This issue of Plough Quarterly explores the effects of technology on human flourishing. Whether its artificial intelligence, genome editing, Big Tech monopolies, or social media–induced depression, we live in a world that is being reshaped by technology from the ground up. How do we stay human? This issue of Plough Quarterly addresses challenges ranging from the lure of transhumanism to the erosion of silence by the smartphone. Technophobia is no answer, our contributors agree, but neither is a refusal to tackle real dangers. They ask: Why not try living without a computer or a television? Why give tablets to children when Steve Jobs refused to give them to his kids? Why write using a keyboard when you could wield a fountain pen? Technological asceticism of this kind won’t solve society-wide dilemmas. But it can help us maintain the spiritual independence needed to respond to them rightly. Also in this issue: original poetry by Jacob Stratman; reviews of new books by Ian Johnson, Steve Roud, and Markus Rathey; insights from Wendell Berry, Viktor Frankl, Ivan Illich, Carl Sandburg, C. S. Lewis, Alfred Delp, and Christoph Blumhardt; and art by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Jack Baumgartner, Nicholas Roerich, Rachel Newling, Kay Polk, Suellen McCrary, Stephen Scott Young, Jie Wei Zhou, Kiéra Malone, Torkel Pettersson, Mari Rast, Albrecht Dürer, René Magritte, and Kyle T. Webster. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.

Plough Quarterly No. 15 - Staying Human: Tech Issue (Plough Quarterly, 15)

Berry, Wendell

Arnold, Johann Christoph

Rhodes, John

Bauerlein, Mark

Bennett, Stephanie

Delp, Alfred

Britts, Philip

Arnold, Eberhard

Black, Susannah

Swinger, Maureen

Plato, Michael

Sargeant, Alexi

Fajardo-Heflin, Chico

McRay, Michael T.

Dolan, Timothy Cardinal

Lewis. C.S.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Plough Publishing House

In 1984, Ron Sider challenged that until Christians are ready to risk everything in pursuit of peace, ""we dare never whisper another word about pacifism . . . Unless we are ready to die developing new nonviolent attempts to reduce conflict, we should confess that we never really meant that the cross was an alternative to the sword."" From this challenge, Christian Peacemaker Teams was born. Nearly thirty years later, Michael McRay too explored Sider's challenge, interning with CPT in the West Bank city of Hebron. Alongside local and international peacemakers, McRay learned how to resist the violence of occupation, sharing in the stories of a suffering people as he struggled to embody the peaceable spirit of the rabbi from Nazareth. This book tells those stories. Drawing on his personal experience with the land and its history, McRay's raw letters home tackle critical issues relevant to peacemakers everywhere: What is really happening in Palestine that mainstream media fails to report? How are Palestinians' lives being affected? How can one be peaceable amidst such violence and oppression? How should Christian discipleship influence one's pursuits of peacemaking and reconciliation? McRay's letters illustrate both the challenge and promise of the cross in today's world. ""Our field needs passionate, on-the-ground, firsthand descriptions of the challenges of constructively engaging settings of deep and painful conflict. McRay's book provides just such a window."" --John Paul Lederach, author of The Moral Imagination ""Surprisingly invitational. This is a book worth reading and rereading. As a guide for activism, I hope these reflections will have a profound rippling effect."" --Kathy Kelly, Nobel Peace Prize nominee ""A valuable resource for all who are called to be peacemakers--which should mean all of us."" --Brian D. McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christianity ""What is hopeful about these letters is the humanity the author shows through his interaction with Jews and Palestinians. In a down-to-earth yet profound way, this book shows Jews a way out of the injustice of occupying another people. What more important lesson do we Jews have to learn before it is too late?"" --Marc H. Ellis, author of Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation ""Here is a book as unflinchingly faithful to the Christian gospel as a book can possibly be."" --Richard T. Hughes, author of Myths America Lives By Michael T. McRay received his BA in History from Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, earning regional and national awards for his senior thesis comparing European colonialism and the Israeli occupation. In addition to his internship with Christian Peacemaker Teams, Michael has worked and traveled extensively in the West Bank in various capacities. He is currently pursuing graduate studies in conflict transformation and reconciliation with the Irish School of Ecumenics (Trinity College Dublin) in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Letters from "Apartheid Street"

