Creating the Beloved CommunityA Journey with the Fellowship of Reconciliation by Paul Dekar |
This history of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in the United States shows that FOR members have been practical dreamers, both imagining a more peaceful world and working to realize the dream. FOR has inspired and empowered generations of peacemakers working to replace cultures of violence and war with cultures of nonviolence. In writing their story, the author seeks to help readers live the vision of the beloved community, that all might dwell in peace.
Members of FOR, whose vision intertwined with that of Martin Luther King Jr., have lived into his words spoken February 25, 1967 in Los Angeles: "The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means."
Creating the Beloved Community grows out of the author's 40-year involvement with the peace movement, including experience as a founder of the peace studies program at McMaster University. A member of FOR throughout that period, Dekar shares the convictions of a movement that for 90 years, since its founding in 1915, has called for rejecting participation in war. Dekar has combined personal acquaintance with FOR and careful research to produce a history both passionate and thorough.
"With compassion and conviction, Dekar has written not only an engaging narrative of the FOR - its religious roots, its comprehensive moral actions through the years, and its indispensable role in our collective future - but also a manifesto of hope for those of us who still dream of a beloved community emerging out of our broken world." - Michael G. Long, Asst. Prof. of Religious Studies, Elizabethtown College; Author of Martin Luther King Jr. on Creative Living
About the Author
Paul R. Dekar, Memphis, Tennesee, is Niswonger Professor at Memphis Theological Seminary and Adjunct Professor at the University of Memphis. In addition to teacher, he is a peacemaker, social activist, and visionary. Over a 30-year teaching career, he has sought to unite scholarship, spirituality, and a passion for transformative peacemaking. Dekar has taught introductory and elective courses in peace studies, religious studies, history, and theology at universities in Australia, Canada, and the United States.