Brothers in the Beloved Community
Brothers in the Beloved Community

Author: Marc Andrus

Publisher: Parallax Press

Published: 2021-11-16

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 1946764914

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The “beautiful and wise account” of Martin Luther King Jr. and Zen Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh, who “gave greater life to all of us through their remarkable friendship and shared vision of nonviolence” (Joan Halifax, author of Standing at the Edge). The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a heartbroken letter to their mutual friend Raphael Gould. He said: "I did not sleep last night. . . . They killed Martin Luther King. They killed us. I am afraid the root of violence is so deep in the heart and mind and manner of this society. They killed him. They killed my hope. I do not know what to say. . . . He made so great an impression in me. This morning I have the impression that I cannot bear the loss." Only a few years earlier, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote an open letter to Martin Luther King Jr. as part of his effort to raise awareness and bring peace in Vietnam. There was an unexpected outcome of Nhat Hanh's letter to King: The two men met in 1966 and 1967 and became not only allies in the peace movement, but friends. This friendship between two prophetic figures from different religions and cultures, from countries at war with one another, reached a great depth in a short period of time. Dr. King nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967. He wrote: "Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man, for he is humble and devout. He is a scholar of immense intellectual capacity. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity." The two men bonded over a vision of the Beloved Community: a vision described recently by Congressman John Lewis as "a nation and world society at peace with itself." It was a concept each knew of because of their membership within the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an international peace organization, and that Martin Luther King Jr. had been popularizing through his work for some time. Thich Nhat Hanh, Andrus shows, took the lineage of the Beloved Community from King and carried it on after his death.

Search for the Beloved Community
Search for the Beloved Community

Author: Kenneth L. Smith

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780817012823

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Updated from the original version published in 1974, this book examines the thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the influences that shaped it. Kenneth L. Smith's firsthand knowledge of King's seminary studies provides the background for an incisive analysis of the influences of the Christian tradition.

The Beloved Community
The Beloved Community

Author: Charles Marsh

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2008-07-31

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 0786722193

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A noted theologian explains how the radical idea of Christian love animated the African American civil rights movement and how it can power today's social justice struggles Speaking to his supporters at the end of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, Martin Luther King, Jr., declared that their common goal was not simply the end of segregation as an institution. Rather, "the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption, the end is the creation of the beloved community." King's words reflect the strong religious convictions that motivated the African American civil rights movement. As King and his allies saw it, "Jesus had founded the most revolutionary movement in human history: a movement built on the unconditional love of God for the world and the mandate to live in that love." Through a commitment to this idea of love and to the practice of nonviolence, civil rights leaders sought to transform the social and political realities of twentieth-century America. In The Beloved Community, theologian and award-winning author Charles Marsh traces the history of the spiritual vision that animated the civil rights movement and shows how it remains a vital source of moral energy today. The Beloved Community lays out an exuberant new vision for progressive Christianity and reclaims the centrality of faith in the quest for social justice and authentic community.

Toward the Beloved Community
Toward the Beloved Community

Author: Lewis V. Baldwin

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13:

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Showing how King's life and legacy played--and continue to play--a profound role in the liberation of South Africa from apartheid, this work draws on King's private letters and published works to connect his life and thought with that of South African leaders. A brilliant testament to the global influence of King.

A More Perfect Union
A More Perfect Union

Author: Adam Russell Taylor

Publisher: Broadleaf Books

Published: 2021-09-14

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1506464548

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America is at a pivotal crossroads. The soul of our nation is at stake and in peril. A new public narrative is needed to unite Americans around common values and to counter the increasing discord and acrimony in our politics and culture. The process of healing and creating a more perfect union in our nation must start now. The moral vision of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Beloved Community, which animated and galvanized the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, provides a hopeful way forward. In A More Perfect Union, Adam Russell Taylor, president of Sojourners, reimagines a contemporary version of the Beloved Community that will inspire and unite Americans across generations, geographic and class divides, racial and gender differences, faith traditions, and ideological leanings. In the Beloved Community, neither privilege nor punishment is tied to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or economic status, and everyone is able to realize their full potential and thrive. Building the Beloved Community requires living out a series of commitments, such as true equality, radical welcome, transformational interdependence, E Pluribus Unum ("out of many, one"), environmental stewardship, nonviolence, and economic equity. By building the Beloved Community we unify the country around a shared moral vision that transcends ideology and partisanship, tapping into our most sacred civic and religious values, enabling our nation to live up to its best ideals and realize a more perfect union.

