New Books In Religion

There’s a quip that goes “Christianity is probably a great religion. Someone should really try it.” The implication, of course, is that most people who call themselves Christians aren’t very Christian at all. And, in truth, it’s hard to be a good Christian, what with all that loving your enemies, turning the other cheek, and helping the poor. It’s particularly hard to pull off in the modern world. But some have tried, at least in part. Foremost among them are the Christian pacifists. They are the subject of Kip Kosek’s wonderful book Acts of Conscience: Christian Nonviolence and Modern American Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2009). Kip shows that the pacifists–more specifically members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR)–were an oddly influential group. They utterly failed in their primary mission, that is, to create a world without war. They themselves didn’t fight, but that didn’t stop everyone else from going at it hammer and tong. Yet in pursuing that quixotic end the pacifists managed to eit