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Prior to the outbreak of World War II, nearly forty thousand German Catholics were involved in the German Catholic Peace League, a movement that caused many people in various countries to seriously reconsider the dimension of pacifism in their faith. During the course of the War, however, many of these same German Catholics raised no serious objection to serving in Germany's armies or swearing allegiance to Adolph Hitler. First published in 1962, German Catholics and Hitler's Wars created a furor, ultimately causing a serious reevaluation of church-state relationships and, in particular, of the morality of war. This work began as an attempt to understand the demise of the German Catholic Pea...
This collection of articles and talks are some "personal favorites" of the late Gordon C. Zahn, a founder of the U.S. Catholic peace movement, and fondly known as the "dean of American Catholic pacifists." The theme of these essays is imbedded in the title of the book: All Christians have a vocation of peace, a call to serve the cause of peace and to obey the obligation to oppose war and any support or participation in war. The first set of essays will challenge the reader to consider the role of conscience and the moral responsibility it holds for the Christian. The second set of essays presciently addresses issues that have become known as the "consistent ethic of life." The third set offers the examples of individuals or groups whom Zahn knew who lived out their vocation of peace. In this book, you will discover Gordon Zahn's continuing legacy: to help you discover your own vocation to peace!
American history abounds with a rich tradition of literature dealing with nonviolence. In a work that spans from the seventeenth century to the present, Michael True brings to light the strong but long-neglected strain in American culture: nonviolence as an active response to conflicts and divisiveness. In identifying writings about action for social change, he distinguishes literary works from peace advocacy and nonviolence and relates them to broad currents of United States history. The Quakers of the 1680s and abolitionists of the 1850s, the sanctuary Movement and Plowshares of the 1980s, novelists (from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Norman Mailer) and poets (from Walt Whitman to Denise Levertov) all have written powerful works on nonviolent action. Through this literature, the author explores the beauty of an important theme in American literature. At a time when people face widespread injustice, True reminds us that nonviolence holds a significant place in our country's history.
The Spirit of the Sixties explains how and why the personal became political when Sixties activists confronted the institutions of American postwar culture. The Spirit of the Sixties uses political personalism to explain how and why the personal became political when Sixties activists confronted the institutions of American postwar culture. After establishing its origins in the Catholic Worker movement, the Beat generation, the civil rights movement, and Ban-the-Bomb protests, James Farrell demonstrates the impact of personalism on Sixties radicalism. Students, antiwar activists and counterculturalists all used personalist perspectives in the "here and now revolution" of the decade. These perspectives also persisted in American politics after the Sixties. Exploring the Sixties not just as history but as current affairs, Farrell revisits the perennial questions of human purpose and cultural practice contested in the decade.
In democratic societies, it is said that wars and military interventions are fought in the name of the citizens of the nation engaged in the conflict. Yet, ordinary citizens, the major stakeholders in war, are seldom provided with as much information for making and acting on their moral decisions about war as they are about many other national issues that affect them. To fill the void, this volume addresses the nature of conscience, various moral norms, a moral decision-making process, and the theoretical and practical issues involved in attempting to avoid war or at least to make it as moral as possible, considering its nature. By discussing how the morality of war differs from its political, military, economic and legal dimensions, this unique work attempts to enable citizens to make informed decisions about declaring, waging and ending war, and to act on those decisions. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Despite a plurality of doctrinal statements on war, peace, and nonviolence, some United Methodists sustain a commitment to nonviolence. Through qualitative research, Practicing Discipleship draws out lived theologies of nonviolence in order to understand how nonviolent United Methodists define, ground, and practice nonviolence, and to give that voice opportunity to challenge church doctrine and thereby the wider church. An analysis of statements from the Book of Disciplines and the Book of Resolutions reveals the plurality of Methodist teachings on moral issues related to war and peace. While such plurality is indicative of the inclusive tradition of United Methodism, Johnson shows that it a...
In any age, humans wrestle with apparently inexorable forces. Today, we face the threat of global terrorism. In the aftermath of September 11, few could miss sensing that a great evil was at work in the world. In Flannery O’Connor’s time, the threats came from different sources—World War II, the Cold War, and the Korean conflict—but they were just as real. She, too, lived though a “time of terror.” The first major critical volume on Flannery O’Connor’s work in more than a decade, Flannery O’Connor in the Age of Terrorism explores issues of violence, evil, and terror—themes that were never far from O’Connor’s reach and that seem particularly relevant to our present-day...