The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton's Advice to Peacemakers eBook: Jim Forest: Amazon.com.au: Kindle Store
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Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 2965 KB
Print Length: 224 pages
Publisher: ORBIS (18 August 2016)
Sold by: Amazon Australia Services, Inc.
Language: English
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Amazon.com: 5.0 out of 5 stars 9 reviews
Long Island Giraldo
5.0 out of 5 stars...one would be hard-pressed to find a better primer. Beautifully written from a first-person perspective...
10 August 2016 - Published on Amazon.com
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As a young man in the 1960s, Jim Forest twice visited Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, poet, spiritual writer and social critic, at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky --- early in 1962-- and again in the autumn of 1964.
He corresponded extensively with Merton during that tumultuous decade and theirs was largely "a friendship of letters."
Forest, a co-founder of the Catholic Peace Fellowship during the ramp-up to the Vietnam conflict, has served as the International Secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, based in the Netherlands, since 1989.
He previously penned a popular pictorial biography of Merton, copiously illustrated with sketches, line drawings and rare photos, including shots that Forest took at Gethsemani.
His revised life of Dorothy Day, ALL IS GRACE, recently received the Catholic Press Association's "Biography of the Year" and "Book of the Year" awards.
Cicero famously wrote: "A true friend is a second self."
Those who desire insight and awareness into the dynamics of friendship will find kindred spirits here.
Anyone interested in the interaction between spirituality and social justice; conscience formation; nuclear arms proliferation; the morality of the Vietnam War; non-violent protest; and, Merton's and Forest's relationships with key figures such as Dorothy Day and the Berrigan brothers would be hard-pressed to find a better primer.
Forest's sensitive treatment of Catholic Worker Roger LaPorte's tragic death by self-immolation as a "victim soul" in protest of the Vietnam War in November, 1965 and his detailed account of the November, 1964 weekend retreat hosted by Merton at the abbey on "The Spiritual Roots of Protest" for a dozen ecumenical peace activists, among them Forest himself, merit particular attention.
Beautifully written from a first-person perspective with excellent documentation and unique access to primary sources, Jim
Forest scored another literary bull's eye with this tribute to his "soul-friend," mentor and spiritual guide, Thomas Merton.
Added bonuses include the attractive lay-out and design and the rare photographs that grace the pages of this affordable trade paperback.
Highly recommended.
Read less9 people found this helpful.
X. Libris
5.0 out of 5 starsRoots of the Christian Peace Movement in the 1960s and its relevance to us today
23 July 2017 - Published on Amazon.com
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In 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, I made the decision to apply for conscientious objector status with the Selective Service System. In the previous year, I had become a draft-resistor, sending my draft card back to the draft board, but in mid-1969 I had a “born again” experience, becoming part of the so-called “Jesus Freaks,” and made the decision to get right with the government. In my search for information to support my conscientious objector claim from a Christian perspective, I visited the bookstore of the American Friends Service Committee in Seattle, where I found two booklets published by the Catholic Peace Fellowship.
The first was “Blessed Are the Meek: Christian Roots of Nonviolence,” by the Roman Catholic monk and author, Thomas Merton. The other was “Catholics and Conscientious Objection,” by James H. Forest. These two booklets, along with my own studies of the New Testament (most notably the “Sermon on the Mount”) became the foundation for my defense before the draft board. I was subsequently granted I-O (conscientious objector) status, but later was reclassified 4-F (a medical deferment) for health reasons.
These two booklets whetted my appetite to learn more about the peacemaker roots of the Christian faith, in spite of the fact that I gradually got absorbed into Evangelical Christianity (and therefore the more pro-military Religious Right). When I began a more serious study of Early Christian writings in the 1990s, I eventually left Evangelicalism and embraced the Eastern Orthodox Church. There I was surprised to rediscover the author of one of the above-mentioned booklets, Jim Forest, who had become a founding member of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship.
All this is to say that this book, “The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton’s Advice to Peacemakers,” is a return to my spiritual roots in the Christian peace movement. I finally got to see what went on in the developing relationship between Jim Forest and Thomas Merton. While this book is about Merton’s thinking and writings on peace, it is also an autobiographical account of Jim’s journey during the 1960s, when he left the Navy as a conscientious objector, got involved with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement in New York City, and how as a writer, he began corresponding with the well-known monk, author and peace activist, Thomas Merton. Out of this grew the Catholic Peace Fellowship, of which Jim Forest was a founding co-chair (and which published the two booklets that helped shape my thinking).
When I read his booklet in 1969, I was only vaguely aware of Merton, knowing that he had written a best-selling spiritual autobiography, “The Seven Storey Mountain,” and that his name frequently popped up in peace literature. What I did not know is that he had tragically died on December 10, 1968, about the same time that I became a draft-resister.
