Book Reviews

Abigail E Disney and Gini Reticker, USA, 2008 

This is a remarkable documentary about the journey from a cruel devastating war to peace for the people of Liberia. What makes it particularly remarkable is that it is a story of ordinary women - Christian and Muslim - working together to bring about peace in their beloved Liberia.

“Some say the war was about the gap between the rich and the poor. Some also say that the war was about the hatred between the different ethnic groups. Others say the war was to control natural resources. Power, money, ethnicity, greed. But there’s nothing, in my mind, that should make people do what they did to the children of Liberia.” [Leymah Gbowee]

Gbowe had a dream, a dream that she shared with her fellow Christians at St Peter’s Lutheran Church in Monrovia in June 2002, a dream that Christian women of all denominations in Monrovia should work together for peace.

Peace through Education and Dialogue

Since 11^th September, 2001, terrorism has been brought more acutely into the thinking of those in the West. Of course, terrorism is not a new occurrence. Random acts of violence in which innocent civilians are harmed or killed have been going on long before the Towers fell.

One of the most unfortunate aspects of the World Trade Centre act, and the London suicide bombings in 2005, was that the perpetrators professed to be Muslim. They claimed to carry out those acts in the name of Islam. This has meant that increasingly, there is a confluence in the minds of many between acts of terrorism and the practice of Islam.

The Children’s House of Belsen

Hetty E Verolme. Fremantle Press, 2000

The Fellowship of Australian Writers Winner of the Christina Stead Award 2000

Hetty now lives in Australia. She starts the book looking at her 13 year old daughter, going to school on the bus, eating well, trying to imitate the TV characters she admires and this reflection takes her back to the time when she was 13. She was neither carefree or even free.

This is a story about the imprisonment of Jews in Germany. Taken from Holland to Belsen , Hetty’s family are eventually separated and Hetty and her two younger brothers are put in a barrack with other children. Hetty and some of the older children assist with caring for the younger ones. Hetty becomes so helpful that she is not sent to an adult camp when she turns 14 but helps in the care of the young children – hiding her age. Scrounging for food, telling stories, organizing a couple of concerts and a couple of parties – all with meager resources help provide a sense of purpose when life seems to be very bleak, with little food, standards of hygiene disappearing and the constant fear can be overwhelming.

This is a book about the horrors of religious and racial discrimination, about war, about sometimes seeing the humanity of the enemy but not often. It is a story of resilience and children who become responsible and resourceful early in their childhood.

God is not one: the eight rival religions that run the world and why their differences matter 

Stephen Prothero. New York: HarperOne, 2010

Stephen Prothero is professor of Religion at Boston University. He is also the New York Times bestselling author of the book Religious Literacy published in 2007. This book, Prothero states, is in part written for those many respondents (to Religious Literacy) confessing their religious ignorance and asking for a single book they could read to become religiously literate. Prothero delivers. The book is very accessible to first time (religious & non-religious) readers exploring their way through the maze of at least eight of the world’s religions.

Prothero’s methodology is simple and based on a fourfold approach. Each religion articulates:

• a problem
• a solution to this problem, which also serves as the religious goal
• a technique (or techniques) for moving from this problem to this solution
• an exemplar (or exemplars) who chart this path from problem to solution

Mending a Torn World: Women in Interreligious Dialogue

Maura O’Neill, Orbis Books: New York, 2007.

As a woman who is interested and involved in dialogue and relationship with those of other faiths – in part due to an overlying interest in living peace-fully – the title of Maura O’Neill’s book drew my attention.

As its name would suggest, this book addresses the topic of dialogue between the faiths, with a particular emphasis on the input women have had in the past, and may go on to have in the future.

The text is divided, very helpfully (and in a way that assists readability), into two sections: the first defines and illustrates ‘the problem’, while the second proposes some ways forward.

The ‘problem’ – or more correctly ‘problems’ – as posed by the author, are that not only have women in the past been under-represented in inter-religious dialogue, but also there are a number of positions these women may take within the various faith traditions. Women practicing their faith may do so from any position on a spectrum ranging from ‘conservative’ to ‘centralist’ to ‘progressive’.

This very readable small book (125 pages) is one that I strongly recommend to all religious and political leaders. One could say that it’s a book about attitude and attitudes. It’s certainly a book that has the reader, at each point, saying “a-ha” and/or “I must look into this further”.

Its author Ian Burama is Professor of Democracy, Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College north of New York.

Burama writes in an easy almost colloquial style. For such a short book he touches on and critiques a vast range of human thought - religious, philosophical, political and social ideas as well as popular movements and uprisings all of which have led to the various relationships we have between “church and state”/”religion and state” on three continents - Europe, North America and Asia.