Biographies & Memoirs

Wipf and Stock

Myriad works discuss forgiveness, but few address it in the prison context. For most people, prisoners exist ""out of sight and out of mind."" Their stories are often reduced to a few short lines in news articles at the time of arrest or conviction.   But what happened before in the lives of the convicted? What has happened after? How have people in prison dealt with the harm they have caused and the harm they have suffered? What does forgiveness mean to them? What can we outsiders learn about the nature of forgiveness and prison from individuals who have both dealt and endured some of life's most painful experiences?   Expanding on his MPhil dissertation Echoes from Exile (with Distinction) from Trinity College Dublin, Michael McRay's important new book brings the perspectives and stories of fourteen Tennessee prisoners into public awareness. Weaving these narratives into a survey of forgiveness literature, McRay offers a map of the forgiveness topography. At once storytelling, academic, activism, and cartography, McRay's book is as necessary as it is accessible.   There is a whole demographic we have essentially ignored when it comes to conversations on forgiveness. What would we learn if we listened?    ""[T]his book is important. . . . We cannot encounter these pages and remain unaffected. But what will happen to us if we listen to those we tend to ignore? This book is one way to find out. I encourage us all to listen."" --Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, from the foreword  ""Where the River Bends ... offers depth of insight and perspective that is rare yet essential if we are going to move to higher ground."" --Michelle Alexander, author of the best-selling The New Jim Crow  ""Michael McRay shares the stories that should make the headlines, but usually don't. . . . [He] proves that our wounds have the power to hold us hostage to the past or to compel us to build a future where grace gets the last word. . . . Don't just read this book--let it move you to become an agent of mercy in a merciless world."" --Shane Clairborne, activist, abolitionist, and author of Executing Grace and the best-selling Irresistible Revolution  ""Michael McRay has written an extraordinary book. It tells the grand narrative of how justice, forgiveness from God, seeking and receiving forgiveness from others, and struggling with forgiving the self come together like a turbulent river. The origin of this particular river is in McRay's understanding of forgiveness, and McRay draws most heavily upon the superb theology and psychology of theologian Miroslav Volf, and peacemakers John Paul Lederach and Desmond Tutu. Then, fourteen prisoners' personal stories form 'tributaries' that arise from the turbulent river. Those stories recount crimes, address justice, and describe self-recrimination. It is forgiveness that often bends the flow of narrative into the grand narrative that forgiveness of self and others changes lives. This book could actually change your life."" --Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Author of Moving Forward: Six Steps to Forgiving Yourself and Breaking Free from the Past  ""This book stands tall among the tomes on forgiveness. McRay takes us deep into the souls of prisoners, who explain the hard work of releasing rage. Their stories make it clear: the recipe for forgiveness is not simple or easy. Yet the gritty work of letting go opens the door to freedom, even behind bars. Caution: reading these heart-wrenching stories may change your life."" --Donald B. Kraybill, coauthor Amish Grace  Michael T. McRay (MPhil, Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation, Trinity College Dublin at Belfast) is a writer, advocate, adjunct professor, and storyteller. He served as a volunteer prison chaplain before being banned by the warden for organizing, is the cofounder of No Exceptions Prison Collective, and is founder and cohost of Tenx9 Nashville Storytelling. He is the author of Letters from ""Apartheid Street"" (2013).

Where the River Bends

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Secrets from a Prison Cell

Religion & Spirituality

Vick, Tony D.