Building King's Beloved Community
Building King's Beloved Community

Author: Donald M. Chinula

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2009-11-01

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 1608991431

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How does oppression manifest itself in the structures and systems of society? What are the psychological and theological issues surrounding the phenomena of a tortured self-identity and diminished self-esteem? Through the study of King's life and witness, Building King's Beloved Community seeks to inspire and suggest a prophetic practice that will broaden and inform the paradigm for pastoral caregiving in responding to the needs of oppressed people in any context--especially where Christianity is practiced.

Welcoming Justice
Welcoming Justice

Author: Charles Marsh

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2018-11-20

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13: 0830873902

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Historian and theologian Charles Marsh partners with veteran activist John Perkins to chronicle God's vision for a more equitable and just world. Now updated to reflect on current social realities, this book shows how abandoned places are being restored, divisions are being reconciled, and what individuals and communities are now doing to welcome peace and justice.

Racial Justice and Nonviolence Education
Racial Justice and Nonviolence Education

Author: Arthur Romano

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-07-14

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 1000595439

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This book examines the role that community-based educators in violence-affected cities play in advancing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s radical nonviolent vision for racial and social justice. This work argues that nonviolence education can help communities build capacity to disrupt and transform cycles of violence by recognizing that people impacted by violence are effective educators and vital knowledge producers who develop unique insights into racial oppression and other forms of systemic harm. This book focuses on informal education that takes place beyond school walls, a type of education that too often remains invisible and undervalued in both civil society and scholarly research. It draws on thousands of hours of work with the Connecticut Center for Nonviolence (CTCN), a grassroots organization that presents an ideal case study of the implementation of King’s core principles of nonviolence in 21st-century urban communities. Stories of educators’ life-changing educational encounters, their successes and failures, and their understanding of the six principles of Kingian nonviolence animate the text. Each chapter delves into one of the six principles by introducing the reader to the lives of these educators, providing a rich analysis of how educators teach each principle, and sharing academic resources for thinking more deeply about each principle. Against the backdrop of today’s educational system, in which reductive and caricatured treatments of King are often presented within the formal classroom, CTCN’s work outside of the classroom takes a fundamentally different approach, connecting King’s thinking around nonviolence principles to working for racial justice in cities deeply impacted by violence. This book will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, race studies, politics and education studies, as well as to practitioners in the field.

Community
Community

Author: Peter Block

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Published: 2009-09-01

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1605095362

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Most of our communities are fragmented and at odds within themselves. Businesses, social services, education, and health care each live within their own worlds. The same is true of individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. What keeps this from changing is that we are trapped in an old and tired conversation about who we are. If this narrative does not shift, we will never truly create a common future and work toward it together. What Peter Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation. How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? What can individuals and formal leaders do to create a place they want to inhabit? We know what healthy communities look like—there are many success stories out there. The challenge is how to create one in our own place. Block helps us see how we can change the existing context of community from one of deficiencies, interests, and entitlement to one of possibility, generosity, and gifts. Questions are more important than answers in this effort, which means leadership is not a matter of style or vision but is about getting the right people together in the right way: convening is a more critical skill than commanding. As he explores the nature of community and the dynamics of transformation, Block outlines six kinds of conversation that will create communal accountability and commitment and describes how we can design physical spaces and structures that will themselves foster a sense of belonging. In Community, Peter Block explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen.