Merciful Meekness

Book excerpt: Here is a clear, concise and judicious examination of the bedrock Christian moral principles of mercy and meekness that leads the author, a professor of philosophy, to affirm their essential integration if we are to become complete Christians. Dr. Walters redefines and synthesizes the Christian principles: mercy and meekness together are virtues compatible, complementary, and essential to our pathway to union with Christ, convincingly countering the Nietzschean philosophy that rejects their synthesis (one or the other is possible, but not both), as incompatible, inherently contradictory and "morally repugnant." Intended as a reference work for undergraduate students, this spare book, rooted in Scripture and Christian tradition, the thought of Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Ayn Rand, and Friedrich Nietzsche, including his polemics with the Sermon on the Mount, is also helpful for the general reader in search of spiritual wholeness. It is an effective counterguide to Christianity's naysayers.