Industry Reviews
"This book speaks a healing and hopeful language, "neither absolutist nor relativistic but relational" (p. 122). Citizens of every country must come to lover their own country enokught to remember its misdeed! Honest Patriots is an urgently timely, great book." --Theology Today
"As long as there are such sensitive and profoundly truthful commentators as Donald Shriver around speaking to American power, there is always hope." --Restorative Justice
"A passionate but gentle teaching on personal, political, educational, and religious repentence. Written in the first person by a man who has confronted those questions many times in his life as a civil rights worker, teacher, minister, and president--now emeritus--of Union Thological Seminary in New York." --Christian Century
"The worst feature of the 20th Century was the inhumanity that resulted in the deaths, rapes and torture of many millions of civilians. The most hopeful feature was the movement in many regions of the world from oppression to freedom and democracy. These contradictory trends compel us to question how best to deal with the past in order better to shape the future. Donald Shriver provides a sensitive and compelling analysis of remembering and memorializing in
Germany, South Africa and the United States. This is an essential book for anyone interested in transitional justice."--Richard Goldstone, Justice, Constitutional Court of South Africa
"Donald Shrivers gift to America is his readiness to stir up the conscience of a nation he loves so well. His scope of concern breaks out of narrow nationalist preoccupation to international dimension of critique and repentance. He has made it his lifes work to probe the interplay between personal ethics and collective reality and responsibility. In this book he challenges us and fellow citizens of the world to look honestly at the less than noble moments in
our history. This is not, in the end, a book of criticism, but rather one of hope, pointing the way to a collective change of heart and of public policy."--The Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr., Senior
Minister, Riverside Church, New York
"This is Donald Shriver at the height of his powers as a writer and a teacher. He is a passionate advocate for the healing of historical wounds in every society through the acknowledgement of moral responsibility, expressions of remorse and requests for the forgiveness of those people harmed. He shows persuasively how this process has worked in post-World War II Germany and post-apartheid South Africa. And, honest patriot that he is, he charts the brave
although limited efforts of some white Americans, including himself, to face their responsibility to African and Native Americans."--Joseph V. Montville, Center for the Study of World Religions, Diplomacy and
Conflict Resolution, George Mason University
"Like blind ambition, blind patriotism can be a dangerous delusion that can take us off the cliff. Donald Shriver's book shines with a love of America that embraces our ideals without denying our flaws."--Bill Moyers
"Donald Shriver is a towering, prophetic thinker who knows the difference between the cross and the flag. He is a long-distance runner in the struggle for freedom and Christian love."--Cornel West, author of Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism
"This book speaks a healing and hopeful language, "neither absolutist nor relativistic but relational" (p. 122). Citizens of every country must come to lover their own country enokught to remember its misdeed! Honest Patriots is an urgently timely, great book." --Theology Today
"As long as there are such sensitive and profoundly truthful commentators as Donald Shriver around speaking to American power, there is always hope." --Restorative Justice
"A passionate but gentle teaching on personal, political, educational, and religious repentence. Written in the first person by a man who has confronted those questions many times in his life as a civil rights worker, teacher, minister, and president--now emeritus--of Union Thological Seminary in New York." --Christian Century
"One of the most important books of the year. How can citizens and governments deal with abusive systems? He demonstrates how nations, including the U.S., have represented and even paid reparations." --John Lapp, Mennonite Central Committee
"The worst feature of the 20th Century was the inhumanity that resulted in the deaths, rapes and torture of many millions of civilians. The most hopeful feature was the movement in many regions of the world from oppression to freedom and democracy. These contradictory trends compel us to question how best to deal with the past in order better to shape the future. Donald Shriver provides a sensitive and compelling analysis of remembering and memorializing in
Germany, South Africa and the United States. This is an essential book for anyone interested in transitional justice."--Richard Goldstone, Justice, Constitutional Court of South Africa
"Like blind ambition, blind patriotism can be a dangerous delusion that can take us off the cliff. Donald Shriver's book shines with a love of America that embraces our ideals without denying our flaws."--Bill Moyers
"Donald Shrivers gift to America is his readiness to stir up the conscience of a nation he loves so well. His scope of concern breaks out of narrow nationalist preoccupation to international dimension of critique and repentance. He has made it his lifes work to probe the interplay between personal ethics and collective reality and responsibility. In this book he challenges us and fellow citizens of the world to look honestly at the less than noble moments in
our history. This is not, in the end, a book of criticism, but rather one of hope, pointing the way to a collective change of heart and of public policy."--The Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr., Senior
Minister, Riverside Church, New York
"I cannot think of a more important voice for the moral future of the United States and the world community than that of Donald Shriver. In these pages, Shriver utilizes his legendary Southern capacity to tell an absorbing tale of the human condition, of moral catastrophe built into the fabric of nations at war with themselves and with others, and the victims so easily overshadowed by the passage of time. This is also a tale of courageous human beings around
the globe who provide a model combination of patriotism and criticism. He calls Americans to a deeper and more honest reading of their history, in order for them to become honest patriots. Shriver in his
senior years has become one of our most important prophets, and this rabbi is moved by his religious voice and indebted to his timeless teachings."--Marc Gopin, author of Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion Can Bring Peace to the Middle East
"This is Donald Shriver at the height of his powers as a writer and a teacher. He is a passionate advocate for the healing of historical wounds in every society through the acknowledgement of moral responsibility, expressions of remorse and requests for the forgiveness of those people harmed. He shows persuasively how this process has worked in post-World War II Germany and post-apartheid South Africa. And, honest patriot that he is, he charts the brave
although limited efforts of some white Americans, including himself, to face their responsibility to African and Native Americans."--Joseph V. Montville, Center for the Study of World Religions, Diplomacy and
Conflict Resolution, George Mason University
"Donald Shriver is a towering, prophetic thinker who knows the difference between the cross and the flag. He is a long-distance runner in the struggle for freedom and Christian love."--Cornel West, author of Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism
"...Donald Shriver...makes passionate historical arguments that move contemporary discussions of religion and politics from defensive introspection to discursive conviction."--William Joseph Buckley, Seattle University
