Faith Matters: The Three Hounds Of Hell

by The Rev. Fredrick J. Streets

“Faith Matters” is a column that features pieces written by local religious figures.

At this moment in our nation’s history, I am reminded of a part of a quote from Thomas Jefferson as he thought about the state of the country’s fixation on racism and the institution of slavery in 1782:

Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that [God’s] justice cannot sleep forever.

Aspects of our national racist history and current social and political unrest are causes for our trembling.

Howard Thurman (1899 – 1981), a theologian and Christian mystic in his seminal work, ​“Jesus and the Disinherited,” initially published in 1949, characterizes the first half of the 20th century as an ominous time in American history. He describes this period as one dominated by the three hounds of hell: fear, deception, and hatred.

These were the forms by which racism, buoyed by religious bigotry, were manifested in the attitudes and by the behaviors of many people. White and Black people were caught in a segregated relationship by which their fear of one another was fostered by their deception of white superiority and Black inferiority, respectively.

Fear, deception, and hatred, according to Thurman, were the key factors that oppressed and controlled those whom he described as the ​“disinherited.” The disinherited are those who have been historically and chronically marginalized and systematically disadvantaged. This is part of the character of the African American experience of racial injustice.

This is unfortunately, also the current witness of many immigrants and other people of color. Some of those in power do all they can to reinforce in the disinherited their sense of inferiority as a means of dominating them in all spheres of the common life.

We associate and attribute negativity to Black and other people of color and that which is positive and worth preserving to anyone who is white. This generates hostility and hatred between Black, other people of color and those who are white. Fear, deception, and hatred have always been, as they are now, a fuel for lighting the fire of racism. They are always a threat to democracy.

Our fear of one another and our deception about who we and others are creates a spiritual condition and psychological orientation that functions as blood knowledge, a DNA-like stereotype and prejudice in us that causes us to use power and behave in order to secure and vote to protect what we believe is our interest even if doing so destroys other people. Fear is a device used to control others. Deception functions to manipulate how people act. Hatred is a normal reaction of some who feel or perceive themselves as being oppressed. 

Messages and images of fear, deception and hatred have and continue to profoundly shape our common and civic life. Part of Thurman’s contribution to our time is how his understanding of fear, deception, and hatred are elements that apply to both Black, people of color, and white people alike.

Some historians of the Black experience in America characterize our role in its history as being that of resistance, renewal, reform, and radical transformation. These are attributes of hope. They are also qualities of self-love, and a love for country. We have to resist evil, renew our sense of hope, reform and engage in radical transformation of unjust systems and of ourselves if we have allowed ourselves to accommodate systems and ideologies of oppression.

This message in found in many of our world religions, in the Torah and the teachings of Jesus. Thurman identified this task as our needing ​“brutal honesty” and ​“psyche surgery.”

Psyche surgery is the process of riding oneself of having and being possessed by a negative self-image. The result of this procedure is that one gains an awareness of one’s profound sense of being a child of God. This empowers a person to live and flourish in a manner that not only reflects their sense of God given beauty and uniqueness but also enables them to see these qualities in all people. One who is free is sensitive and a threat to tyranny in any manner that domination is presented. We have to honestly confront the ways by which we consider ourselves either ​“less than” or superior to any other human being and change our self-perception to that of our common equality as human beings.

Thurman saw this as an essential spiritual and psychological task of those whom he describes as ​“disinherited” or people whose backs are pushed up against a wall by oppression and racism. This enables us not to treat one another as ​“objects” and to see as the enemy the policies and structures that support the dehumanization of others which diminishes ourselves.

This is why those who may be considered the ​“non-disinherited” must come to see how they too are victims of fear, deception and hatred promoted by those who use their power to prevent human flourishing.The American experiment with democracy can only continue by our citizens facing our fears, deceptions, and hatreds. This journey for us as individuals can succeed when we face the ​“hounds of hell” with ​“brutal honesty” and undergo ​“psyche surgery” that enables us to discover our sense of dignity and self-worth. In the process, if we believe, as do I, that the character and destiny of America is not fixed in stone, then the dignity and worth of being a democratic nation can be preserved.

Fredrick J. Streets is a member of the faculty at the Yale Divinity School and a clinical social worker where his teaching includes a course on Howard Thurman. He is the first African American and Baptist to have served as the Chaplain of Yale University. He continues to be inspired by the work of Howard Thurman whom he met and engaged in a private conversation many years ago.

Previous​“Faith Matters” columns: