Healing Our Divides

Healing the Divide is a bold call to understand Jesus according to the earliest lineage of Christian Mystics—a call to transform our dualistic minds and heal a divided church. This book is a must read if you find yourself frustrated by the fundamentalist and new age polarization of twenty-first-century Christianity, bewildered by religious pluralism, or searching for Christianity’s elusive mystic core.

Healing Our Divides: Answering the Savior’s Call to Be Peacemakers is a timely and essential guide for navigating the increasingly polarized and contentious landscape of modern society. Drawing inspiration from powerful and prophetic messages from Latter-day Saint leaders on unity and peace, author David B. Ostler explores the skills and approaches necessary to eliminate contention and become peacemakers. Through extensive research and personal reflection, Ostler offers concrete and practical strategies for reducing contention, understanding others, and fostering meaningful conversations amid differences in beliefs and ideologies. Rooted in principles of religious discipleship and moral integrity, Healing Our Divides addresses the urgent need to confront societal division and hostility with love and understanding. Ostler delves into four major themes, including understanding today's divisions, learning practical approaches to reduce contention, recognizing peacemaking as a vital aspect of religious discipleship, and mastering the art of deep and meaningful discussion. With insightful thought boxes prompting self-reflection and engagement, as well as questions for group study, he invites readers to join in the communal effort of healing divides and fostering unity. This book serves as a poignant reminder of our collective responsibility to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and work towards creating a more peaceful and harmonious world, one interaction at a time.

"The good news is that the Bible has a lot to say about how to heal our persistent racial divides. In this book, popular Bible teacher Derwin Gray walks us through Scripture, showing us the heart of God--how God from the beginning envisioned a reconciled multiethnic family in loving community, reflecting his beauty and healing presence in the world. This message is central to the gospel itself. After reading this book, you won't read the Bible the same way again--and you'll want to walk through this eye-opening scriptural journey with your friends or small group. As founding pastor of Transformation Church, a multiethnic church located in the Charlotte metro area, Derwin knows firsthand the hurdles and challenges to the reconciliation that Scripture commands. That is why he carefully outlines in this book how to establish color-blessed discipleship in your own church" --

Decolonizing Wealth is a provocative analysis of the dysfunctional colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance. Award-winning philanthropy executive Edgar Villanueva draws from the traditions from the Native way to prescribe the medicine for restoring balance and healing our divides. Though it seems counterintuitive, the philanthropic industry has evolved to mirror colonial structures and reproduces hierarchy, ultimately doing more harm than good. After 14 years in philanthropy, Edgar Villanueva has seen past the field's glamorous, altruistic façade, and into its shadows: the old boy networks, the savior complexes, and the internalized oppression among the “house slaves,” and those select few people of color who gain access. All these funders reflect and perpetuate the same underlying dynamics that divide Us from Them and the haves from have-nots. In equal measure, he denounces the reproduction of systems of oppression while also advocating for an orientation towards justice to open the floodgates for a rising tide that lifts all boats. In the third and final section, Villanueva offers radical provocations to funders and outlines his Seven Steps for Healing. With great compassion—because the Native way is to bring the oppressor into the circle of healing—Villanueva is able to both diagnose the fatal flaws in philanthropy and provide thoughtful solutions to these systemic imbalances. Decolonizing Wealth is a timely and critical book that preaches for mutually assured liberation in which we are all inter-connected.

There are many serious divides political, religious, economic, and others that threaten our planet. This book is about how individually we can contribute to healing the divides between us. The author, Dr. Serafin Talisayon, shares short readable stories and his own reflections from his life journey trying to understand, learn and find solutions to these serious divides. Because solutions will take time, Serafin dedicates and addresses this book to his grandchildren and to your own grandchildren as well. The stories titles beckon your attention or promise surprise or entertainment, such as Stories of people who died and then came back, The sex act: a most private act with huge public consequences and The root causes of poverty are not economic. The author loves to stimulate you to think and he enjoys offering you potential eye openers. After each story, subtitles of his reflections capture the valuable life lesson he wishes to share with you. Suggested actions follow many of the stories which readers can consider if they decide to contribute in healing the divides between us.

