Pacifism

Review: The Memoirs of André Trocmé

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Cover image of "The Memoirs of Andre' Trocme' " by Andre' Trocme'

The Memoirs of Andre’ Trocme’, André Trocmé, Edited by Patrick Cabanel, translated by Patrick Henry and Mary Anne O’Neil. Plough Publishing (ISBN: 9781636081595) 2025 (published in French 2020).

Summary: His childhood, formative years, pacifism, and leadership in sheltering of Jews during the Holocaust.

“On January 5, 1971, Yad Vashem recognized the Reverend André Trocmé and on May 14, 1984 his wife, Magda, as Righteous Among the Nations. 32 other residents of Le Chambon sur Lignon were awarded the title, and in 1990 Yad Vashem presented the village with a special diploma of honor in tribute of their humane conduct during the war” (Yad Vashem | André and Magda Trocmé, Daniel Trocmé)

In 1994 Philip P. Hallie chronicled, in Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, the story of the village of Le Chambon and their efforts under pastor André Trocmé, to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. They saved 5,000 by some estimates. It is a marvelous account, and thankfully, still in print. André Trocmé, in the 1950’s, penned a memoir of his life up to that time for his children. In 2020, it was published, in French. Now, we have an English edition for the first time.

As noted, the account covers the period from his childhood up to the 1950’s, when he was active in promoting the work of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR). If I had one criticism of the book, it provided a much longer account of his childhood than many memoirs or biographies. But it does recount the tragic death of his mother in an auto accident while his father was driving, and the impact on the family.

We learn of the family’s struggles as refugees in Belgium during World War 1, and the roots of André Trocmé’s pacifism. Theological studies after the war were interrupted by required military service at a time when France did not recognize conscientious objector status. Refusal to serve meant imprisonment. He offers a fascinating account of how he avoided carrying a gun!

Afterwards, he took advantage of an opportunity for studies in the United States. While in New York, he earned additional funds as a tutor for the Rockefeller children. It became an important connection later. He also met Magda in New York, returning to France to be married. After several pastoral assignments in depressed areas of France, he accepted a position in the small village of Le Chambon.

He recounts how he won the affection of the village and his educational efforts with the College Cévenol, a kind of college preparatory school. All the while, he pursued his pacifist efforts, both with his own congregation and in wider circles, even as France prepared to meet the Nazi threat. When France fell, Le Chambon came under Vichy rule. Vichy, led by Marshal Petain, cooperated in Germany in the areas not directly occupied by Germany.

As Jews seek refuge, he describes the delicate balancing act of complying with Vichy officials while breaking the law.. Then, at one point, they arrest him and fellow pastor Edouard Theis and intern him for several weeks. They could secure their release if they signed an agreement to comply with all Vichy officials. They refused but miraculously were released. His nephew Daniel, also sheltering Jews in a school over which he was principal, was not so lucky. He died under incarceration.

However, the Vichy and the Nazis were not his only problem. Resistance movements sought support, which would go against his pacifist principles. But perhaps the greatest strains were within his own family. Magda wore herself out as she supported this work. Then one of his teenage sons died by suicide, possibly accidental. Trocmé describes the lasting impact of this tragedy with painful honesty. (Another son later committed suicide).

The memoirs reveal the mix of noble and base actions of those around Trocmé. After the war, as he became more engaged in IFOR work, ambitious individuals nudged him out of his pastoral work in Le Chambon. Nor were things entirely agreeable in IFOR. He is unsparing in his criticism of English officials. However, he was able to set up the House of Reconciliation as a base for his international efforts.

The memoirs also reveal a man of firm conviction and a love for people. Out of that love, he refused administrative positions by which he would gain greater influence. Above all the memoirs reveal a man knowing his strengths and weaknesses, humble and honest about both. A great complement to Hallie’s book!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Peaceable Kingdom

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Cover image of "The Peaceable Kingdom" by Stanley Hauerwas

The Peaceable Kingdom, Stanley Hauerwas. University of Notre Dame Press (ISBN:  9780268015541) 1991.

Summary: A Christian ethic centered in the character of the rule Jesus inaugurated, lived by the church in nonviolent service.

I recently reviewed a distillation of Stanley Hauerwas’ writings titled Jesus Changes Everything (at https://bobonbooks.com/2025/03/26/review-jesus-changes-everything/). I was so impressed with his writings that I wanted to read more and picked up his The Peaceable Kingdom. This is his “primer in Christian ethics” and elaborates the idea that peace and nonviolence is central to the character of Jesus’ kingdom and the calling of those who follow him, gathered in Christian communities. I was surprised in reading this work to find it was far more “academic,” befitting his work as a seminary professor at Duke.

In my review, I will not focus on all the details of what is at times a dense discussion (but well worth the wading). Rather, I will summarize what I found and briefly comment.

