This book points to universal pathways to peace for all times as revealed in the family stories of Genesis and Jesus.
The stories of Genesis and Jesus inform all three of the Abrahamic religions of our world. Genesis is the shared story of creation and the earth’s first families. Jesus is respected as rabbi and teacher in Judaism, prophet in Islam, and savior and lord in Christianity. Both Genesis and Jesus point us beyond the no of violence to the yes of peace — shalom in Hebrew and salaam in Arabic.
While I write as a Christian, I invite adherents of all three religions, along with those interested in the pursuit of peace for whatever reason, to consider what we might learn from the early family stories of Genesis and the later story and teachings of Jesus, both at points of new beginnings.
Church related institutions of higher education have been part of the American educational scene from the very beginning. They continue to constitute a significant segment of American colleges and universities alongside secular public and private institutions. As such, they enrich the larger American educational environment, while also providing students with options otherwise more limited.
The Making of a Distinctive Church College is a collection of essays that reveal the heart and soul of an institution of higher education in the making. The author, Dalton Reimer, has been a major contributor to this making as a participant-observer from its beginning in 1960 as a church-related liberal arts college, now university. Toward the beginning he contributed to the formation of The Fresno Pacific Idea, which has been the unique, central guide in the development of the institution. The story of the heart and soul of this making is told, beginning with a small faculty and administrative group of mostly recent college and university graduates during the challenging 1960s.
