Deserter from violence : experiments with Gandhi's truth

This is an autiobiography of Franklin Zahn, who was raised as a Christian Scientist and became an engineer. About the time of World War II he came to realize that war and violence was wrong. He was one of the first conscientious objectors in the Christian Science Church, which is not a traditional peace church. He realized that even alternative service aided and abetted the war effort. Throughout his life he objected to paying taxes which support the military, he opposed nuclear testing, and spent his life seeking peaceful alternatives. He was often jailed for his efforts. He sought spirituality in Christian and Eastern religions. Franklin Zahn worked for the betterment of society in the Los Angeles area. Book is written with humor and show more frankness. show less

The life story of a religious (Quaker) peace activist trying to put Gandhian nonviolence principles into daily practice. Zahn was a peace activist, war tax resister, living a voluntary life of poverty and celibacy. In 1962 he and two others sailed into the forbidden nuclear test zone in the Pacific to protest nuclear explosions.

A southern Californian's autobiography of a radically devoted and authentic Quaker life. Instructive and challenging.