First of all, he denies the possibility of an “absolute” ethics while arguing for the distinctiveness of a Christian ethic. For him, doctrine and ethics are inseparable. Truth must be lived and this inevitably involves an ethic. Moreover, for the Christian, that ethic centers in the narrative of Jesus–his life, death, and resurrection–that inaugurates a kingdom of forgiveness and peace. That peace is both with God and with one another.

Jesus calls his followers into a community of character. Specifically, Jesus calls us into lives of repenting from violence and discord, exercising our agency to live peaceably. Hence, the church, as Christ’s body, doesn’t have an ethic but is one. We are the servant community living in patience and hope for the dawning of Jesus kingdom. The church isn’t the kingdom but lives in anticipation of it by its character.

Hauerwas notes the focus on casuistry and ethical decision-making in much of ethics. A Christian ethic is different, flowing not from calculated decisions but what a person or community is and is becoming. Finally, Hauerwas proposes that a key virtue undergirding peaceableness is patience. He argues the virtue of doing nothing, siding with H. Richard Niebuhr over his brother Reinhold Niebuhr. With this patience comes joy, as we relinquish controlling our lives and those of others to God. Rather than tackling the many problems of the world, he argues for the grace of doing one thing.

For me, the strongest parts of Hauerwas’ argument are the appeal to the narrative of Jesus for our ethic and the insistence that the church is a social ethic. However, I do not believe that nonviolence always means doing nothing. Rosa Parks was peaceable and nonviolent, but she sat down. So were John Lewis and others who engaged in sit-ins. And sometimes, doing nothing is an act of nonviolent resistance, not nonresistance. Given that Hauerwas wrote twenty-five years after the civil rights movement, it surprises me he does not address this.

However, Hauerwas is one of the leading voices in reasserting the calling of the church to peace and nonviolence within society. It is an important testimony at a time when Christians seem bent on “taking sides” in the divisive political issues of our days, even using warfare metaphors to characterize their efforts. Perhaps this book is indeed a “primer” for how then we should live as the people of God.

Review: Water at the Roots

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Water at the Roots

Water at the Roots, Philip Britts (edited by Jennifer Harries, foreword by David Kline). Walden, NY: Plough Publishing, 2018.

Summary: The collected poems and essays of Philip Britts, a farmer and pastoral leader of a Bruderhof community in Paraguay, where he died in 1949 at the age of 31.

Philip Britts lived a short and obscure life, dying in Paraguay in 1949 of a deadly tropical fungal disease. He was born in Devon, England in 1917. The first poem in this collection was written in 1934, and expresses both his search for and awareness of God and a theme that would run through all his poetry of observing carefully the book of creation, and discerning in this the character and presence of the creator. He graduated from the University of Bristol with a degree in horticulture in 1939 and married Joan that June. In 1936, he had joined the Peace Pledge Union, and as England rushed toward war, Britts more deeply embraced pacifist convictions. Eventually, he learned of a Christian pacifist agricultural community in the Cotswolds known as the Bruderhof.

He gave himself to the work, told stories to the children, and his poetry began to reflect his life in the agricultural community. A sung version of one of these. “The Song of the Hedgers and the Diggers” may be heard on the trailer for this book. Eventually, the community either needed to give up its German members or emigrate. When the opportunity came to go to Paraguay, they took it, establishing a community they called Primavera. Quickly he became one of the most astute agriculturalists in the area, and was called upon increasingly in consultations. During one trip to Brasil, he apparently contracted a deadly tropical fungus, that first manifested a couple years later with painful mouth sores, and would eventually claim his life. In his last year, he became a pastor to the community and even as his energies waned, he reflected and wrote and taught on everything from care of the land, to the fundamental choice he believed faced every human between the spirit of the beast and the Spirit of Love. He wrote:

“This spirit alone can bring that peace which is in absolute opposition to war and death and destruction. Peace which is born of love and filled with love is the only true peace. It is not just a cessation of war, a shaking of the ripe fruit while the tree goes on growing to bear again in due season. Peace can only arise when the tree is cut down and rooted out. In this mighty work, love uses weapons which are in absolute opposition to the weapons of the beast. Instead of the Good Man, the poor in spirit; instead of the confidence in the progress of man, the sorrowful recognition of the helpfulness of man; instead of self-satisfaction, the hungering and thirsting for righteousness; instead of judgement, mercy; instead of the doctrine of many paths, singleness and pureness of heart; instead of coercion, reconciliation; instead of success, persecution for righteousness sake.”

So much of his work is characterized by a seamless connection between the practice of farming and the practice of faith. The title of this work comes from one of his last essays where he writes of faith as being like “water at the roots” that sustains us in the heat of life. He draws the connection between our dependence upon the grace of God for faith, even as we depend upon the grace of God for rain.

A poem, “Quicken the Seed” reflects a similar connection between farming and faith:

Quicken the seed
In the dark, damp earth.
Nourish our need,
God of all birth.
Thou art the seed
That we bury now.
Thou art our need,
God of the plough.
Bury the spark
Of our own desire
Deep in the dark,
God of the fire.
After the night
When the fight is won,
Thou art the light,
God of the sun.

