books
2020
I Am Not Your Enemy: Stories to Transform a Divided World
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WINNER, BEST BOOK IN SOCIAL CHANGE, BEST BOOK AWARDS 2020
Michael T. McRay travels through divided regions of the world, conversing with activists, peacebuilders, bereaved families, and former combatants about their personal stories of conflict, justice, and reconciliation. In Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa, he hears from grieving parents who partner together across enemy lines, a woman who meets her father’s killer, a man who uses theater to counter the oppression of his people, and many more.
In a time of heightened alienation and fear, McRay offers true, sacred stories of reconciliation and justice, asking what they can teach us about our own divided states. We need stories that cultivate empathy and tell the truth. We need stories to save us from our fear.
2019
Keep Watch with Me: An Advent Reader for Peacemakers
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The Advent reader for people who want to make a difference in the world.
Keep Watch with Me, curated by Claire Brown and Michael T. McRay, offers stories, reflections, prayers, and spiritual practices to sustain and challenge the faith of those who work for justice and peace.
It features daily devotionals by a distinctively diverse collection of collaborators including writers who are black, white, LGBTQ, Latinx, Palestinian, incarcerated, activists, Native American, and more.
2015
Where the River Bends: Considering Forgiveness in the Lives of Prisoners
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Numerous works discuss forgiveness, but few address it in the prison context.
Expanding on his MPhil dissertation (with Distinction) from Trinity College Dublin, Michael McRay’s important book brings the perspectives and stories of fourteen Tennessee prisoners into public awareness. Weaving these narratives into a survey of forgiveness literature, McRay offers a map of the forgiveness topography. At once storytelling, academic, activism, and cartography, McRay’s book is as necessary as it is accessible.
There is a whole demographic we have essentially ignored when it comes to conversations on forgiveness. What would we learn if we listened?
2013
Letters from “Apartheid Street”: A Christian Peacemaker in Occupied Palestine
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In 2012, Michael McRay joined Christian Peacemaker Teams in the West Bank city of Hebron. Alongside local and international peacemakers, McRay learned how to resist the violence of occupation, sharing in the stories of a suffering people as he struggled to embody peaceableness. This book tells those stories.
Drawing on his personal experience with the land and its history, McRay’s raw letters home tackle critical issues relevant to peacemakers everywhere: What is really happening in Palestine that mainstream media fails to report? How are Palestinians’ lives being affected? How can one be peaceable amidst such violence and oppression? How should Christian discipleship influence one’s pursuits of peacemaking and reconciliation? McRay’s letters illustrate both the challenge and promise of the cross in today’s world.
What People Are Saying
“[Where the River Bends] is important … We cannot encounter these pages and remain unaffected. But what will happen to us if we listen to those we tend to ignore? This book is one way to find out. I encourage us all to listen.”
— Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, from the foreword
“Michael McRay gets poignantly to the heart of the matter. [I Am Not Your Enemy] is a book about the varied faces of grief and love and reconciliation. It is incisive, smart, and acutely necessary for our times.”
— Colum McCann, bestselling author of Apeirogon, winner of National Book Award
“[I Am Not Your Enemy is] important, timely, and needed … McRay … has prepared the path for us to start that journey in finding wisdom again in stories as opposed to fear.”
— Ishmael Beah, bestselling author of A Long Way Gone, from the foreword
“Michael McRay has written a stunning book … [I Am Not Your Enemy] can help all of us get our bearings…”
— Becca Stevens, Founder & President, Thistle Farms
“We can theorize about what forgiveness really means, or we can talk and listen to those we have viewed as unforgivable. Where the River Bends … offers depth of insight and perspective that is rare yet essential if we are going to move to higher ground.”
— Michelle Alexander, bestselling author of The New Jim Crow
“Michael McRay brilliantly weaves stories … Read [I Am Not Your Enemy] and be moved to tears yet also inspired by hope.”
— Raja Shehadeh, critically-acclaimed author of We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I, National Book Award nominee
“[I Am Not Your Enemy] is a muscle, an ache, a practice of asking the troubling questions at the heart of peace.”
— Pádraig Ó Tuama, host of Poetry Unbound with On Being, author of In the Shelter
“Michael McRay is a caretaker of stories, and he’s a master at it.”
— Shane Claiborne, bestselling author of The Irresistible Revolution
Contributions
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Chapter, "Toward a World Beyond Enemies"
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Chapter, "On Parables: A Litany for Telling Stories to Bridge Divides and Build Empathy"
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Preface
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Article, "Meet a True Story"