Building a Culture of Peace

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. ""Always a minority but always passionate about living into peace, the BPFNA has been a beacon of hope for peace-and-justice Baptists all over the world. This story needed to be told. Paul Dekar, as a life-long activist and good historian, brings it to life, reminding us in a lively way--through real people and events--of the centrality of following Jesus our peacemaker."" --Ross Langmead Dean and Professor of Missiology, Whitley College, Melbourne, Australia ""Regrettably, the work of the Baptist Peace Fellowship has remained a well-kept secret. Hopefully Paul Dekar's generous scholarship--seasoned by his first-hand participation in much of this narrative--will push the lid off the story so its illuminating power is further unleashed. Jubilate Deo!"" --Rev. Ken Sehested founding director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America ""I've completed the book to my great joy and satisfaction. Paul Dekar has done a terrific job and is obviously the only person in our midst who could have done it. Had we not had Paul, we would simply lose this history as our preserved, continuing story. Paul is a wonderful historian, a wonderful man, and the greatest of friends."" --George Williamson ""I enjoyed every minute reading this book. It's a treasure. It's a story that needed to be told, one that is filled with the kind of heroes that so often remain unsung, the peacemaking kind. --Lee A. McKenna Association of Ontario Health Centres and conflict transformation facilitator, Toronto, Ontario 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.