Celebrating Creation and all Creatures: A Review of Praise Be Peace

The latest book from John Dear released in March 2020 is a departure for him in that instead of demonstrating for peace, he is celebrating peace. This is reflected in his choice of title, Praise be Peace. Praise is on his mind as he takes 39 of the Psalms in the Bible and presents them not with a revengeful God, but the God of Peace.

Dear’s subtitle, of course, brings us back to the reality of our times, “Psalms of peace and nonviolence in a time of war and climate change.” One finds that Dear cannot separate these two issues of extreme importance as humanity marches forward with destruction of civilizations and our planet.

He attempts to bring us this God of Peace while concurrently preaching that our society’s preponderance to inflicting war on countries and cultures throughout the world is due to the absence of the principles of nonviolence. Dear rejects the old testament Psalms that presented a vengeful and destructive God with a God of “mercy, generosity, kindness, faithfulness, security, and peace.” 

Much in the old testament presents a picture of war, conquest, and death for God’s chosen people. Then how do we turn to the Psalms with nonviolence in mind? As Dear states “the psalms are one hundred and fifty ancient prayers evoking every emotion from devotion and praise to anger and hatred, from vengeance and violence, despair and dread, to peace and glory.” He suggests that we read the psalms from the perspective of gospel nonviolence as Jesus stated in the Sermon on the Mount. These prayers, Dear says, then take on a new life that leads us out of violence into a spirit of peace.

The book is separated into eight sections each with its own theme beginning with “The Calling of the Peacemaker.” Seek peace and pursue it, Dear entreats, asking God to teach us the peace emphasized in Psalms 25, 86, and 90. A peacemaker celebration has us taking refuge with trust in the God of peace and voicing an entreaty with a cry to God in Psalm 22: “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” Then Dear lends us the hope of the peacemaker with Psalm 91; “God will rescue you, God will deliver you, God will answer you.”

Dear also brings his reader into his personal life with bits and pieces about the beauty of the coastal area of California where he now resides in peace and solitude in his “hermitage.” He tells of the Benedictine monks who chant the psalms daily in their monastery in the mountains of Big Sur as well as his attraction to the monolith of Morro Rock in the little seaside town of Morro Bay where southern sea otters float on their backs and shorebirds dash in and out of the waves. Dear gains spiritual sustenance from this environment that is blessed by his God of peace.

For him, these psalms are a celebration of creation and all the creatures. He warns us though, that our greed and violence is causing the environmental destruction of our planet and urges us to take to heart these psalms to reclaim our earth and live according to how our Creator intended us to.

Praise Be Peace is a book that will fill the Christian with hope and faith. It is something to turn to in times of stress especially now as we suffer through an unprecedented pandemic. Dear claims that God is the God of Peace and we can rely on the words of Psalm 124: “Our help is in the name of the God of Peace, the maker of heaven and earth.”

Buy Praise Be Peace on our website here.