Beyond A House Divided

If you follow politics or the news, America is a country of culture wars and great divides, a partisan place of red states and blue states, of us against them. From pundits to politicians it seems that anyone with an audience sees a polarized country - a country at war with itself. In a radical departure from this "conventional wisdom," Carl Anderson explores what the talking heads have missed: an overwhelming American consensus on many of the country's seemingly most divisive issues. If the debates are shrill in public, he says, there is a quiet consensus in private - one that America's institutions ignore at their peril. From health care, to the role of religion in America, to abortion, to the importance of traditional ethics in business and society, Anderson uses fresh polling data and keen insight in BEYOND A HOUSE DIVIDED to show that a surprising consensus has emerged despite these debates. He sheds light on what's been missing in the public and political debates of the last several years: the consensus that isn't hard to find if you know where to look. For Anderson, allowing polar opposites to drive the discussion has made the resolution of contentious issues impossible. Instead, he says, we should look to the consensus among Americans as the best prospect for a beneficial conclusion.

In our current culture of conflict, Americans need a better way of relating to one another and responding to controversial issues; a way that transcends political partisanship and emphasizes universal care, mutual concern, and the flourishing of the common good. In A House Divided, Feldmeir suggests that the solution to our political entrenchment is a shared commitment to practicing a politics of compassion; the motivating, unifying ideals of the gospel that insist that we work together for the benefit of the common good. Feldmeir explores eight of the most divisive issues our day; climate change, immigration, medical aid in dying, Islamic extremism, racism, health care, homosexuality, and preventing suicide; through the lens of a Christian ethic of love, seeking to identify those shared values that affirm our commonality and inspire a more creative and collaborative approach to finding practical solutions and healing our divisions. Each chapter includes a study guide for small group conversations.

Based on extended fieldwork conducted between 2007 and 2019, this book aims to answer a simple question: What is the meaning of home for people living in vernacular settlements in rural China? This question is particularly potent since rural China has experienced rapid and fundamental changes in the twenty-first century under the influences of national policies such as "Building a New Socialist Countryside" enacted in 2006 and "Rural Revitalization" announced in 2018. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork, building surveys, archival research, and over 600 photographs taken by residents along with their life stories, this book uncovers the meanings of home from rural residents’ perspectives, who belong to a social group that is underrepresented in scholarship and underserved in modern China. In other words, this study empowers rural residents by giving them voice. This book links the concepts of place, home, and tradition into an overarching argument: The meaning of home rests on the ideas of tradition, including identity, consanguinity, collectivity, social relations, land ownership, and rural lifestyle.

It is hardly noteworthy in contemporary discourse when the phrase, "We'll just have to agree to disagree" actually means, "We plan never to speak to each other again." For members of Episcopal and other Anglican churches, however, the Anglican tradition's identity as a via media demands forthright engagement with difficult topics by Christians committed to remaining in prayerful relationship with each other. In the spring of 2013, Duke Divinity School's Anglican Episcopal House of Studies began a series of "fierce conversations" designed to expose seminary students to the profound and painful reality of ecclesial divisions in North American Anglicanism (revolving around issues of human sexuality, scriptural authority and interpretive practices, and church leadership) while cultivating skills for leading congregations to worship, pray, and serve in ways that contribute over time to the full, visible reconciliation of Episcopalians and other Anglicans in North America. This book presents this year of conversations as a way of inviting congregations to take up the challenge and joy of "fierce conversations" in their own common life.

Belonging in a House Divided chronicles the everyday lives of resettled North Korean refugees in South Korea and their experiences of violence, postwar citizenship, and ethnic boundary making. Through extensive ethnographic research, Joowon Park documents the emergence of cultural differences and tensions between Koreans from the North and South, as well as new transnational kinship practices that connect family members across the Korean Demilitarized Zone. As a South Korean citizen raised outside the peninsula and later drafted into the military, Park weaves in autoethnographic accounts of his own experience in the army to provide an empathetic and vivid analysis of the multiple overlapping layers of violence that shape the embodied experiences of belonging. He asks readers to consider why North Korean resettlement in South Korea is a difficult process, despite a shared goal of reunification and the absence of a language barrier. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in anthropology, migration, and the politics of humanitarianism.

Jonathan Geller, an ambitious young academic, is struggling to build a new life for himself in the US. An American born Jew who had immigrated to Israel with his family as a child, Geller fled the Jewish State after a deadly incident that occurred during his service in the Israeli army. Ten years into his self imposed exile, Geller's younger brother is killed in the line of duty, so he reluctantly returns to Israel to attend the funeral. Once back, Geller is forced to confront his broken family and a life and country he thought he had left behind for good. Colored by his own military experiences, he begins to question the circumstances of his brother's death. Aided by a mysterious source, a childhood friend, an old flame, and his brother's girlfriend, a fiery young redhead, he slowly uncovers the truth - a path that embroils him in a deadly clandestine chess game between two opposing forces - each fighting for what they believe is the very soul of the Jewish state. A fast-paced, character-driven thriller, A House Divided provides an authentic, first-hand look into Israeli society and its legendary military. Unlike many other books in this genre, which have focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict, this work examines the long-term effects of almost one hundred years of conflict on a nation deeply divided on how best to define its future. It also explores how a wounded family, whose bonds have been weakened by distance and time, copes with adversity and loss. Hadassah Magazine: "Friedland has written a good story that shows an intimate knowledge of the military, the landscape of Israel and the effect of the ongoing conflict on the country's citizens."

'A House Divided' is a lucid and invaluable study of the separation of Christianity from Judaism in the first century. It traces the historical forces at work in the central issues that led to the disagreements and finally, mutual rejection.