Howard Thurman on the Contagion of Hatred and the Antidote of Love

10 minutes  

• Greet participants and, if nametags are helpful for the group, invite people to wear them. Point participants toward the outline for the class posted on a white board or butcher paper in the room.  
• Once everyone has arrived, open with prayer and encourage participants to introduce themselves with their name and why they were interested in joining the group.  

10 minutes  

• Before delving into the essay, invite participants to share their own definitions of hate and briefly explain why they define the word the way they do.  
• Depending on the size of the group, this might be an activity better suited to small groups who then report back to the larger class. 
• Participants are also welcome to share their experiences of hate, but remind them that reliving trauma is not necessary for this class and invite them to chat afterwards and provide pastoral care (or connect them with a therapist) if this is the case.  

15 minutes  

• What are the three stages of Thurman’s algorithm of hate as outlined by Jensen? 
• Which of these stages feels most relevant to your context or experience of the world? Why? 
• Do you agree with Thurman’s stages? Is something missing that should have been added since he explained them in the mid 1900s? Why or why not?  
• Might hate as it is outlined in this algorithm ever be productive?  
• What does hate as it is explained in these stages prevent from occurring between people, communities, nations, etc.?  

After ~7 minutes reconvene the group and ask each group to share insights or questions from their conversations. Make sure that the three stages of hatred are delineated and broadly understood by all participants.  

15 minutes 

• Invite participants to quietly reflect for three to five minutes about a contemporary context in which they perceive Thurman’s algorithm to be at work. Encourage them to write down how the context they choose or have experienced aligns with or diverges from Thurman’s stages. Remind them that Thurman considered patriotism and nationalism to function as disguises for hatred while they consider varying contexts. “What is the anatomy of hatred in our times?” (Jensen, 7) 
• Reconvene the group and invite people to explain why they chose their respective case studies. (If this sharing is better suited to occur in small groups in your context, facilitate that, then reconvene the broader group to hear reports from each cohort.)  

10 minutes  

• As the class comes to a close, invite participants to wonder how their different examples and definitions of hate engender different forms of isolation and stifle creativity among people and larger groups. 
• Guiding questions: how does the context you chose separate people or groups? Who is left out and why? How does this example of hatred restrict people’s imaginations and creativity—how are people boxed in and limited by your examples of hate?  
• Remind participants that the next lesson will shift to Jensen’s discussion of Thurman’s ideas of love, the love-ethic, and how to confront hate in both tangible and creative ways.  
• Close with prayer.