EASTER 1948

I am not much of a critic of poetry. My hunch is that most of the poetry here is good but not great. What makes this work great is the seamless integrity between poetry, essays and the life of the man. He has been called a “British Wendell Berry.” In many ways, he embraced a far more difficult life than Berry–a costly affirmation of pacifism in wartime Britain, a communal existence, emigration, and establishing a viable community under primitive conditions, an integrity of living with the land, and suffering that came from his embrace of that land. What comes through is the wonder of living in this creation with all its challenges, a sense of the tragedy of a world at war with itself when the Prince of Peace beckons, and a life permeated by the grace of God. Like Berry, he awakens us to what it is to live in harmony with the land one farms. Like Berry, he recognizes the treasure of life in a place, and in a community. Like Berry, he reminds us of the deep, pervasive presence of the grace of God in all of creation. The God whose grace waters us at the roots, sustaining our lives.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Nonviolent Action

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nonviolent actionNonviolent Action by Ron Sider. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2015.

Summary: Ron Sider argues from a number of instances over the past seventy-five years that nonviolent action can work and bring about political change.

“I ain’t gonna study war no more”

Ronald J. Sider thinks we have spent far too long and far too much studying war. It is time, particularly for persons of faith, to devote ourselves and our money and our lives to study peace: the use of nonviolent means of protest and resistance in the pursuit of peace and a just order. He argues that both pacifists and just war advocates actually have much in common in advocating the use of nonviolent efforts as much as possible, with the only difference being between war never being a resort and war being a last resort.

Sider builds his case by recounting the numerous instances of nonviolent resistance over the past seventy-five years beginning with Ghandhi’s effort to secure Indian independence from the British empire. The first part of the book recounts Ghandhi’s, and India’s, long road to freedom and Ghandhi’s persistent and principled decision to renounce violence. Following chapters recount Martin Luther King, Jr’s leadership of the civil rights movement and commitment to loving, nonviolent resistance, seen most vividly at the Edmund Pettus Bridge as chronicled in the recent Selma. He tells the story of his own involvement with Witness for Peace’s work in Nicaragua standing between invading Contras backed by the U.S. and the Nicaraguan people. And he tells the story of the peaceful People Power resistance to the Marcos regime in the Phillipines including the instance when a wheelchair was more powerful than a tank:

    Cardinal Sin tells the story of bedridden, eighty-one year-old Mrs. Monzon, owner of Arrelano University. Everywhere she went, she used a wheelchair. But Mrs. Monzon insisted on joining the people in the streets in front of the camps. When the tanks came, she wheeled in front of the advancing war vehicles. Armed with a crucifix, she called out to the soldiers, “Stop. I am an old woman. You can kill me, but you shouldn’t kill your fellow Filipinos.” Overcome, a soldier jumped off the tank, and embraced the bold nonviolent resister. “I cannot kill you,” he told her, “you are just like my mother.” She stayed in the street in her wheelchair.

    The marines finally withdrew without firing a shot.

Part Two of the book focuses on two instances of nonviolent resistance in the defeat of the Soviet empire. First he tells the story of a Polish pope and a ship yard worker, Lech Walesa, who led the Solidarity Movement, which over ten years, brought an end to the Communist leadership in Poland. Then he turns to the Revolution of Candles in East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall and eventual reunification of Germany.

Recent developments are the focus of Part Three. He begins by describing how Leymah Gbowee led a movement of prayer among Liberian women pursuing peace and justice for the women and children of Liberia during the dictatorship of Charles Taylor. He recounts the nonviolent efforts in the Arab Spring, including the wonderful shalom moment of a ring of Christians forming a protective circle around Muslims at prayer. He ends this section by talking of the work of Peacemaker Teams and similar groups in many parts of the world including in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He concludes the book with the contention that it is time to devote serious attention to nonviolent action. We spend billions on military defense and military academies but virtually nothing for nonviolent resistance and peace academies. He argues that pacifism that engages in nonviolent action is in fact as courageous as armed resistance because it also is willing to die in the pursuit of just and peaceful conflict resolution. He further contends the following:

  1. Nonviolence often accomplishes its aims with far less loss of life.
  2. Nonviolence accomplishes its aims more often than violence.
  3. Nonviolence is more likely to lead to democratic institutions.

One of the sobering implications of all this is the willingness to die without killing. One of the questions Sider left unanswered for me was whether there are circumstances where one should not pursue nonviolent resistance, where force must be met with force. I think particularly of instances when a regime has determined a course of genocide. Here, the evidence seems to be that armed peacekeeping forces have been both necessary and successful in places like Kosovo and South Sudan in stopping genocidal regimes.

Perhaps what this points up is the necessity of what Sider argues. Many nonviolent efforts have been spontaneous and sometimes undisciplined. It is time for rigorous studies and the devotion of resources that inform and make possible disciplined and strategic action. War calls for these things as well as courage. It just makes sense that the pursuit of peace requires no less.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”