Healing Our Divides: Answering the Savior’s Call to Be Peacemakers

religious encounters] based on tolerance alone? More than tolerance, we need constructive competition. When persons on fire with their gospel compete lovingly to give their finest treasures to each other, will not everyone benefit?'” — C. Randall Paul, President, Foundation for Religious Diplomacy “Healing Our Divides is the perfect book for our current moment. There is an urgent need for Latter-day Saint Christians to become better peacemakers—in our homes, workplaces, congregations, communities, and nations. David Ostler teaches correct principles and then offers concrete tools and examples that will empower readers not just to believe in peace but to embody and practice it as well.” — Patrick Mason, co-author of Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’s Answer to an Age of Conflict “Father Lehi taught the principle that there must needs be opposition in all things, with our mortal experience purposely designed to create constant conflict. In Healing our Divides, David Ostler masterfully explores how we can embrace disagreement while reducing or eliminating contention. Ostler builds upon his first book Bridges by providing practical advice and techniques in how to communicate effectively by broadening our ‘in-group’ to include all of God’s children, and he demonstrates how we can maintain our standards, understand our biases, and discover how to love those whose views differ from our own. The renowned scientist and Jesuit Priest Pierre Chardi said, ‘Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.’ Ostler’s book gives us the blueprint in how we can do this.” — Richard Ferguson, Executive Director, Scripture Central “At present, the United States is becoming irreparably divided, a nation that will not stand or survive unless as citizens we choose to start listening to, reaching out to, and loving those on the other side of our personal and national divides. David Ostler’s Healing Our Divides: Answering the Savior’s Call to Be Peacemakers is an inspired call and practical guide for doing just that. Using the words of scriptures, sages, and modern prophets, as well as the wisdom of our common humanity, Ostler makes a compelling case for the kind of sacrifice, humility, faith, and courage necessary for us to come together. The American Dream will remain a dream as long as there are deep divisions among us. As Ostler says, “Nothing gets better until enough of us decide we want to make it so.” Get this book. Follow its wisdom. Become a uniter. The dream awaits!” — Robert A. Rees, Co-founder and Vice-President, Bountiful Children's Foundation “The focus ofHealing Our Divides: Answering the Savior’s Call to Be Peacemakersis perhaps the greatest danger facing American democracy and, indeed, democracies throughout the world: the disintegration of civilized discourse and behavior into cultural wars that threaten to shred the very fabric of democratic society. David Ostler boldly steps into the fray with a book that instructs how to move back to the Christ-centered society that is—or was—central to the Latter-day Saint concept of a gathered Zion composed of the pure in heart, with all living in harmony and none excluded. Ostler is not the preacher on a high platform who is scolding the congregation, but rather,