Gordon Zahn, Prophet of Peace

When Gordon Zahn (1918-2007) began his own journey to pacifism, he was convinced of two things: first, that had he been educated in the traditional Catholic schools of his time, he would never have heard of pacifism; secondand he was given rather strong encouragement to think this waythat he was on the lunatic fringe of the church. But he was also convinced that the path of the early church was the correct one and that pacifism was the normative Christian position and that the just war theory was at best an attempt to justify what Realpolitik had already decided was necessary. For many a decade, Gordon followed the lonely road of preaching pacifism in the company of others on the edges of mainstream Christianity. But this was a determined lot, and Gordon, who despised meetings to the depth of his being, continued to show up whenever asked, attended meeting after meeting and was eventually successful in efforts with others to resurrect This article appears in January 7 2008.