Building a Culture of Peace: Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, the First Seventy Years

by Paul R. Dekar

Overview

Around the world, thousands of grassroots movements are confronting issues like destruction of the environment, economic depression, human rights violations, religious fundamentalism, and war. This book tells the courageous story of one such group. Organizing in 1939, Northern Baptists formed the Baptist Pacifist Fellowship as part of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Southern Baptists formed a parallel body. Like today, it was a time when sources of hope seemed hard to find. Discerning a need to support and connect Baptist conscientious objectors in the United States, members faced hostility in congregations and the nation. For the duration of the Second World War, the Korean War, war in Vietnam and elsewhere, Baptists sustained a witness for peace and justice. By 1984, threat of nuclear weapons led to formation of a wider circle of resistance to the culture of war. Subsequently, the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America has brought together Baptist peacemakers from around North America and the world. However small in numbers or reviled, members have been building a culture of peace through an interracial and international community. This book is an invaluable resource for those seeking a new world of forgiveness, respect for human rights, nonviolence, and peace.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630877071
Publisher:	Wipf & Stock Publishers
Publication date:	01/01/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	292
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Paul R. Dekar engages in the Community of the Transfiguration, whose journey as a new monastic community is the subject of his most recent book, published by Cascade Books in 2009. He is Chair of the National Council of the United States chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Emeritus Professor, Memphis Theological Seminary.
Paul R. Dekar, Professor Emeritus at Memphis Theological Seminary, volunteers with Dundas Community Services, Canadian Friends Service Committee, Canadian Interfaith Reference Group, and wrote Thomas Merton: God’s Messenger on the Road towards a New World (2021); Dangerous People: The Fellowship of Reconciliation Building a Nonviolent World of Justice, Peace, and Freedom (2016); “In an Inescapable Network of Mutuality”: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Globalization of an Ethical Ideal (with Lewis V. Baldwin, 2013). Paul and Nancy have two sons and four grandkids.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations ix

Acknowledgments xi

Foreword Mary Lin Hudson xiii

Introduction 1

1 The Baptist Pacifist Fellowship 17

2 Living in the Shadow of Nuclear Annihilation 43

3 Creating a Network of Resistance, Affirmation, and Celebration 71

4 Building Blocks for a Culture of Peace: Programs and Publications 111

5 Building Blocks for a Global Network 139

6 Building Blocks for a More Inclusive Vision 165

7 Where Do We Go From Here? 189

Afterword Liliane Kshensky Baxter 209

Appendices

1 Officers 213

2 Peace Camps 215

3 Friendship Tours 216

4 International Projects 218

5 Two Prayers 221

6 For Such a Time as This Jerene Broadway 225

7 Two Reflections on the School of the Americas 227

8 With Such a Cloud of Witnesses Peter J. B. Carman 231

9 Let us Seek Justice: A Reflection Following the Death of Amadou Diallo Evelyn Hanneman 232

10 Selections from Peace Soup 235

11 Model Ministries for November 2008 239

12 St. Peter and the Jerusalem Protocol Ken Sehested 246

13 Reflections on Lynchburg II: The Return of Soulforce to "Falwell Territory" Doug Donley 254

14 How Grace Gut-Punched Me in English Class David Emerson Lane 257

15 In the Valley of the Shadow: A September 11 Reflection Ken Sehested Kyle Childress 263

Bibliography 269