In the spring of 1936, Howard Thurman, the African American Theologian and Pastor, met Mahatma Gandhi. Thurman had been in India for several months, travelling the country giving lectures about Christianity and American segregation. Gandhi was now several decades into working to free India from the rule of the British Empire and to undo the oppression of the caste system. They spent a few hours together discussing segregation in America, religion, and nonviolence. Before Thurman left, Gandhi asked him to sing a song– “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”
A sermon for Good Friday, April 18, 2025, offered at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
Kelley Hudlow 