Killing Fields, Living Fields An Unfinished Portrait of the Cambodian Church
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
DON CORMACK (AUTHOR)
- Grew up on a farm in Sussex on the Pevensy Marshes.
- Left for Canada after finishing school
- Following university in Canada, he joined OMF International. He had intended to learn Chinese and serve in Taiwan, but instead answered an urgent call for help in Cambodia, as the country drew near the brink of collapse.
- While forced to leave five months later, he then served in the refugee camps. After marrying Margaret Lockhart, she joined him in the camps.
- They later worked among drug addicts in Singapore before returning to Cambodia to found a new Anglican Church in Phnom Penh, at the invitation of Archbishop George Carey.
- On returning to the UK where their three daughters were in boarding school, Don and Margie Cormack both taught in the school, before retiring to East Sussex, where Don had grown up. He still preaches regularly at his local church and occasionally speaks at meetings.
SHARON JAMES (FOREWORD)
Social policy analyst for the Christian Institute, UK, and author of many books including 'The lies we are told, the truth we must hold' (CFP, 2022)
'There is a kind of suffering so heinous it is beyond telling. Yet when Christ's redemptive grace floods the scene, that same suffering takes on an exalted glow of glory. Be blessed as you read these stories from what has become a classic work.'<br /><br /><br /><b>Joni Eareckson Tada</b>, Joni and Friends<br /><br /><br />A hundred years of history from the Cambodian church's earliest beginnings, on through its own Neronian persecution, to the present day. It has much to teach us. The stories of the grace of God, and of costly love for Christ,are riveting, powerful, disturbing, even overwhelming.'<br /><br /><b>Lindsay Brown</b>, <i>Former General Secretary, IFES; Former International Director, Lausanne Movement</i><br /><br />We Western Christians who know so little about sacrifice and martyrdom urgently need to heed the lessons from this vivid and harrowing account: that the first principle of church growth and missionary fruitfulness is still that which Jesus predicted and exemplified - the seed must die before it bears much fruit.'<br /><br /><b>Jonathan Lamb</b>, <i>Minister-at-Large, Keswick Ministries</i><br /><br />'Convicting, inspiring, and sobering. These stories pierced my soul. Let your heart, spirit and mind be moved as you read of those who did not count the cost of what it means to follow Jesus.<br /><br /><b>Sarah Breuel</b>, <i>Director, Revive Europe</i><br /><br />A marvellous story of grace and hope from a near-forgotten country. An attach on soft-option' Christianity, and an unmistakeable call to sacrificial faith. <br /><br /><b>Stephen Gaukroger</b>, <i>Vice President, Bible Society</i><br /><br /><br />
This is a book for our times as Pol Pot's lust for control in Cambodia has been re-enacted over and over again by Putin, Assad, Kim Jong-un, the Ayatollahs...
While Cambodia is best known for Angkor Wat and tourism, its enchantment hides a recent history and a poignancy beyond imagining. In the mid-1970s, starting with political, military and religious leaders, the entire nation was turned into a death camp.
Don Cormack entered Phnom Penh five months before its fall to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. He mastered the language, and worked in the border refugee camps for years after the nation fell. As he spoke Cambodian fluently, he is able to give voice to Cambodians themselves. Here in this book, the only one of its kind, we hear first-hand accounts of endurance and faith under one of the most barbaric regimes in modern history.
The book opens with the early beginnings of the Protestant Church in 1923. From here Cormack traces the lives of several families up to, and through, the genocide under Pol Pot, and then on to the present day.
How did the mass torture, and mass killing start? Paris-educated Pol Pot and his bourgeois colleagues returned to Cambodia as Marxist zealots, and in April 1975 declared 'Year Zero'. Inspired by Mao's Cultural Revolution and Red Guards, they formed the Khmer Rouge, setting in motion the auto-genocide of the 'Killing Fields'.
Here we gain a wide sweep across decades of turmoil, while drilling down into personal stories of courage and resolve, of epic journeys, of survival; of finding the Way, the Truth and the Life.
At the time of publication only one of the Khmer Rouge leaders is still alive, in prison in Phnom Penh, now aged 93. He remains defiant.
Astonishingly, the story is also told (first broken by the Far East Economic Review in 1999) of Comrade Duch, the chief executioner, becoming a Christian in the early 1990s and being baptised. He was personally responsible for the torture and liquidation of tens of thousands. He remained faithful to Christ, and died in 2020 in prison, with a Bible and a hymnbook beside his bed. Cormack tells of his own meeting with Duch, unawares, in a refugee camp.
Index, Timeline, and three Photo Galleries. This is the eighth and final edition of a contemporary classic. It is beautifully written.
The story of a church which went through one of the most barbaric regimes in modern history. Rich in background descriptions, with many standalone stories of faith and courage. We hear the Cambodian people themselves. A book for our times - think Putin, Assad, Kim Jong-un, the Ayatollas... Photo Galleries, Index and Timeline.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Sharon James
Preface to the First Edition by Peter Lewis
Author's Preface
Map
Prologue
PART I 1923-1975
1. The Fallow Ground
2. The Implanted Seed
3. The 'Seminary'
4. The Pestilence, Drought and Destroyer
5. The Late Rains
6. The Thinning
7. The Fields White unto Harvest
Photo Gallery
PART II
8. The 17 April, 1975
PART III 1975 to present
9. The Seed Falls into the Ground
10. The Seed Dies
11. The Scent of Water
12. The Seed Produces Many Seeds
13. The Harvest of Wheat and Tares
14. The Gleanings
15. The Fallow Ground: An Epilogue
Photo Gallery
Afterword: The Kingdom of God in the Kingdom of Cambodia
PART IV APPENDICES
Appendix 1 Postscript on Duch
Appendix 2 1995: A Sermon for VJ Day
Timeline 300 BC - present
Index
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
DON CORMACK (AUTHOR)
- Grew up on a farm in Sussex on the Pevensy Marshes.
- Left for Canada after finishing school
- Following university in Canada, he joined OMF International. He had intended to learn Chinese and serve in Taiwan, but instead answered an urgent call for help in Cambodia, as the country drew near the brink of collapse.
- While forced to leave five months later, he then served in the refugee camps. After marrying Margaret Lockhart, she joined him in the camps.
- They later worked among drug addicts in Singapore before returning to Cambodia to found a new Anglican Church in Phnom Penh, at the invitation of Archbishop George Carey.
- On returning to the UK where their three daughters were in boarding school, Don and Margie Cormack both taught in the school, before retiring to East Sussex, where Don had grown up. He still preaches regularly at his local church and occasionally speaks at meetings.
SHARON JAMES (FOREWORD)
Social policy analyst for the Christian Institute, UK, and author of many books including 'The lies we are told, the truth we must hold' (CFP, 2022)