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Connection across difference: The UM News podcast “Signs of Life” returns with the story of two congregations in Atlanta that embarked on a study of Howard Thurman's "Jesus and the Disinherited." One congregation predominately black and the other white, participants explore together a story of new understanding and relationship.
Transcript
Nate: But it makes you far more aware of whose backs are against the wall and how they got there.
Annie: I do like the thread of the nonviolence approach to injustice. So I don't think I ever thought of Jesus in that way growing up as a kid.
Rev. Joya: Because this book was a challenge for the Black participants and the White participants.
Nate: Howard Thurman has difficult things to say to people whose backs are against the wall.
Rev. Cassie: And say we hold all of this in common and start from there. And so once people are like, oh yeah, that is what I believe like that. OK. I see the Scripture where it says that I see our heritage and all of that. Then they can go in to have those harder conversations.
Rev. Joya: And so that this is not an us versus them. It's a how do we all come together?
Ben: This is Signs of Life from UM News. I'm your host Ben Ward. And these are stories of life, healing and bridges across sometimes vast divides to places of peace, understanding and reconciliation.
Today, we're in Atlanta, Georgia, with its long history of racial, social and political struggle, conflict and breakthrough. Visiting two churches that took a step to build a bridge and see what kind of change might come to fruition. What happens when you decide to step out and connect with those who are different than you? Can you change the world? Make a difference by reaching out?
Today on Signs of Life: Connection across difference.
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Our first stops are Ben Hill United Methodist Church and St. Paul United Methodist Church in Atlanta.
I'm Rev. Joya Abrams. I'm an associate pastor at Ben Hill United Methodist Church.
Rev. Joya: We are here because our two churches got to get together and study “Jesus and the Disinherited” by the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman. The idea came late in 2025. Our church was already going to study “Jesus and the Disinherited.” And our conference has a focus, an area of ministry focus, called racial healing and justice. And when I was thinking about that focus of our conference, and how might this book help us with racial healing and justice, I thought, ‘Wait, we could study this with another congregation, a predominantly white congregation.’ Our church, Ben Hill, is predominantly Black. And so I thought about, ‘Well, who of my friends can I call that would be interested in maybe getting their church to come and read this with us?’ And so one of my values is connection across difference. And so I have an amazing diversity of friends. And the pastor of St. Paul, Rev. Cassie Rapko, is one of my good friends and colleagues. We've been friends since, I think shortly after we graduated from Candler. Right.
Rev. Cassie: I think I remember when you came and looked at Candler. Yeah. So it was even, it was early. Yeah.
Rev. Joya: Yes. So I called Cassie, well, texted, and then we tried to contact each other and eventually were successful. And, and she said, ‘Sure, let me think about it. Yes.’ And we, we identified laity who would be willing to lead it because that was the other thing. We felt like it was important for laypeople to lead this conversation. You know, sometimes people get a little squirrelly around clergy. And so also as elders, we're called to empower and equip the laity. And so also my husband is one who loves Howard Thurman and had already read the book before and wanted to teach it, well, facilitate, and so I asked him. I was like, ‘Can you please facilitate this group?’ And then, the Rev. Cassie Rapko also had a wonderful layperson who was able to facilitate.
I'm Rev. Cassie Rapko, and I'm the pastor at St. Paul United Methodist Church.
Rev. Cassie: When Rev. Joya called me, I was actually on a mission trip with folks in my church to Augusta. We were doing hurricane relief, and I was in the other room with paint in my hair, talking to her on the phone, and she said, ‘Do you think you have a layperson who might be interested in leading this?’ And I said, ‘I do. He's in the other room right now, painting. Let me go talk to him.’ And so I went over into the next room where Bill McKinnon was, who was the leader, the lay member who led it from St. Paul. And Bill has been a part of St. Paul for forever, and has a real heart for connecting across diversity, especially racial reconciliation. And he and I have talked about this and prayed about this before. I think it was maybe a year and a half ago when he said, ‘We've talked about this and I still haven't done it, but I really want to.’ And I said, ‘OK, well, we'll figure out what our next steps are.’ And so I went in the next room, asked Bill if he would be willing, and he said yes. He also had paint in his hair at the time. And so we came back to Atlanta and we chatted and figured out how to make it work. And we started advertising it Christmas Eve, I think.
