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by Dan Buttry
Blessed Are the Peacemakers is a collection of 62 mini-biographies of
various peacemakers from around the world. It is divided into sections on
Prophets and Visionaries, Martyrs, Theorists, Advocates, Trainers/Teachers, Organizers,
Mediators, Nonviolent Activists, and Artists. Each section has an
introductory chapter. Though it features people of many religious
backgrounds, there is a heavy representation of Baptists: Martin Luther
King, Jr., Bernard Lafayette, John Lewis, Jimmy Carter, Carl Upchurch, Ken
Sehested, Lucius Walker, and Wati Aier.
The IM edition includes an extended chapter by Reid Trulson, IM executive
director, and Buttry about American Baptist peacemaking missionaries, beginning
with Adoniram Judson, the founder of the modern missionary movement in the U.S., and continuing
through the present. Judson joined the Massachusetts Peace Society while
he was in Burma,
writing about his conviction that Bible, peace and missionary societies were
"forming that three-fold cord, which will ultimately bind all the families
of man in universal peace and love." Judson also played a role in
ending the First Anglo-Burmese War.
Other American Baptist missionaries featured in the book are George Liele,
Thomasine Allen, the Hopevale Martyrs, William Axling, Martin England, Conrad
Browne, Gustavo Parajon, and contemporary missionaries who serve through IM;
Ruth Mooney, Charles West and Lauran Bethell.
Buttry refers to these stories as "the missing peace" in our American
Baptist missionary history. "Every American Baptist church, seminary
and college needs to know these stories to add to the inspiring history of our
missionary endeavor," Buttry says.
Books signed by the author can be purchased by sending a check for $20 made out
to Dan Buttry to his home address: 2300 Neibel St., Hamtramck,
MI 48212. Dan promises he will get books out as soon as he gets back from his current
peacemaking mission in Kenya.