LITMIR.BIZ

In 1984, Ron Sider challenged that until Christians are ready to risk everything in pursuit of peace, «we dare never whisper another word about pacifism . . . Unless we are ready to die developing new nonviolent attempts to reduce conflict, we should confess that we never really meant that the cross was an alternative to the sword.» From this challenge, Christian Peacemaker Teams was born. Nearly thirty years later, Michael McRay too explored Sider's challenge, interning with CPT in the West Bank city of Hebron. Alongside local and international peacemakers, McRay learned how to resist the violence of occupation, sharing in the stories of a suffering people as he struggled to embody the peaceable spirit of the rabbi from Nazareth. This book tells those stories.
Drawing on his personal experience with the land and its history, McRay's raw letters home tackle critical issues relevant to peacemakers everywhere: What is really happening in Palestine that mainstream media fails to report? How are Palestinians' lives being affected? How can one be peaceable amidst such violence and oppression? How should Christian discipleship influence one's pursuits of peacemaking and reconciliation? McRay's letters illustrate both the challenge and promise of the cross in today's world.

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Tony Vick is serving two life sentences for murder. After nearly twenty years in prison, Tony has literally taken to the pen to document firsthand what life is like behind bars. This book–handwritten by Tony and later transcribed by outside friends–indirectly challenges the reader to engage prison reform as one of the most important social issues of this generation, wondering if society can shift its emphasis from retribution to rehabilitation. Tony's new book describes the violent, even horrific, incidents that occur in prison, incidents mostly hidden in the shadows, away from public awareness. It tells you the stories that those invested in incarceration would rather remain secret. As captivating as it is timely, Secrets from a Prison Cell shortens the distance between those outside and inside prison walls. Through personal stories, essays, and poetry, Tony Vick's book pulls back the curtain on a world invisible to most people, dramatically revealing the realities of life in prison and the power of love to fight dehumanization.
For Tony, writing this book has never been about money but about the message. Any proceeds from sales of the book will be donated to the No Exceptions Prison Collective, a non-profit organization that advocates for prison reform. (https://noexceptions.net) No Exception's mission is furthered by its very name, referencing the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that abolishes slavery, except for those incarcerated in our nation's prisons. Slavery still exists in America!

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Myriad works discuss forgiveness, but few address it in the prison context. For most people, prisoners exist «out of sight and out of mind.» Their stories are often reduced to a few short lines in news articles at the time of arrest or conviction.
But what happened before in the lives of the convicted? What has happened after? How have people in prison dealt with the harm they have caused and the harm they have suffered? What does forgiveness mean to them? What can we outsiders learn about the nature of forgiveness and prison from individuals who have both dealt and endured some of life's most painful experiences?
Expanding on his MPhil dissertation Echoes from Exile (with Distinction) from Trinity College Dublin, Michael McRay's important new book brings the perspectives and stories of fourteen Tennessee prisoners into public awareness. Weaving these narratives into a survey of forgiveness literature, McRay offers a map of the forgiveness topography. At once storytelling, academic, activism, and cartography, McRay's book is as necessary as it is accessible.
There is a whole demographic we have essentially ignored when it comes to conversations on forgiveness. What would we learn if we listened?

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