Reading Howard Thurman: His Practice of Interpretation Through Womanist Eyes

Reading Howard Thurman introduces us to both Howard Washington Thurman and the art of interpretation. It accomplishes both through the experience of a Black woman interpreter's journey with Thurman. Womanist hermeneutics centers on family histories beginning with Black women's voices, communion with Spirit, forms of storytelling and story sharing, and the aesthetics of art, music, and nature as vehicles for interpreting the Bible. The commitments of womanist interpretation include community, life liberation, inclusion, and voice. In Reading Howard Thurman Shively T. J. Smith unfolds a conversation about and with Thurman. Smith explores Thurman's practices of interpreting his personal journey, spiritual experience, and community-building. He models interpreting life as our first resource for understanding what is meaningful, significant, and representative of the ties that bind, which transcend social barriers of nationality, internationality, race, and culture. In the end, Smith's reading of Thruman through womanist eyes reveals "Thurmaneutics," his particular use of life to read the Bible. Reading Howard Thurman thus becomes a new primer for the study of biblical interpretation.