Peace Testimony Workshop – Advance Readings

Advance Reading includes both “Required” and “Recommended” works. While workshop participants are encouraged to read recommended texts, required texts are crucial to ensure that the workshop will be a deep and meaningful experience. It is suggested that numerous copies of the required texts are made available to Meeting members and attendees by the Meeting; please ask the PRC facilitator assigned to your Meeting if you’d like help arranging this.

Required Readings: Approximately 316 pages

  1. “The Peace Testimony” by Tom Paxson. Published in The Fragmentation of the Church and its Unity in Peacemaking. Published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001, and edited by Jeffery Gros and John D. Rempel.
  2. “Peace Be with You: A Study of the Spiritual Basis of the Friends Peace Testimony” by Sandra Cronk. Published by The Tract Association of Friends. Click here to read the full document.
  3. “A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness” by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela. Published by Houghton Mifflin, 2003. [This reading is actually a complete book, available for sale at Amazon.com.]
  4. “The Position of the Society of Friends with Regard to War”: 1952 Compilation of Friends Statements of Peace.
  5. “The Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5:1; 7:28)
  6. Selected readings by African peacemakers collected through the work of the African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI): “Love Has Replaced Hatred: A Visit to Gitega (Burundi) Prison” by Adrien Niyongabo and “Frozen in Time: Escaping the Victim-Abuser-Rescuer Triangle” by Laura Shipler Chico.
  7. “A Plea for the Poor or A Word of Remembrance and Caution to the Rich” by John Woolman, specifically Chapter 10; printed as part of Journal of John Woolman and a Plea for the Poor. Published by Citadel Press, 1972. [This reading is actually a complete book, available for sale at Amazon.com.]
  8. “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” by Reverend Martin Luther King (Sermon was given April 4, 1967)
  9. “Peaceable Kingdom” (Isaiah, 11:6-9)
  10. “A Declaration From the Harmless and Innocent People of God, Called Quakers, Against all Sedition, Plotters, and Fighters in the World: For Removing the Ground of Jealousy and Suspicion from Magistrates and People Concerning Wars and Fightings.” Presented to the King Upon the 21st day of the 11th month, 1660.

Recommended Readings:

  1. “No Future Without Forgiveness” by Desmond Tutu. Published by Random House, 2000.
  2. “Powers that Be: Theology for a New Millennium” by Walter Wink. Published by Doubleday, 1999.
  3. “Jesus and the Way to Peace” by A.J. Muste. Original pamphlet published in the 1950s; reprinted 10/2006 by permission. OCR by D.H.F. for ILYM.
  4. “Saints for this Age” by A.J. Muste. (Pendle Hill Pamphlet No. 124)
  5. “A Testament of Devotion” by Thomas R. Kelly. Published by HarperCollins, 1996 (originally published in 1941).
  6. “The Intrepid Quaker: One Man’s Quest for Peace – Memoirs, Speeches, and Writings of Stephen G. Cary.” Published by Pendle Hill, 2004, and edited by Alison Anderson and Jack Coleman.
  7. “Voices in Wartime” DVD documentary by Rick King (2004).