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Summary

Little, David (2007). Response to John Witte In Emmanuel Clapsis, ed., Violence and Christian Spirituality An Ecumenical Conversation. Geneva, Switzerland: World Council of Churches. Pp. 215-221.

"I am much taken with Witte's Dickensian "best-of-times/worst-of-times" approach to the subject. For those of us labouring in the vineyard, that image of unsettledness, of inner tension, of reasons-for-hope-and-reasons-for-distress-all-at-once, is just right. Simultaneously, as Witte says, there have recently been huge advances, including a significant rise in worldwide attention to and concern for freedom of religious belief and practice (or "manifestation" as the documents say) and, at the same time, an appalling record of violence and abuse too closely and too presistenly associated with fervent religious expression and practice." (abstract)

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