Resources to share with friends and neighbors on Christ's peace

Books

Weathering the Storm: Christian Pacifist Responses to War
A collection of essays by various authors: Duane Friesen, Helmut Harder,
James Longacre, Hubert Brown and others. 1991.

A very helpful book, coming from Faith & Life press after the Gulf War, but it is out of print. (Check your church library or borrow it from anywhere in the U.S. via inter-library loan from your public library.)

The first chapters are on the theological foundations of pacifism: Helmut Harder's "What We Believe," James Longacre's "Pacifism and Patriotism" and Hubert Brown's "War's Impact on the Poor." Also George Dyck's "Where Will War Lead Us."

The following books from the Herald Press Peace and Justice series are easy reading and short:

Making War and Making Peace: Why Some Christians Fight and Some Don't
by Dennis Byler.1989. 102p.

(Describes how Augustine, in the 400's, originated criteria for a "just war" and follows this thinking through history until nuclear warfare. Then details the understandings of Jesus that lead others to pacifism.)

How Christians Made Peace with War: Early Christian Understandings of War
by John Driver. 1988. 89p.

(Goes up until Constantine, in 312, discussing how "between 100 and 312 no Christian writers, to our knowledge, approved of Christian participation in warfare. In fact, all those who wrote on the subject disapproved of the practice.")

The Way God Fights: War and Peace in the Old Testament
by Lois Barrett. 1987. 78p.

(Even in the Old Testament peace was found, not in waging war, but through faith in God. "Instead of trusting in modern weapons, Israel was to trust in God to win the battle," the author writes. After Israel made a covenant with God at Shechem, God said, "I give you the victory….Your swords and bows had nothing to do with it"--Josh.24:11-12 TEV)

Brochures

The Peacemaking Commitment of the Mennonite Central Committee (by Atlee Beechy, 1986. Free.) www.mcc.org/peace/info/resource.html
Called to Be Peacemakers (Free.) www.mcc.org/peace/info/resource.html
Portraits of a Peacemaker (MCC Canada)
Fighting like Heaven by William Keeney (MCC Peace Section) Contrasts the "army" under Jesus as "Commander in Chief" with the military…. (some copies of these two available from Anne Meyer Byler: ambyler@maplenet.net)