In 2003, a story shook the Anglican world in general and Anglican monastic life in particular. On August 8th, seven members of The Melanesian Brotherhood, an Anglican order of Christian brothers living a simple and prayerful life and known for their peace work throughout the South Pacific and beyond, were brutally murdered as a result of ethnic conflict in the Solomon Islands. They had been taken hostage five months earlier. The Melanesian Brotherhood is the largest Anglican religious community in the world with over 300 brothers and more than 300 novices and has received a United Nations award for its peace work. From 1990-2005, Richard Carter, a British priest, was tutor, chaplain to the Melanesian Brotherhood, eventually becoming a brother himself. This extraordinary, powerful and moving book is based on his diaries from that agonizing time for the Community. It tells the harrowing story of the loss of seven good, young and holy lives and the aftermath of those deaths. It tells the story of individuals and a community trying to make sense of faith in the face of fierce conflict and tragedy. It recounts the challenge of living out the Christian faith when confronted by great fear and loss. It is thus a story for everyman. Rowan Williams writes a preface.
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RICHARD CARTER was until 2005 Chaplain to the Melanesian Brotherhood. He is now a priest at St Martin in the Fields, London.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Blood of the Martyrs is Seed,
By benjamin (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In Search of the Lost: The Death and Life of Seven Peacemakers of the Melanesian Brotherhood (Paperback)
In 2003, while the Anglican world was preparing the put itself on the brink of total madness over the issue of homosexuality, civil war (due to ethnic strife) was ravaging Solomon Islands, a small group of islands in the South Pacific that is just east of Indonesia. Richard Anthony Carter's beautiful book In Search of the Lost: The death and life of seven peacemakers of the Melanesian Brotherhood, tells the story of how the Melanesian Brotherhood - the largest monastic order in the Anglican Communion - sought to foster peace between warring groups. Their attempts to bring about reconciliation resulted in the martyrdom of seven of them, and this eye-witness account, written by one of the Brothers in the order, tells both their story and his own journey through this tremendously difficult time. He weaves history, hagiography, theology, spiritual direction, poetry, liturgy, and a large number of his own journal entries into the narrative of the book; this is a highly effective narrative technique which reads like a collage of different materials that gives its own unique portrait of the event in question.On Easter Sunday, 2003, news reached the Melanesian Brotherhood that one of their own brothers, Nathaniel Sado, had been killed by the leader of one of the militia that was present on the island. Brother Sado had been so badly beaten that he had asked to be killed, but while he was being beaten to death he also sang hymns (126). Before his death had been discovered, six other brothers had gone out to search for him, as he had gone missing, and these six were also martyred by the same militia. The first half of the book tells history - both Carter's and that of the Brotherhood's - leading up to this tragic news, and the latter half of the book discusses both Carter's own crisis of faith and that struggles of other members of the Brotherhood and society to come to terms with this painful news. The turning point in Carter's own life came about "at the point when I really did not know how we could go on," which is when "God took over" (165). This book is very much a book of flesh and blood and spirit; it is a deeply human book that moves from the optimistic to the broken, doubtful and vulnerable, and ultimately towards healing and hope. I confess that it is the personal elements that Carter includes about his own spiritual struggles that moved me the most while reading this book. Perhaps this is surprising to some - Christians have always had a borderline-morbid fascination with martyrdom and, in light of North America's obsession with being a voyeur to horrific violence (whether in movies, music or video games), it might be expected that I would be most thrilled with reading all sorts of gory details about the death of the martyrs themselves; indeed, a martyr-fetish-turned-American-voyeurism is a frighteningly toxic mixture that is all the more dangerous because it is cloaked with piety - but Carter is too intelligent to allow for the narrative to become some sort of gore-fest-turned-martyr-worship. In fact, I'd go so far as to wager that he's entirely opposed to celebrating violence or any type of theodicy that glorifies pain. Rather, what we read about in this book is that there are times of tragedy out of which great good can and does come about. To put it rather bluntly, "War is hell." Carter notes with great spiritual and psychological discernment how it is that civil war can quite literally shatter a person emotionally and physically, and how it can have an even more damaging effect when this sort of experience is compounded on a societal level. The theodicy issue thus comes up again, for a major part of Carter's book is an argument that it is not power but powerlessness that is ultimately the most powerful and the most redemptive. He is tremendously concerned about the superstitions on the island - in particular, the belief that holy men such as those in the Brotherhood cannot be harmed by others - and that holiness is akin to some sort of death-defying power. It's the lust for power that not only entraps people to superstitious fear, but that also drives people to commit the most atrocious acts of murder. Carter's refusal of power, which only comes by way of his own recognition of how tempting power really is, gives a Christian theodicy that is worth repeating. Here there is no redemptive suffering, merely redemption beyond suffering. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is certainly an important book in that it translates between two radically different cultures - that of the so-called "Global South" (which apparently isn't as different as some people might think - apparently they are as human there as here, and those who are Anglican there are just as creedal, sacramental, biblical and liturgical as we are here). But, more importantly, it tells a deeply human story with all of its highs and lows, brokenness and healing, faith and doubt. It is a book that widens the human family.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A profoundly good book,
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This review is from: In Search of the Lost: The Death and Life of Seven Peacemakers of the Melanesian Brotherhood (Paperback)
The author was the chaplain to the Anglican order of monks, the Melanesian Brotherhood, during a recent time of conflict and martyrdom. In his account of those years in the late 1990s and earliest years of the 2000s, Carter brings his considerable skills of observation and writing to the task of telling a story of death and resurrection--the loss of seven brothers and the peace their deaths brought to the Solomon Islands.The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, writes in his introduction that this "is one of the most truly evangelical books I have read for a long time." I agree, but more so. For to place the book as an evangelical one is to narrowly categorize a book that deserves a larger reading. The struggles of the Solomon Islanders are human struggles. As Carter writes in the book, the problems that came to a head their "can take place in any country of the world when prejudice and hatred and violence gather momentum and run amok, unchecked." Recent history in Rwanda, Bosnia and elsewhere have shown this to be true. And so this book tells a story that transcends its own setting to offer true and lasting hope. The book tells the story of God's love at work and in so doing Carter serves to widen the human family.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Informed passion born of hard earned experience,
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This review is from: In Search of the Lost: The Death and Life of Seven Peacemakers of the Melanesian Brotherhood (Paperback)
I'm not one for effusive superlatives but I was blown away by this book.Richard has a great gift for writing and this combined with an informed passion born of hard earned experience and wholesale commitment makes for a most powerful book. Richard is/was in a unique position to write such a book and he has delivered on the opportunity only he could have availed himself of. The book comes across as being very honest and appropriately questioning whilst still undoubtedly committed to and supportive of the Melanesian Brotherhood. NB I was a colleague of Richard's when we were both teaching at Selwyn College, Solomon Islands, prior to his involvement with the Melanesian Brotherhood. I am of a more spiritual nature rather than a person of religious convictions yet the book still resonates powerfully for me.
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