Thanks largely to his friendship with Jim Forest, whom I had the opportunity of meeting in Amsterdam in 2011, I have become more interested in the writings of Merton, and this book does much to increase my fascination with his contribution to faith, peace and spirituality. I highlighted numerous passages in the book, but will share only a few of them as they pertain to peace and the Christian faith.
“The early Christians started with the works of mercy and it was this technique which converted the world. The corporal works are to feed the hungry; to give drink to the thirsty; to clothe the naked; to harbor the harborless; to ransom the captive; to visit the sick; to bury the dead. The spiritual works are to instruct the ignorant; to counsel the doubtful; to admonish sinners; to bear wrongs patiently; to forgive offense willingly; to comfort the afflicted; to pray for the living and the dead. Not all of these works are within the reach of all—that is understood. But that we should take part in some of them is a matter of obligation, a strict precept imposed both by the natural and Divine law.” (Dorothy Day, quoted on page 21)
In the original 1949 version of “The Root of War Is Fear,” Thomas Merton wrote: “It does not even seem to enter our minds that there might be some incongruity in praying to a God of peace, the God who told us to love one another as he loved us, who warned us that they who took the sword would perish by it, and at the same time annihilate not thousands but millions of civilians and soldiers, women and children without discrimination.” Only love, he wrote, “can exorcise the fear which is at the root of war.” (page 28)
“Christians must become active in every possible way, mobilizing all their resources for the fight against war…Peace is to be preached, nonviolence is to be explained as a practical method…Prayer and sacrifice must be used as the most effective weapons in the war against war…We may never succeed in this campaign, but whether we succeed or not, the duty is evident.” (Thomas Merton, quoted on page 31)
“A Christian is committed to the belief that Love and Mercy are the most powerful forces on earth. Hence every Christian is bound by his baptismal vocation, as far as he can, with God’s grace, to make those forces effective in his life, to the point where they dominate his actions. Naturally no one is bound to attain to the full perfection of charity. But a Christian who forgets that this is his goal, ceases by that fact to live and act as a genuine Christian. We must strive, then, to imitate Christ and His sacrifice, in so far as we are able. We must keep in mind His teaching that supreme love consists in laying down one’s life for one’s friends.
“This means that a Christian will never simply allow himself to develop a state of mind in which, forgetting his Christian ideal, he thinks in purely selfish and pragmatic terms. Our rights certainly remain, but they do not entitle us to develop a hard-boiled callous, selfish outlook, a ‘me first’ attitude. This is that rugged individualism which is so unchristian and which modern movements in Catholic spirituality have so justly deplored.” (Thomas Merton, quoted on pages 35-36)
“It is absurd and immoral to pretend that Christendom can be defended by the H[ydrogen]-bomb. As Saint Augustine would say, the weapon with which we would attempt to destroy the enemy would pass through our own hearts to reach him. We would be annihilated morally…” (Thomas Merton, quoted on page 48)
“The obliteration bombing of cities on both sides, culminating in the total destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by one plane with one bomb for each, had completely changed the nature of war. Traditional standards no longer applied because…there was no longer any distinction made between civilian and combatant… [In fact] the slaughter of civilians was explicitly intended as a means of “breaking enemy morale” and thus breaking the “will to resist.” This was pure terrorism, and the traditional doctrine of ware excluded such immoral methods…These methods were practiced by the enemy [at the war’s start, but by the time] the war ended they were bequeathed to the western nations.” (Thomas Merton, quoted on page 53)
[N]o one could any longer claim that the standards of the just war doctrine, requiring not only a just cause but just methods that shelter noncombatant lives, were being respected. (Page 53)
“Whether we like it or not, we have to admit we are already living in a post-Christian world, that is to say a world in which Christian ideals and attitudes are relegated more and more to the minority… It is frightening to realize that the façade of Christianity which still generally survives has perhaps little or nothing behind it, and that what was once called “Christian society” is more purely and simply a materialistic neo-paganism with a Christian veneer…” (Thomas Merton, quoted on page 60)
“I wish to insist above all on one fundamental truth: that all nuclear war, and indeed massive destruction of cities, populations, nations and cultures by any means whatever, is a most serious crime which is forbidden to us not only by Christian ethics but by every sane and serious moral code.” (Thomas Merton, quoted on page 62)
Thomas Merton reminded his readers that at the core of Christianity is respect for the life of another, whether friend or enemy. (page 63)
Merton explored the history of the Christian response to war in the first several centuries, when refusal to take part in war was as normal as the refusal to regard the emperor as a god, and the gradual development of a “just war” theology, a doctrine initially sketched out by Saint Augustine in the fifth century of the Christian era. (page 64)
No doubt [Thomas Merton] would remind us once again that Christ waves no flags and that Christianity belongs to no political power bloc. Once again he would affirm that “an essential part of the ‘good news’ is that nonviolent and reasonable measures are stronger than weapons. Indeed, by spiritual arms, the early Church conquered the entire Roman world.” (page 72)
