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I admit that I was intrigued by the concept of this book but I was skeptical that it would be just another book that glosses over religious conflict in favour of a more upbeat pro-Christian message like, “If you just follow Jesus, we’ll have world peace.” So before I agreed to review it I did a little reading about the author. That is, I did some reading about the author I thought had written this book. It turns out the Book Sneeze website had mistakenly credited this book to David Murrow, the founder The Church For Men. I found this intriguing, as Murrow, a self-proclaimed “regular guy” (according to his website, “he’s not a preacher, he’s not a professor, he’s not a theologian, he’s just a regular guy”) would certainly have something to say about making Christian beliefs more accessible to a population who might otherwise have lost interest or become disillusioned. What would David Murrow have to say about Christianity in a post-9/11 world, I wondered. Well, I’ll have to keep wondering because Peace Be With You was actually written by Dr. David Carlson, a professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies. Had I known that, I would have never hesitated to order this book! My own academic background is in Religious Studies and I appreciated the academic style of the book. Some of the modern monastic thinkers he writes about were familiar to me, while others were a pleasant surprise. I particularly appreciated his caution against Islamophobia. The monastic teachers in this book offer words of peace—real peace—that are inspiring and thoughtful and contribute greatly to the growing library of books on the subject of our post-9/11 world.
