Peace Messenger

T.R.M. Howard - Adventist Physician and Civil Rights Activist

Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power
by David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito
University of Illinois Press / 2009

From the Publisher's Description: He was a mentor to civil rights activist Medgar Evers, a nemesis of J. Edgar Hoover, and a target of the Ku Klux Klan. He also played a key role in the search for truth in the Emmett Till murder case. As a trained medical doctor, he kept the secrets of the white elite, and although married to one woman for forty years, he had many personal peccadilloes. His life was often in great peril, and his home was protected by armed guards around the clock.

But T. R. M. Howard's impressive accomplishments and abilities vastly outshone his personal flaws and foibles. He was a dynamic civil rights pioneer and promoter of self-help and business enterprise among blacks.

"Black Maverick's wonderfully told story about an important personality sadly unknown to most students of the Civil Rights Movement is a more than welcome corrective. Dr. Howard's life and accomplishments need to be better known!"--Julian Bond, chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Dr. Howard was a graduate of Union College and the College of Medical Evangelists at Loma Linda. The North American Informant described him in 1966 as "a physician, civic leader, and humanitarian" who "has long been associated with, and has been a friend of Seventh-day Adventists" (Mar.-Apr 1966, p. 5).

Descent Into Chaos

Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia
by Ahmed Rashid
Viking / 2008

In his review of Descent Into Chaos in the New York Review of Books (12 Febr. 2009), William Dalrymple quotes Ahmed Rashid's delineation of the stark failure of the U.S. "war on terror":

Rather than diminishing, the threat from al Qaeda and its affiliates has grown, engulfing new regions of Africa, Asia, and Europe and creating fear among peoples from Australia to Zanzibar. The US invasions of two Muslim countries...[have] so far failed to contain either the original organization or the threat that now comes from its copycats...in British or French cities who have been mobilized through the Internet.

Afghanistan: A Winning Strategy

David Cortright of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies proposes a more powerful strategy for Afghanistan than sending more troops, as part of an overall set of recommendations for the new administration, posted at AlterNet, (18 December 2008): "In This Era of Hope, Obama Must Emprace a Genuine Agenda of Peace":

The deployment of additional troops to Afghanistan is unlikely to bring lasting security to the region or stem the flow of recruits and support to  al-Qaida. The presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan is the problem, not the solution. Political opposition to foreign military operations has grown in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the deployment of additional troops will only make matters worse, fueling further resistance and terrorist attacks.

War and military occupation are not an effective strategy against al-Qaida. The concept of a "war on terror" is misguided and counterproductive. Utilizing the rhetoric and policy of war turns the criminals who commit mass murder into warriors and presumed heroes within their communities....

Peace to War

Peace to War: Shifting Allegiances in the Assemblies of God
by Paul Alexander
Cascadia Publishing House / 2009

Publisher's Description (excerpt)
Once the Pentecostal peace witness extended throughout the movement and around the world—but was eventually muted and almost completely lost in the American Assemblies of God. This book tells the story of that shift....[C]conscientious objection and nonviolence [were] the official position of the Assemblies of God, 1917-1967. But by the end of the twentieth century, the majority of AOG pastors in America believed that Jesus himself would support war and that they should kill for their country if necessary.

Comment
"With the Pentecostal movement growing more rapidly than any other branch of Christianity, this book helps us understand how it lost its original deep commitment to the Prince of Peace and to peacemaking. But is also suggests that Pentecostals may yet reclaim this invaluable element of their heritage." —Harvey Cox, Author, Fire From Heaven; Hollis Professor of Divinity, Harvard Divinity School

"Alexander tells a story of the loss of a corporate crucifist vision, but more than that, he reveals how communities of faith can barter away important elements of Christian identity for acceptance and influence. The implications of this study are worth examining by all traditions asking the question, 'Will our children have faith?'" —Cheryl Bridges Johns, Professor of Christian Formation and Discipleship, Church of God Theological Seminary

Guided Missiles, Misguided Men

The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men and a Republic in Peril
by Eugene Jarecki
Free Press / 2008

Eugene Jarecki (pictured below) carries forward the exploration of the pervasive influence of the "military-industrial complex" in American culture presented in his powerful 2006 documentary Why We Fight.  The publisher describes The American Way of War as

a penetrating and revelatory inquiry into how forces within the American political, economic, and military systems have come to undermine the carefully crafted structure of our republic -- upsetting its balance of powers, vastly strengthening the hand of the president in taking the nation to war, and imperiling the workings of American democracy. This is a story not of simple corruption but of the unexpected origins of a more subtle and, in many ways, more worrisome disfiguring of our political system and society.

While in no way absolving George W. Bush and his inner circle of their accountability for misguiding the country into a disastrous war -- in fact, Jarecki sheds new light on the deepest underpinnings of how and why they did so -- he reveals that the forty-third president's predisposition toward war and Congress's acquiescence to his wishes must be understood as part of a longer story

In his farewell address 47 years ago, President Eisenhower identified the "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry" as both new and far- reaching. Its influence was not just military but "economic, political, even spiritual" thus involving "the very structure of our society."

Bringing to light the connections through which the military-industrial complex extends its influence throughout American culture is what made the Why We Fight documentary so effective. The "spiritual" aspect -- broad but very real ways -- comes through with depth and poigniance. If The American Way of War reinforces and extends the quality of analysis found in the documentary, it will be an exceptionally valuable book.