A welcome addition to Holocaust literature; this work presents a series of 49 personal reminiscences of non-Jewish citizens in various European nations who risked their lives to hide resident Jews from the Nazi horror. Most of those interviewed felt their actions were done out of friendship and for people caught in a web of hatred and anti-Semitism. They did not feel that they were acting heroically but that they were doing what was right. Portraits by Block of each of the rescuers accompany the text. These 49 are representative of the 9;295 rescuers honoured at the Yad Vashem in Israel. This is recommended reading for general readers as well as for college and university libraries.
#1053017 in Books imusti 2016-11-10Original language:English 9.00 x .70 x 6.00l; .0 #File Name: 0830840923258 pagesPolycentric Missiology 21st Century Mission from Everyone to Everywhere
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Missions is the Mother of EcumenismBy Karl DahlfredMissiologist Allen Yeh has written a very helpful and informative book overviewing current trends and conversations among missionaries and missiologists through the lens of five missions conferences held in 2010 and shortly thereafter. The fact that the book is organized around the individual conferences; rather than specific issues; brings life to the book so that the reader gets a feel for the the atmosphere; ethos; and priorities of each conference. Yeh attended each of these conferences; so his writing reflects both his personal observations of participants and off-stage events; as well as assessments of the plenary sessions; workshops; and written documents.One chapter is devoted to each of the four missions conferences in 2010 (Tokyo 2010; Cape Town 2010; Edinburgh 2010; and 2010Boston) that were self-consciously held in recognition of the 100th year anniversary of the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh; Scotland. An additional chapter is on CLADE V; a 2012 Latin American mission conference that has strong connections to the other conferences but is more focused upon Latin American concerns. Prior to the chapters devoted to the particular conferences; Yeh takes one chapter to review 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh; and another to make the case that World Christianity as a academic subject is worthy of study.The first chapter on the history and on-going influence of Edinburgh 1910 was particularly useful as Yeh evaluated the frequent claim that Edinburgh 1910 birthed the ecumenical movement. This claim is both true in the sense that the continuation committee did further and develop the ecumenical pathway started in 1910; but also not true in the sense that the full-orbed ecumenical movement embodied by the World Council of Churches was not in view in 1910.In the initial chapter; Yeh raises a theme that he returns to regularly throughout the book; namely “Missions is the mother of ecumenism.†At the 1910 conference; all questions of doctrine and polity were “off the table†in order to get as broad participation as possible (and to appease the small but influential group of Anglo-Catholic participants.) This desire for pursing mission without talking about theology has contributed to both the ecumenical and evangelical streams of Christianity; the former represented by the World Council of Churches; and the later by the Lausanne Movement and other pan-evangelical and interdenominational mission endeavors.Among the 2010 conference; Edinburgh 2010 and 2010Boston were of the ecumenical variety; including mainline Protestant; evangelical Protestant; Roman Catholic; and Orthodox participants. Tokyo 2010 and Cape Town 2010 (Lausanne III) were in the evangelical stream and as such were more productive in terms of unity among participants in actual planning and strategizing for world mission; whereas such planning and partnership was nearly impossible at the ecumenical conferences because so much time needed to be spent on simply finding common ground that everyone could agree on.Other helpful themes in the book include the challenges of unity and diversity; representation (or lack thereof) of various demographics at the conferences; and the nature and necessity contextualized theology. I found that there were many topics or plenaries mentioned in passing that I would like to know more about but did not find in this book because Yeh’s book provides just an overview; not comprehensive chronicling and analysis of everything that happened at the conferences. He does; however; provides detailed footnotes for interested readers to follow up on any particular conference topic or proceeding they are interested in.Yeh himself is an evangelical who teaches at an evangelical institution but this book is written in such as way that those from a wide variety of convictions could read and appreciate Yeh’s findings. Yeh does express his own views and conclusions from time to time; but the vast majority of the book is informational reporting and analysis of what happened at the conferences (and how the conferences compare and contrast) rather than pronouncing value judgements as such.Yeh’s writing style is easy to read; sufficiently academic and precise but lively enough to make for pleasant reading. The discussion questions at the end of each chapter could easily be used to generate discussion at missionary gatherings or in classrooms. Overall; I greatly enjoyed Yeh’s overview of trends and conversations in missiology from the past to the present; and felt like I was brought “up to speed†with what happened at the major missions conferences of recent years.
