The Nonviolent Alternative

By Thomas Merton

Book Overview

The writings in this work were precipitated by a variety of events during the last decades of Merton's life - the civil rights and peace movements of the 1960s among them. His timeless moral integrity and tireless concern for nonviolent solutions to war are eloquently expressed.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374515751
• ISBN13: 9780374515751
• Release Date: June 1981
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 270 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

NECESSARY AND CHRISTIAN SOLUTIONS TO TODAY'S MORASS OF VIOLENCE

Certainly no one more than Father Thomas Merton himself, Trappist monk and hermit and writer, would be more concerned by the excesses of "Tomolatry" which emerged after his tragic assassination in 1968. Nevertheless, he remains the most critical, brilliant, intelligent, wise, courageous, instructive, ethical, moral and faith-based voice in our nation, and his writings increasingly teach us essential lessons for living in Peace and in Christ. As we today witness the ineluctable surge of endless and counter-productive military violence which cannot possibly construct a stable and peaceful society in Iraq, we need now to remember this informative, ethical, moral, and faith based collection of essays by Father Merton. He as so often writes with such profound moral and Christian principle that he could be writing for us today. Would that he could! This important collection of Father Merton's prayers, meditations and exhortations, originally published posthumously as Thomas Merton On Peace, opens with a lengthy, scholarly and brilliant essay by the great Gordon C. Zahn, defining the terms and raising the issues which the writings of Merton address throughout this substantial book. Zahn's essay in itself is sufficient feast for reflection on our times and on our individual states of grace, yet it merely serves like Virgil in Dante's trilogy to guide and introduce us to the wonders and truths which lie beyond. The collection of Father Merton writings are divided in three parts: Principles of Peace (eighteen essays), The Nonviolent Alternative (fifteen essays, including Blessed are the Meek: The Christian Roots of Nonviolence), and a series of Incidental Writings, including the Chant to be used in Processions around a site with Furnaces, of which the final line calls to us today: "Do not think yourself better because you burn up friends and enemies with long range missiles without ever seeing what you have done" This excellent collection ends with a Prayer for Peace which ought to be required reading at every Catholic liturgy this season, as originally read in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday of Holy Week in 1962, some 45 years ago April 12. This two page prayer justifies the small price of this great book, and should be graven in our hearts, for our continued conversion to Christ, Prince of Peace, to awaken us to the evil military peril we so softly accept as normal and right. Christ is the Nonviolent Alternative who alone can construct a peaceful society. Read this book and rediscover our True Faith.