“Christianity has been almost sentimental in its effort to deal with hatred in human life. It has sought to get rid of hatred by preaching, by moralizing, by judging. It has hesitated to analyze the basis of hatred and to evaluate it in terms of its significance in the lives of the people possessed by it…. There is a conspiracy of silence about hatred, its function, and its meaning.” page 65

This chapter of Thurman’s book may be the most powerful to us as we read it today, seventy years after it was written. In it, Thurman offers a written sketch of a diagram of hatred. Here is what it looks like in an image:

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​If we take an honest look at ourselves, we will recognize the role that hatred plays in our lives. It is part of our sinful human nature:  what we hate makes us feel good about ourselves. In Ezekiel 35:11 we read that God takes hatred seriously when he says, “I will treat you in accordance with the anger and jealousy you showed in your hatred of them and I will make myself known among them when I judge you.”

Pray for the strength to reflect regularly on the role that hate plays in your life, and the wisdom to confess and turn away from that hatred. 

This week’s devotional reflections have been adapted from the book, Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman. Beacon, Boston. 1976.