front cover of Escaping the Fire
Escaping the Fire
How an Ixil Mayan Pastor Led His People Out of a Holocaust During the Guatemalan Civil War
By Tomás Guzaro and Terri Jacob McComb
University of Texas Press, 2010

During the height of the Guatemalan civil war, Tomás Guzaro, a Mayan evangelical pastor, led more than two hundred fellow Mayas out of guerrilla-controlled Ixil territory and into the relative safety of the government army's hands. This exodus was one of the factors that caused the guerrillas to lose their grip on the Ixil, thus hastening the return of peace to the area.

In Escaping the Fire, Guzaro relates the hardships common to most Mayas and the resulting unrest that opened the door to civil war. He details the Guatemalan army's atrocities while also describing the Guerrilla Army of the Poor's rise to power in Ixil country, which resulted in limited religious freedom, murdered church leaders, and threatened congregations. His story climaxes with the harrowing vision that induced him to guide his people out of their war-torn homeland.

Guzaro also provides an intimate look at his spiritual pilgrimage through all three of Guatemala's main religions. The son of a Mayan priest, formerly a leader in the Catholic Church, and finally a convert to Protestantism, Guzaro, in detailing his religious life, offers insight into the widespread shift toward Protestantism in Latin America over the past four decades.

Riveting and highly personal, Escaping the Fire ultimately provides a counterpoint to the usual interpretation of indigenous agency during the Guatemalan civil war by documenting the little-studied experiences of Protestants living in guerrilla-held territory.

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front cover of The Nature Way
The Nature Way
Corbin Harney
University of Nevada Press, 2009

Corbin Harney’s long life encompassed remarkable changes in the lives of Native Americans and in the technological and political development of the world. Born into an impoverished Western Shoshone family on the Nevada-Idaho border and orphaned as a newborn, he was brought up by grandparents who taught him the traditional ways of their people and the ancient spiritual beliefs that sustained their culture. As an adult, Harney found his calling as a traditional healer and spiritual leader. Soon he became involved in the Shoshone struggle for civil rights, including their efforts to protect and heal their traditional lands in what became the Nevada Test Site. This involvement led Harney to his eventual role as a leader of the international antinuclear movement.The Nature Way is a rich compendium of Corbin Harney’s experience and wisdom. His account of his life incorporates the tragic history of Native Americans in the Great Basin after the arrival of Euro-Americans, his realization of his own identity as a Native American, and his long study of his people’s traditions and spiritual practices. His summary of the Shoshone and Paiute use of indigenous plants for food and healing highlights their understanding that the Earth and her denizens and products must be respected and protected in order to preserve the connection that all creatures have with sacred Mother Earth. Finally, his account of his role as an antinuclear activist expands on his awareness of the human responsibility to protect the Earth, especially from the extreme danger posed by nuclear technology and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Corbin Harney’s voice is one of the clearest expressions yet of the values, concerns, and spirituality of contemporary Native America. He offers all of us an eloquent plea that we respect and cooperate with Nature to ensure the survival of the planet.

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Religion & Reconciliation in South Africa
Bernard Spong
Templeton Press, 2003

Postapartheid South Africa's efforts to come to terms with its past, particularly its Truth and Reconciliation Commission's emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation, is of special interest to many in the world community. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was mandated to go beyond truth-finding and to "promote national unity and reconciliation in a spirit of understanding which transcends the conflict and divisions of the past." In contrast with other truth commissions, the TRC was led by clerics rather than lawyers and judge, and the TRC's approach to reconciliation was shaped by and imbued with religious content. The TRC submitted its final report to the Mandela administration in October 1998.

Over the next two years, the Rev. Bernard Spong, former communications director of the South African Council of Churches, conducted a series of in-depth interviews about the TRC with thirty-three key religious figures. In this volume, they discuss and evaluate the following issues:

•How should we understand the concept of national or political reconciliation and its requirements?
•What are the differences and similarities between religious and political approaches to reconciliation?
•Does national or political reconciliation require forgiveness between former victims and perpetrators?
•What is the appropriate role of religious representatives in a truth commission process? And is it recommended that other countries emulate the South African model?
•How do religious leaders assess the contributions and limitations of the TRC?
•What kind of initiatives are contemporary religious communities taking to promote reconciliation among their members and in the wider society?

The conversations presented in this volume, and the essays interpreting them, seek to illuminate issues and questions raised by the TRC model, including how to conceptualize reconciliation and the differences between political and religious approaches.

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front cover of Transcendental Meditation in America
Transcendental Meditation in America
How a New Age Movement Remade a Small Town in Iowa
Joseph Weber
University of Iowa Press, 2014

The Indian spiritual entrepreneur Maharishi Mahesh Yogi took the West by storm in the 1960s and ’70s, charming Baby Boomers fed up with war and social upheaval with his message of meditation and peace. Heeding his call, two thousand followers moved to tiny Fairfield, Iowa, to set up their own university on the campus of a failed denominational college. Soon, they started a school for prekindergarten through high school, allowing followers to immerse themselves in Transcendental Meditation from toddlerhood through PhDs.

Although Fairfield’s longtime residents were relieved to see that their new neighbors were clean-cut and respectably dressed—not the wild-haired, drug-using hippies they had feared—the newcomers nevertheless quickly began to remake the town. Stores selling exotic goods popped up, TM followers built odd-looking homes that modeled the guru’s rules for peace-inspiring architecture, and the new university knocked down a historic chapel, even as it erected massive golden-domed buildings for meditators. Some newcomers got elected—and others were defeated—when they ran for local and statewide offices. At times, thousands from across the globe visited the small town.

Yet Transcendental Meditation did not always achieve its aims of personal and social tranquility. Suicides and a murder unsettled the meditating community over the years, and some followers were fleeced by con men from their own ranks. Some battled a local farmer over land use and one another over doctrine. Notably, the world has not gotten more peaceful.

Today the guru is dead. His followers are graying, and few of their children are moving into leadership roles. The movement seems rudderless, its financial muscle withering, despite the efforts of high-profile supporters such as filmmaker David Lynch and media magnate Oprah Winfrey. Can TM reinvent itself? And what will be the future of Fairfield itself? By looking closely at the transformation of this small Iowa town, author Joseph Weber assesses the movement’s surprisingly potent effect on Western culture, sketches out its peculiar past, and explores its possible future.

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