Ben: Howard Thurman helped shape the Civil Rights Movement in America, particularly Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King carried a copy of “Jesus and the Disinherited” in his pocket throughout the Montgomery bus boycott.
Thurman was born in 1899 and was a theologian, preacher, educator, author. He taught at Spelman College, Morehouse College, Howard University and Boston University. Thurman was dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University when King was a student there. Thurman had influence over many in King's generation, with his emphasis on the spiritual inner life as the catalyst and source for social transformation, particularly through prayer, meditation and self-examination.
[Howard Thurman sermon clip] Was that his Gospel really? And a little later, when I began to encounter all the circuitous and terrifying problems of the various kinds of violences in my environment. And as I looked out upon the great divide that separated Christians from each other, the crucial problem began to mount more and more frontally in my mind and in my thoughts. And, strangely enough, all during the period, I had worked out privately and intimately a place, a kind of fellowship, a, I don't know quite how to put this, but a meaning and a significance in the life of Jesus, independent of all the things that, that were being said about him. We, he and I enjoyed each other. He was as real to me as my right hand.
Hi, my name is Nate Abrams. I am a lay member at Ben Hill United Methodist Church.
Nate: Howard Thurman starts talking about the historical background of Jesus. Who was Jesus? What was the political, economic, social environment in which he grew up? And one of the big questions he asked was there were a lot of people who grew up under Roman oppression, who grew up poor in Galilee, who were persecuted, a persecuted minority in this area of the world. What made him different? And so he pointed out just a number of different things that Jesus' approach to people, Jesus' approach to his worship of God. And he boiled it down to the religion of Jesus.
I'm Annie Jackson, I am a member of St. Paul United Methodist Church.
Annie: It was a deep book. Yes. I had to sometimes go back and read it three or four times. Just what he said, because it is, it's deep.
Ben: Do you think that, like in your congregation, who would have been, known of Howard Thurman or the book or this, do you think anybody would have been familiar?
Nate: So when Bill and I had our first conversations, that was one of the things that he brought up that he, I believe his wife had read the book before, and he knew of Howard Thurman. Although I don't believe that he'd read the book. And over at Ben Hill, there were several people who like it was, it was requested that we do something by Howard Thurman.
Ben: That was Nate and this is Rev. Joya
Rev. Joya: There are a lot of Morehouse alumni at Ben Hill, and Howard Thurman was Morehouse alumnus and taught, well, he taught at the school for. He taught it. Yes, yes.
Rev. Cassie: It's a pretty educated congregation, but it's also a pretty white congregation. And so I think there are some folks who probably had heard of Howard Thurman, um, but didn't know a lot about him would be my guess.
Ben: That was Rev. Cassie and this is Annie
Annie: Exactly right. For me, I had heard of him, but I had to look him up again. Like, wait, what did he do again? And what what were his teachings?
Ben: Nate and Bill wanted more for the group than just a book discussion. An academic analysis. They wanted to foster something real for the people in the group, for the life of Ben Hill and St. Paul.
Nate: Very adamant about it not just being a book study. We really wanted to try and build some community. I mean, that's one of the things that Thurman talks about in the book, that if we're going to overcome differences and create a more just world, than we have to connect across the things that make us different — even when that involves a lot of discomfort. So Bill and I really wanted to figure out how do we make, how do we do that for real? Even in a class that's meeting on Zoom. How do we build that community? How do we figure out other activities that are not just talking about the book? So that was a lot of what we talked about, besides just kind of the structure of the class and what are we going to do every session and that kind of thing.
Ben: Howard Thurman became a leading proponent of nonviolence after a trip to India in 1935 in which he met Mahatma Gandhi and observed his legacy and work firsthand. This emphasis on these peaceful forms of resistance overflows into the questions he raises: What does Jesus and the Gospel have to say to the persecuted, the oppressed, the marginalized? What does the Gospel have to say to those wielding power?
Ben: Annie, what was your reaction to the discussion of Jesus and nonviolence?
Annie: I do like the thread of the nonviolence approach to injustice. So I don't think I ever thought of Jesus in that way growing up as a kid. But the connection from Jesus to say Gandhi to Thurman to Martin Luther King is just nonviolence. And to change the world is love. And that's basically, I feel like, just a very simple wrapping up of that book. To me, that's how it came across.