I am a Coloured woman of South Africa raised during apartheid. Because my blood was neither pure nor White, I struggled with self-doubt. The book explores my reconciliation of the contradictions in my blood. I am a microcosm of nations riven by strife. Hence, I urge individuals and nations to undergo a similar process of self-reconciliation.

A guide to learning how to communicate with people who have diametrically opposed opinions from you, how to empathize with them, and how to (possibly) change their minds America is more polarized than ever. Whether the issue is Donald Trump, healthcare, abortion, gun control, breastfeeding, or even DC vs Marvel, it feels like you can't voice an opinion without ruffling someone's feathers. In today's digital age, it's easier than ever to build walls around yourself. You fill up your Twitter feed with voices that are angry about the same issues and believe as you believe. Before long, you're isolated in your own personalized echo chamber. And if you ever encounter someone outside of your bubble, you don't understand how the arguments that resonate so well with your peers can't get through to anyone else. In a time when every conversation quickly becomes a battlefield, it's up to us to learn how to talk to each other again. In Talking Across the Divide, social justice activist Justin Lee explains how to break through the five key barriers that make people resist differing opinions. With a combination of psychological research, pop-culture references, and anecdotes from Justin's many years of experience mediating contentious conversations, this book will help you understand people on the other side of the argument and give you the tools you need to change their minds--even if they've fallen for "fake news."

A black minister and a white businessman candidly discuss the obstacles, stereotypes, and sins that inhibit interracial reconciliation. Provocative and honest.

Hope for American democracy in an era of deep divisions In Healing the Heart of Democracy, Parker J. Palmer quickens our instinct to seek the common good and gives us the tools to do it. This timely, courageous and practical work—intensely personal as well as political—is not about them, "those people" in Washington D.C., or in our state capitals, on whom we blame our political problems. It's about us, "We the People," and what we can do in everyday settings like families, neighborhoods, classrooms, congregations and workplaces to resist divide-and-conquer politics and restore a government "of the people, by the people, for the people." In the same compelling, inspiring prose that has made him a bestselling author, Palmer explores five "habits of the heart" that can help us restore democracy's foundations as we nurture them in ourselves and each other: An understanding that we are all in this together An appreciation of the value of "otherness" An ability to hold tension in life-giving ways A sense of personal voice and agency A capacity to create community Healing the Heart of Democracy is an eloquent and empowering call for "We the People" to reclaim our democracy. The online journal Democracy & Education called it "one of the most important books of the early 21st Century." And Publishers Weekly, in a Starred Review, said "This beautifully written book deserves a wide audience that will benefit from discussing it."

The partisan divide in the United States has widened to a chasm. Legislators vote along party lines and rarely cross the aisle. Political polarization is personal, too—and it is making us miserable. Surveys show that Americans have become more fearful and hateful of supporters of the opposing political party and imagine that they hold much more extreme views than they actually do. We have cordoned ourselves off: we prefer to date and marry those with similar opinions and are less willing to spend time with people on the other side. How can we loosen the grip of this toxic polarization and start working on our most pressing problems? The Way Out offers an escape from this morass. The social psychologist Peter T. Coleman explores how conflict resolution and complexity science provide guidance for dealing with seemingly intractable political differences. Deploying the concept of attractors in dynamical systems, he explains why we are stuck in this rut as well as the unexpected ways that deeply rooted oppositions can and do change. Coleman meticulously details principles and practices for navigating and healing the difficult divides in our homes, workplaces, and communities, blending compelling personal accounts from his years of working on entrenched conflicts with lessons from leading-edge research. The Way Out is a vital and timely guide to breaking free from the cycle of mutual contempt in order to better our lives, relationships, and country.