Tag: nonviolence
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Papal Peacemaking
When I spoke with the theologian Harvey Cox a few months ago, he told me enthusiastically about his experiences with Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic organization that he sees as representing the future of the Church and, in turn, of religion in what he calls the coming “age of spirit”: I was over there in Rome…
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What’s The Point of War?
What will it take to prevent the next war? Can’t say I know exactly, but, like how many others in the same boat, I keep writing about it anyway. I just received in the mail the elegant new second issue of The Point magazine, out of Chicago, which includes my essay “The War at Home.”…
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Beginning with Witness: the FOR’s Mark Johnson
At The Immanent Frame today, I interview Mark Johnson, executive director of the pioneering pacifist organization, the Fellowship of Reconciliation. (I wrote about the Fellowship in a recent book review for Commonweal.) We discuss the FOR’s current work, its legacy, and how it is adapting to the the challenges of religious (and non-religious) diversity in…
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The Shooting Gallery
Once again in the New York Times Happy Days blog, I’m testing myself. Last time, I was testing my faith. This time, it’s my trigger finger: I’ve always really liked guns. Growing up, I fantasized about them endlessly, though my parents discouraged it every way they could. I came to agree with them in principle…
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The Quaker Birds of Costa Rica
It began with the advice of a federal judge in 1949. If you’re not going to follow United States law and register for the draft, he told the group of Alabaman Quaker farmers before him, “get out of this country and stay out.” So they did. In 1951, along with several dozen family members and…
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Nonviolence from the Unlikeliest of Places
What does it take to imagine that nonviolent approaches to conflict might be possible? Millennia-old religious traditions? A prophet? Common sense? Certainly the last place one would expect to find it: a race of hardened warriors in a hardened land, where a gun is part of the common attire and tribal feuds last for generations.…
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Waging Nonviolence
You might not believe it, but I’m now involved with yet another website. I never seem to be able to say no to a good thing. So if checking The Row Boat and Killing the Buddha all the time isn’t enough for you, here’s one more: wagingnonviolence.org. When I first arrived in New York, I…
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The Original Peaceniks
My review of Joseph Kip Kosek’s Acts of Conscience appears in this week’s Commonweal. The online version is subscription-only, but the magazine is well worth picking up at your local newsstand. In his new history of Christian nonviolence from World War I to Vietnam, Joseph Kip Kosek asks what this movement has offered American democracy,…
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Work Is Love Made Visible
On the subway last night, for the third time in recent months, I happily ran into E—we’d met at a party once, and we’ve been building a little friendship out of chance meetings on the C train. I was with my friends, and he was with his. His friends happened to mention that they regretted…