Ben: Nate, could you give an overview of the book?
Nate: Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. And Thurman goes through and he really breaks that down. He talks about those whose backs are against the wall. That’s one of the phrases that flows through the book. And what does the religion of Jesus have to say to those whose backs are against the wall? And he talks about the things that the hounds of hell for the people, whose backs are against the wall. And he says their fear, deception and hate. And he goes through how those three traits. We tend to think of people who are oppressed or disadvantaged as, you know, they have things to fear. They have things to hate. They have things, and they do things to survive. But Thurman really gets into the psychology of what do those things do to a person's spirit. When you hate your oppressor, what does that do to you? And so he goes through the book, and at the end, he gets to what Annie was talking about, love and that the religion of Jesus is love. And so if you are going to follow the religion of Jesus, if you're going to love like Jesus, then you as an oppressed person have to love even your oppressor.
Ben: What was the discussion like? I mean, I know you said you didn't want it to be just about the book. How about you, Annie?
Annie: Nate, you did a great job. For real. Like every meeting, you know, we'd say, he'd say a little prayer. We'd break out into groups because I was a little, I was like, ‘Oh gosh, it's a Zoom meeting with, you know, 40 people or more,’ you know, and like, it kind of reminded me of COVID days. So I started to have a little like PTSD, PTSD. Yeah. But it worked out really great. So he would break us out into rooms where you'd have like four or five of us, maybe four at the most, it felt like. So you kind of got to know people a little bit and just we each had a topic of, you sent out topics for the week of like what we're going to discuss. And so you get to know people a little bit more that way. And like how the book affects them personally. And there's just ideas and how it, you know, reading it and putting it into our lives now today.
Nate: And that's part of how Bill and I, we were really intentional in our setup of the class. So we'd start with a prayer or devotion. And it usually came from something that Howard Thurman wrote, not necessarily from this book. Like, we use for one time, an excerpt from one of his speeches called the Sound of the Genuine, looking for the sound of the genuine in you and then living out of that sound.
[Howard Thurman sermon clip] There is in you, something that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. Nobody like you has ever been born. I didn't say thank goodness. And no one like you would ever be born again. You are the only one.
Nate: So we would start the class with that. And then we'd give a brief overview of the chapter, and then we'd break the group up into small groups like Annie said, and we randomized them. So it would be Ben Hill and St. Paul people. And every week you were in a different group, talking with different people.
One of the things that we did in our very first session was we set ground rules for, for the class and, and I can't remember all of them off the top of my head, but, you know, the basics were: we are here to hear one another and to love one another.
Annie: Also, each person like would give you each get time to speak. Right, right. That's what we call it. But also, you know, just, just certain rules like that. And allow the person to speak and don't interrupt while they're speaking. And I don't think anybody did. Like it was, it went really well.
Ben: Rev. Joya why was the choice of Rev. Cassie and St. Paul so important?
Rev. Joya: When I was thinking about which church could we partner with, I was thinking about who might have people that would be interested to be a part of this group that would be open to having, who knows what conversation, that would be able to enter it with care and be OK to step into that danger zone and, and not cause harm while they're trying to figure out, ‘Wait, what do I think here?’ And so to help with that discomfort, that's part of why I also thought about partnering with St. Paul, that from Rev. Cassie and I's conversation, we've, we realized that our congregations will be open to such a difficult space.
Ben: You need to have a safe space to do that because sometimes people are like, well, you said, well, no, I was we were talking about it. And at the end of the conversation, I felt different than I did at the beginning, which is the point, because if you come with your opinion already and you're not looking to engage, you're just look, you're thinking once again, listening, if you're listening, but you're not really listening, you're thinking of what you're going to say next. And that seems, that ground rules thing is really important, I think, you know, because that, that sets the stage for what we're going to do here. Rev. Cassie, how significant was the pairing of your two congregations?
Rev. Cassie: I do think it, it helped that this was two United Methodist churches coming together as well, because there was already this shared heritage that we had. Even though our congregations look different and worship different and things like that, like, you know, The United Methodist Church has been through a few things in the past several years. And so, you know, these are folks who have been faithful, who have been, you know, determined to be United Methodist, to be followers of Christ. And so I think that foundation really helped to, I mean, there was still vulnerable space, but it was shared, sacred, vulnerable space because of that shared grounding in The United Methodist Church.
