Bücher von Kerry Walters

Written to coincide with the September 2016 canonization of Mother Teresa by Pope Francis, this stirring new biography follows St. Teresa's life from Macedonia to the cloister in India to the streets of Calcutta to worldwide fame and the company of the saints. Readers will be inspired by the remarkable trajectory of her life, and the love of God that propelled it. Each chapter focuses on a different period in her one-of-a-kind life and ministry, beginning with her childhood and family life, her postulancy, novitiate, commitment to the Loreto Sisters, and her twenty years (1928-48) with them in India. Then, author Kerry Walters observes the 1946 turning point in Mother Teresa's life: her sense that God was calling her to dedicate herself to serving the poor of India, her leave-taking of the Loreto Sisters, and struggle for ecclesial approval for a new religious order. He also explores her 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, relationship with John Paul II, and work in the 1980s and 90s with war victims and AIDS patients. One of the most illuminating facets of this new biography is the posthumous revelation that Mother Teresa endured a 50-year "dark night of the soul," and how she persevered by realizing that it was a grace that allowed her to live Christ's Passion. Underlying all of the events of her life was the driving force behind her spirituality and ministry: her conviction that as miserable as physical hunger, lovelessness and exile are, their spiritual analogs are even worse--and that both the physical and the spiritual need to be addressed for humans to live as God intends. Readers will leave inspired and strengthened in their own spirituality, with the knowledge that even the holiest among us must work to find a path--and that God's love follows us even into the most challenging of circumstances.

Kerry Walters explores the Salvadoran archbishop's journey from carpenter's son through his early priesthood, his selection as a "safe" bishop who wouldn't rock the government boat, to his transformation into someone who proclaimed the truth of the Gospel so unswervingly that it led to his assassination.

All of us yearn for a peaceable and just world, but some roll up their sleeves and set to work to make the dream real. Blessed Peacemakers celebrates 365 of them, one for each day of the year.Their stories are richly diverse. They share a commitment to peace and justice, but the various contexts in which they work make each of their stories uniquely instructive. The peacemakers include women, men, and children from across the globe, spanning some twenty-five hundred years. Many are persons of faith, but some are totally secular. Some are well known, while others will be excitingly new. They are human rights and antiwar activists, scientists and artists, educators and scholars, songwriters and poets, film directors and authors, diplomats and economists, environmentalists and mystics, prophets and policymakers. Some are unlettered, but all are wise. A few died in the service of the dream. All sacrificed for it.The world is a better place for the presence of blessed peacemakers. Their inspiring stories embolden readers to join them in nonviolent resistance to injustice and the creative pursuit of peace.""Blessed Peacemakers is quite astonishing in its breadth and depth, examining 365 noble souls who devoted large parts of their lives to peacemaking and without whom the world would be a much poorer place.""--Helen Caldicott, Founding President of Physicians for Social Responsibility""This inspiring and wonderful book gives a concise account of the core ideas, passions, and acts of the world''s peacemakers over the last twenty-five hundred years. . . . These engaging essays deserve a read by anyone committed to making our world a more just and peaceful place.""--Donald B. Kraybill, Distinguished Professor at Elizabethtown College ""One excellent way to start the day is to read just one page of Blessed Peacemakers--read it in silence to yourself if you eat breakfast alone; read it aloud if there''s more than one at the table. In some cases, you will already be aware of the person whose story is assigned to the day, in many cases not. In every case, you are in for encouragement and inspiration.""--Jim Forest, International Secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship ""Walters and Jarrell provide exemplars who encourage this world toward longevity and high quality of life. Like it or not, we need these exemplars because they remind us that self-sufficiency does not work outside of healthy communal practices--chief of which is peacemaking! Read Walters and Jarrell''s excellent work and understand what I mean.""--Michael Battle, Founder of PeaceBattle InstituteKerry Walters teaches Philosophy as well as Peace and Justice Studies at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. The author or editor of more than twenty-five books, he is also a longtime peace activist.Robin Jarrell is an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania. She is past coeditor (with Kerry Walters) of Episcopal Peace Witness.

All of us yearn for a peaceable and just world, but some roll up their sleeves and set to work to make the dream real. Blessed Peacemakers celebrates 365 of them, one for each day of the year.Their stories are richly diverse. They share a commitment to peace and justice, but the various contexts in which they work make each of their stories uniquely instructive. The peacemakers include women, men, and children from across the globe, spanning some twenty-five hundred years. Many are persons of faith, but some are totally secular. Some are well known, while others will be excitingly new. They are human rights and antiwar activists, scientists and artists, educators and scholars, songwriters and poets, film directors and authors, diplomats and economists, environmentalists and mystics, prophets and policymakers. Some are unlettered, but all are wise. A few died in the service of the dream. All sacrificed for it.The world is a better place for the presence of blessed peacemakers. Their inspiring stories embolden readers to join them in nonviolent resistance to injustice and the creative pursuit of peace.

This illuminating discussion of deism in the early American colonies presents an overview of its main tenets, showing how its influence rose swiftly and for a time became a highly controversial subject of debate among the first citizens of our nation. The deists were students of the Enlightenment and took a keen interest in the scientific study of nature. They were thus critical of orthodox Christianity for its superstitious belief in miracles, persecution of dissent, and suppression of independent thought and expression.At the heart of his book are profiles of six "rational infidels," most of whom are quite familiar to Americans as founding fathers or colonial patriots: Benjamin Franklin (the ambivalent deist), Thomas Jefferson (a critic of Christian supernaturalism but an admirer of its ethics), Ethan Allen (the rough-edged "frontier deist"), Thomas Paine (the arch iconoclast and author of The Age of Reason), Elihu Palmer (the tireless crusader for deism and perhaps its most influential proponent), and Philip Freneau (a poet whose popular verses combined deism with early romanticism). This is a fascinating study of America's first culture war, one that in many ways has continued to this day.