For Merton the Christian humanist sees the other, including his enemy, not merely as a convenient or inconvenient object but as another self, “no less deserving of the divine mercy than I am.” (page 76)
Genuine nonviolence for Merton had to be more than a negative state of demonstrating without violence. Protest may be superficially nonviolent and yet communicate contempt for one’s adversaries and bring out the worst in them.” (page 81)
“Though not a total pacifist in theory myself, I certainly believe that every Christian should try to practice nonviolence rather than violence and that some should bind themselves to follow only the way of peace as an example to the others.” (Thomas Merton, quoted on page 85)
The problem for contemporary Christians…. is to end the identification of Christianity with those forms of political society that dominate Europe and the West, just as was done by the early Christian monks in the fourth century in distancing themselves from a church that had become the object of imperial favor, membership in which meant career advancement…(page 96)
[Jean Danielou] spoke to us [the founding members of the Catholic Peace Fellowship] about theologians of the first centuries of the Christian era, such saints as Gregory of Nyssa and his brother Basil the Great, who, using the modern term could be described as pacifists. (page 107)
Our [the Catholic Peace Fellowship’s] main goals were to organize Catholic opposition to the Vietnam War and launch a campaign to make known the fact that conscientious objection to the war was an option not only for members of specifically pacifist “peace churches” but for Catholics as well. (page 109)
…Merton had remarked that he did not think the emerging war in Vietnam met any of the requirements to be regarded as just. “Because a few people in America want power and wealth, a lot of Vietnamese…and Americans have been and will be sacrificed.” (page 110)
Peacemaking begins with seeing, seeing what is really going on around us, seeing ourselves in relation to the world we are part of, seeing our lives in the light of the kingdom of God, seeing those who suffer, and seeing the image of God not only in friends but in enemies. (page 116)
In raising the “by what right” question, Merton forced us to consider that protest, if it is to have any hope of constructive impact on others, has to be undertaken not only with great care but with a genuine sympathy and compassion for those who don’t understand or who object to one’s protest, who feel threatened and angered by it, who even regard the protester as a traitor. After all, what protest at its best aims at is not just to make a dissenting noise but to help others think freshly about or social order and the direction we are going. The protestor needs to remember that no one is converted by anger, self-righteousness, contempt, or hatred…Protest can backfire, harden people in their opposition, bring out the worst in the other… If it is to be transformative, protest needs to be animated by love, not love in the sentimental sense but in the sober biblical sense of the word. Hence, Christ’s insistence on love of enemies. “Until we love our enemies,” Merton said, “we’re not yet Christians.” (page 117)
Ideally, protest aims at change that benefits everyone. (page 117)
One of the issues Merton raised was how untroubled most Christians were by the militarization of American life and the blurring together of national and religious identity. Summoned to war, few say no or even imagine saying no. Merton saw this as a problem not only in America but wherever nationalism is the primary shaper of one’s identity. (page 119)
“There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” (A.J. Muste, quoted on page 120)
Read more4 people found this helpful.
Ronald T. Clemmons
5.0 out of 5 starsAuthor Traces Merton's Peacemaking Views
2 October 2016 - Published on Amazon.com
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The centennial commemoration of Thomas Merton’s birth last year produced a plethora of books about the Cistercian monk whose influence on Christian spirituality is still being felt. Jim Forest’s book may be the most insightful of all these tomes.
Using letters and the personal interactions he experienced with Merton, the author meticulously traces the development of Merton’s anti-war stance, along with the problems he had to overcome within his religious Order to publish his opinions. Moreover, the reader gets an inside view of the birth of the Catholic Peace Fellowship since book’s author is one of founders, and Merton’s philosophy was instrumental in the organization’s foundation.
Although the book centers on the Vietnam War, the content is still as fresh as it was fifty years ago. Christians are still killing others despite the teaching of the Gospels. What is the church’s position on war and how should it help men and women who refuse to serve on grounds of religious conflict? This book will make you rethink your position on war; you may not alter your opinion, but it will force you to reexamined your conscience. Few books make such an impact on the reader.6 people found this helpful.
J. A. Donaghy
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat advice in a time of fear
12 September 2016 - Published on Amazon.com
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In a time of fear, it is very helpful to read Jim Forest's recent book on Thomas Merton, centered on Merton's works on peacemaking. Not only do we find important excerpts from Merton's books and articles, as well as letters to Forest, Forest has helped us to read Merton in context of merton's life and times.
Forest's analysis opens up dimensions of Merton that are very important for those seek peace in times of fear and violence and helps me to re-evaluate and deepen my efforts to be a Christian peacemaker.5 people found this helpful.
Tom L.
5.0 out of 5 starsSimple. Honest. Amazing.
6 December 2018 - Published on Amazon.com
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Amazing