You know, I've served more conservative churches and still been able to do hard topics because we start, we start at the commonality. And so, you know, you can, you can find in The United Methodist Church, like in the Book of Discipline or our Social Principles, like, that common thread for whatever issue that you're trying to talk about and say, ‘We hold all of this in common,’ and start from there. And so once people are like, ‘oh yeah, I, that is what I believe like that. OK. I see the Scripture where it says that I see our heritage and all of that.’ Then they can go in to have those harder conversations. But there is truly more that connects us than divides us. And so making sure that we remind each other that, and so you can, you can do hard things in churches that are more purple. But you just have to start with what we, what we share in common.
Ben: No one is spared in “Jesus and the Disinherited.” Thurman has hard words, hard truths for every group, all sides. He's comfortable making you uncomfortable.
Nate, how intentional were you in preparing people?
Nate: We were really intentional about that when we were going into this, Bill and I both, because both of us being familiar with the book, we knew it was going to be a hard topic. And we let the group know that from the top, just like, this is going to get uncomfortable and we urge you to lean into that and to sit with it. Don't run away and don't look at the person on the other side of the screen as if they're an alien or something. They're human and they love Jesus, too. Just sit with whatever comes into the room.
Ben: Rev. Joya, do you think that strategy worked?
Rev. Joya: What you all did with having, breaking out into, into the breakout rooms, having people to connect in smaller spaces, even though it was Zoom with the ground rules that were already set. That helps to humanize that little box on a screen. It’s so important when we're going to really talk about difficult things that we're talking about humans. We're talking about fellow children of God. And so we're talking two children of God. And so to remember that that person is beloved as well as you are. And I think you all help to create a space like that so that you can talk about hard things, for everybody involved, because this book was a challenge for the Black participants and the white participants.
Nate: And that's a good point. In one of the chapters, I think it was the deception chapter, some of the members of Ben Hill had real trouble with that because Howard Thurman has difficult things to say to people whose backs are against the wall. I like to say that he doesn't let anyone off the hook. You know, you have the oppressors and it's easy to call out the people who are in power, to say, ‘You are doing this. Stop it.’ It is much more difficult to speak to the people who are not in power and say, ‘You have a role to play in this as well.’
Ben: What are some of the things, maybe a couple examples that he gives in the book.
Nate: Well, like in talking about deception, three different forms of deception, and they're all aimed at survival. He talks about what that does to your soul. And when your soul is damaged, then you begin to view other people as the enemy, and you begin to treat them as the enemy. Which even though you don't have power, it makes what you're doing no better than what the other folks are doing.
Annie: It's not like deceitful as in a lie, but you're living a lie within yourself, I think as the oppressed. Right? You are conforming to what society or whatever the oppressor's telling you your worth is. And so you don't speak your inner truth. And that's what the deceit is. It's what I took from it.
Ben: That was Annie and this is Nate.
Nate: And so for some of our members of the group, especially the Black members who lived through the Civil Rights Movement to be told you’ve had a role to play in making this better. You have a role to play in making yourself better so that you don't feed into the violence and the damage and the hatred. Right. That was a tough pill for some of our folks to swallow.
Ben: I think of the Civil Rights Movement. I think of, you know, Martin Luther King talking about why we pray before we protest so that we don't become the very thing that we're protesting.
Nate: That’s from Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. Just like that's so powerful and it's so easy to forget.
In our current political climate, things can seem hopeless, useless. What does a 77-year-old book have to say to our current moment?
We're living in a very politically fraught time. How much of that did some of that come into the discussion groups?
