and is completed


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with others. We see it happening since Eden, as God creates the woman because the man

should not be alone. Therefore, the experience of God shall happen inwardly and

outwardly.

In research there are two methods of observation and Thurman brings them up to give

some lights on this matter. On one moment, the observer experiences the reality by

immersing in it; on the other, he steps outside and watch from a certain distance. It is not

different, it is complimentary. It means that there are facts one cannot see from inside,

and others one cannot see from outside. He says that there are two levels of

understanding of the facts of religious experience. One is the examination of the facts

themselves and the other is the meaning of the facts as seen by the person experiencing

them2.

This reflection is of utmost importance to understand worship. I recall a minister who

used substantiate his sermons with his experience, but we used be skeptical about the

reality described by him. The interpretation of the facts, by who experiences them, may

disqualify the interpretation, says Thurman, because he/she cannot be objective, because

he/she cannot separate it from his/her needs, desires, hopes, fears and so forth.

This reflection is necessary for the goal of this study. The question here is if

experiencing God makes difference in the outward life of the individual, which includesthe context the individual is living and functioning3. Here he discuss a parallel between

what is self and what is not-self and develops a relationship between them in the sense

that self experience is and will influence the not-self. In fact the growth of the self

happens by having the not-self as reference, as in the development of a baby since birth.

This all philosophical view is brought to the Christian experience by Thurman in this

expression what I have in Christ is not an impression but a life change; not an

impression of personal influence which might evaporate, but a fact of central personal

change. I do not merely feel changed. I am changed. It a matter of receiving a new life

by surrender the self to God. What happens in fact is an exchange instead of a one side

only surrender. In fact the life of the surrendered self is given back at another level. It can

be said that the self loses the life and the life is given back to self.4


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Creative Encounter With God in Worship - A Critical Reflection on Howard Thurman

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