Christian Books & Bibles

Product Description 
Keep Watch With Me: An Advent Reader for Peacemakers is a collaborative daily devotional featuring diverse contributors: black, white, LGBTQ, Latinx, Palestinian, incarcerated, Native American, Australian, Americans, Irish, South African, clergy, laity, activists, authors, organizers, and more. The season of Advent, as the church prepares for the birth of Christ, is a penitential season of reckoning with our need and the needs of the world. 
Keep Watch With Me offers stories, reflections, prayers, and spiritual practices to sustain and challenge the faith of those who work for justice and peace, and long for the coming of God with us. 
 Book Description 
Become a peacemaker this Advent and experience the hope of new life! 
 About the Author 
Michael T. McRay is a writer, facilitator, and story-practitioner living in Nashville, Tennessee. He’s the author of multiple books, including the forthcoming I Am Not Your Enemy: Stories to Transform a Divided World (Herald Press, 2020). Michael is the Southeast Regional Manager for the global story nonprofit Narrative 4, and he also hosts Tenx9 Nashville Storytelling. He holds a graduate degree in conflict resolution and reconciliation from Trinity College Dublin at Belfast. He leads narrative retreats and speaks on story, conflict, reconciliation, and forgiveness. You can follow him @michaeltmcray on social media and through his blog at

Keep Watch with Me: An Advent Reader for Peacemakers

Brown, Claire

ABINGDON PRESS *

I Am Not Your Enemy: Stories to Transform a Divided World

**WINNER** Best Book Awards by American Book Fest, category of Social Change**FINALIST** Best Book Awards by American Book Fest, category of Narrative NonfictionAre you my enemy? Am I yours? 
Violent stories surround us. Brutal beginnings, horror-filled middles, despair-inducing endings. We need better stories: stories forged in the furnace of conflict, narratives that kindle compassion and ignite hope. In the pages of I Am Not Your Enemy, writer Michael T. McRay visits divided regions of the world and interviews activists, peacebuilders, former combatants, and clergy members about their personal stories of conflict, justice, and reconciliation. In Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa, he hears from grieving parents who comfort each other across enemy lines, a woman who meets her father's killer, and a young man who uses theater to counter the oppression of his people.\nIn a time of heightened alienation and fear, McRay offers true, sacred stories of reconciliation and justice, asking what they can teach us about our own divided states. Must violence be met with violence? Is my belonging complete only when I take away yours? Will more guns, more walls, more weapons keep us safe?\nWe need stories that cultivate empathy and tell the truth. We need stories to save us from our fear.

History

World

Herald Press

Are you my enemy? Am I yours? Violent stories surround us. Brutal beginnings, horror-filled middles, despair-inducing endings. We need better stories: stories forged in the furnace of conflict, narratives that kindle compassion and ignite hope. In the pages of I Am Not Your Enemy, writer Michael T. McRay visits divided regions of the world and interviews activists, peacebuilders, former combatants about their personal stories of conflict, justice, and reconciliation. In Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa, he hears from grieving parents who partner together across enemy lines, a woman who meets her father's killer, and a man who uses theater to counter the oppression of his people, and many more. In a time of heightened alienation and fear, McRay offers true, sacred stories of reconciliation and justice, asking what they can teach us about our own divided states. Must violence be met with violence? Is my belonging complete only when I take away yours? Will more guns, more walls, more weapons keep us safe? We need stories that cultivate empathy and tell the truth. We need stories to save us from our fear.

In 1984, Ron Sider challenged that until Christians are ready to risk everything in pursuit of peace, "we dare never whisper another word about pacifism . . . Unless we are ready to die developing new nonviolent attempts to reduce conflict, we should confess that we never really meant that the cross was an alternative to the sword" From this challenge, Christian Peacemaker Teams was born. Nearly thirty years later, Michael McRay too explored Sider's challenge, interning with CPT in the West Bank city of Hebron. Alongside local and international peacemakers, McRay learned how to resist the violence of occupation, sharing in the stories of a suffering people as he struggled to embody the peaceable spirit of the rabbi from Nazareth. This book tells those stories. Drawing on his personal experience with the land and its history, McRay's raw letters home tackle critical issues relevant to peacemakers everywhere: What is really happening in Palestine that mainstream media fails to report? How are Palestinians' lives being affected? How can one be peaceable amidst such violence and oppression? How should Christian discipleship influence one's pursuits of peacemaking and reconciliation? McRay's letters illustrate both the challenge and promise of the cross in today's world.

Letters from "Apartheid Street": A Christian Peacemaker in Occupied Palestine

Cascade Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McRay, Michael T.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by McRay, Michael T.