Annie: I would say every discussion. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in politics affects our everyday lives. And so, yeah, everyone expressed concern of, you know, a lot of things that were going on with ICE, particularly, you know, taking people off the streets. People had just been murdered at the time, two people in Minneapolis. And now it's, we didn't get to discuss it because it hadn't happened yet. But I feel like we're now like chipping away at the Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Act, and it's very upsetting. But going back to this book and like, just I did like, just did a little review before I got here because it's been a minute since I read it. Yeah, there's a lot that we can take from this book and apply it to today. There's going to be, I feel like a lot of nonviolent resistance that we're going to need to show going forward. And I feel like we're going backwards again. And it's very upsetting, but this helps, I think, get your mind in a place where like, what can I do? Because I feel like sometimes you just feel helpless, like, seeing people's rights taken away. I mean, honestly, seeing people being taken out of representation in states, especially Black people, like it just to me, it's very upsetting. So.
Ben: I think that the phrase you said back against the wall. Yeah. I mean, it feels it's like, what else can you hear?
Nate: It makes you far more aware of whose backs are against the wall and how they got there.
Ben: So where do you go from here? It's one thing to have great discussion and even community, but does it bear fruit? What actions are you inspired and motivated to take? Rev. Cassie and Nate have ideas for the future.
Rev. Cassie: We have talked about, like, our next steps and how we want to continue fostering the relationship between our two churches. It's helped me as a United Methodist pastor to be able to reference the connectionalism that is The United Methodist Church, and to show actual, tangible ways that we connect with our neighbors who aren't far from us. I mean, we're all here in Atlanta. And so that's been a really nice thing, but I think the real fruit is going to come as we continue the connection with one another, as we continue gathering and having more opportunities to be together. And we've done that a little bit. We came together and we showed the Howard Thurman documentary, “Backs Against the Wall.” We did that here at St. Paul. And then the next week, Ben Hill was hosting their friends and family day and invited members to go to that. And so we've already, we've seen each other's spaces and been able to continue that relationship a little bit.
Nate: And we've talked a little bit about what would it look like to serve in the community together, to bring the two congregations together, or to even do a joint worship service? One of the things that we were trying to figure out the best way and time to do is go to visit Howard Thurman's tomb, which is on the campus of Morehouse College right here in town. He and his wife are both buried there. So get someone from Morehouse's Chapel to speak to us about his life and legacy as a group.
Rev. Cassie: I think any time when you, get to sit down and look into the eyes of somebody who is different from you and to have those hard conversations, it's hard not to be empowered for action steps, especially in the world that we are in right now where we are all, you know, we're listening to respond as opposed to actually hearing each other. Part of that class was the opportunity to practice, to like practice those listening skills, to listen to one another, to go across those differences that, you know, we may not always get to do in our community. They may not always get to do in their community, but intentionally seeking out difference and practicing it because it's hard to practice something and then not do it in your everyday life. You know, the more we practice, the better we're at, we do at that. And the world could certainly use that right now.
Nate: And I think that's one of the really wonderful things that came out of doing the group because it was a very diverse group. I mean, we had Black and white from the two churches, but it was also wide age range. We had a couple of folks who were in their 20s, and then we had folks who were old enough to have lived through the Civil Rights Movement. So in their 70s, um, and these folks were talking to one another and really getting down into the weeds of their own experiences, but also how Thurman's words made them feel and made them view the world.
Rev. Cassie: There was also diversity. We are a St. Paul is a Reconciling congregation. And so there was also diversity against identity and things like that, as well, within the class.
Ben: Ben Hill United Methodist Church and St. Paul United Methodist Church in the heart of Atlanta show what is possible when you seek to connect across difference. To find light where there is real darkness. To live out the prayer attributed to St. Francis: Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Rev. Joya:
Rev. Joya: I wanted to speak a little bit about the racial justice and healing focus in our conference. One of the guiding thoughts about that is a quote from Dr. King. And it's: ‘We aim to resist in such a way that when we are victorious, those who have opposed us will be able to celebrate with us.’ And so that this is not an us versus them. It's a, ‘How do we all come together? How do we join in?’ We each handle our own stuff so that we all get to live together in a world that that has become the beloved community.
Ben: This has been Signs of Life from UM News. We are part of United Methodist Communications. I'm your host, Ben Ward, and I produced and edited this episode and wrote the music.
Join us this Fall as we look for more Signs of Life in Belfast, Northern Ireland;
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Then on to Dublin;
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The world, the Church, everyday life can feel hopeless and full of dying and death. Our hope is that these stories, these people, these churches and congregations will inspire you. Come on this journey and see more Signs of Life.
Ward is UM News staff working on digital design and media.
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