Finished the Paul Tourier book today. No great feat, as it ws only 63 pages long. But goodness, what a great writer and thinker he was. Inspires me to think that someone well outside of the professional religious community could write so well on Christian issues.. This particular book asks several questions about how people, especially Christians, should participate in conflict (not limited to military ones). He had amazing skill at what we americans would call cutting through the crap on this issue. Short summary of his approach is that a purely intellectual approach to the question, "Am I obligated to stand up and fight about this, or am I obligated to let it all pass", is not likely to be fruitful. Beyond trying to reason it out he suggests the two approaches of prayer and letting God change you. This may sound trivial the way I put it, but when illustrated with real examples from his patients, it was quite powerful. If yo ucan find or borrow this book, I do recommend it highly.

On a down note, did a little googling of Mr Tournier today. One of the top entries was an old paper from a Wheaton student which showed pretty conclusively that Tournier was a universalist. I say conclusively, because Tournier said as much in a personal letter to the writer. I guess no one's perfect. In any event, I don't have the least doubt that Tounier was quite genuine in his faith, theological stumblings aside.