"We live in that final time which offers humans the clearest choice in history: the kingdom or the holocaust," Jim Douglass writes. "Either end is a lightning east to west: the nuclear holocaust a lightning fire, the kingdom of Reality a lightning spirit. We will choose lightning east to west today as either nuclear fire or the kingdom of God, as either despair and annihilation or transformation through nonviolence. If we look to Jesus and Gandhi, and what they point to, we can hope to choose the lightning fire of nonviolence."

Author - James W. Douglass
Foreword - Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen

"After I first read 'Lightning East to West', I was so moved that I immediately read it again. The book, each time, led me to some deep place of peace and emptiness and compassion. At the same time, it pushed me, encouraged me to take new risks, speak out, cross lines, and give my life for global peace through universal love. Reading this book is an experience of prayer, because it disarms, heals and draws us deeper into our inner, contemplative sources, the mystical depths of transforming nonviolence."

John Dear (from the Afterword)


"A wonderfully clear account of the relevance of spiritual energy to human potential in the concrete encounter with nuclear militarism."

Richard Falk, Princeton University


"Lightning East to West is one of the most moving and challenging spiritual journals of our time."

Robert McAfee Brown

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