OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #152, NOVEMBER
15, 2023
CHRISTIANITY, RACE, NATIONALISM,
US EMPIRE, War and Peace
Dick. Books on Christian Nationalism
Pope Francis’s bookAgainst War: Building
a Culture of Peace
White Christian
Nationalism and Empire (and v. democracy)
More attention is needed to the role of religions in the
growth of US militarism and empire. Mainstream
church membership has declined, but the association of religion with right wing
ideology has apparently increased. Here
are some books:
Bradley Onishi. Preparing
for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism. Related:
Philip Gorski and Samuel Perry. The Flag and the Cross: White Christian
Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy.
Lerone Martin. The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise
of White Christian Nationalism.
Robert Jones. The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the
Path to a Shared American Future.
Robert Morgan, Fighting Words: A Toolkit
for Combating the Religious Right
Religions
are also a major source of peacemaking. The following event has passed, but information
about it is relevant to the subject of this number of WWW: Religion, War, and
Peace. I have supported and greatly
benefited from The Catholic Worker movement and its magazine for several
decades. I am also a grateful member of
World Beyond War and recommend all of founder David Swanson’s books.
Against War: Building a Culture of Peace by Pope Francis
In June 2023, World BEYOND War held a weekly discussion each of
four weeks of a new book by Pope Francis called Against War:
Building a Culture of Peace. The discussions were facilitated by Marie Dennis. About the Book (from
WBW): From the beginning of his
papacy, Pope Francis has made concern and action for peace and nonviolence one
of his signature themes. From his travels to Iraq and other war-torn regions to
his prophetic homilies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he has called the world to
pursue a different path. Now, with the recent crisis in the Ukraine, his
powerful voice is more prophetic and necessary than ever. Pope Francis:
"Faced with the images of death that come to us from Ukraine, it is
difficult to hope. Yet there are seeds of hope. There are millions who do not
aspire to war, who do not justify war . . . . Millions of young people who are
asking us to do everything possible and seemingly impossible to stop the war, to stop all wars. It is in thinking first of all of them, of
young people and children that we must repeat together: Never again war! And
together we must commit ourselves to building a world that is more peaceful
because it is more just, where it is peace that triumphs and not the folly of
war; justice, and not the injustice of war; mutual forgiveness, and not the
hatred that divides and makes us see the other, the person who is different
from us, as an enemy."
Here is an excerpt from a review of the book by World BEYOND War Executive Director
David Swanson. About Marie Dennis: Marie Dennis is senior advisor to the
secretary general of Pax Christi International, the global Catholic peace
movement, and program chair of Pax Christi’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative.
She was co-president of Pax Christi International from 2007 to 2019 and is a
Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace. She is
author or co-author of seven books, editor of Choosing
Peace: The Catholic Church Returns to Gospel Nonviolence (Orbis Books,
2017) and co-editor of Advancing Nonviolence in the Church and the
World (Pax Christi International 2020).