Making our history one step at a time
My review is READ THIS BOOK. While the book is trying to address a contemporary question, Does Trump pose a threat to democracy?, it helps put the question into context, looking at history of American democracy as well as democracies of other countries that have lapsed into authoritarianism.
"I was just following orders." "I personally don't hate Jews." "What was I supposed to do?" All of these were justifications put forth by Adolf Eichmann for his role in the death of millions of Jews in Nazi Germany. The moral of the story: each individual is responsible for their own actions.
This one was one of those epiphany books for me, an absolute masterpiece on American foreign policy in the 20th century. It's essentially America's version of the pride cycle. We get fixated on one good idea, become extremely over-confident, and then crash and burn.
I now know more about the UK higher education system than I do about my own. Greak book, considering it was written by a politician-- although I don't think Betsy DeVos could pull off a similar tome on education in the U.S.
A book with a simple premise, but potentially controversial: Not all of the early apostles and gospel writers viewed Christ the same way. *Gasp!* Don't tell me there were differences of opinion! Say it isn't so!
I served in the very same Germany Hamburg mission as Roger Terry 33 years later, and this mission memoir was a walk down memory Strasse.
"Ye have omitted the weightier matters of the law." In less than 70 pages, Bennion beautifully highlights Christ's divine mission and his commandment to love God and neighbor.
What I would give to have a Sunday School lesson taught by Lowell Bennion. Bennion refers to the OT as "the least known and least understood of the standard works of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints", and this is his attempt to help address that. My favorite part: the prophets' insistence on justice for the marginalized: "relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."
At the height of anti-Muslim sentiment during the Crusades, Saint Francis discovered the divine mystery of universal brotherhood: Islam too was part of God's pleasure. In our post 9/11 world, Saint Francis is an example of inter-religious dialogue that I hope we can all rediscover.
