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The Richard Deats Homepage
Dr. Richard L. Deats
Richard Deats worked for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) from
1972 until his retirement on June 30, 2005. A United Methodist minister,
Deats taught social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in the
Philippines from 1959 to 1972. Deats served FOR in different capacities:
He was executive secretary, director of interfaith activities, and
editor of Fellowship magazine and coordinator of communications. He
taught workshops and lectured on active nonviolence in over a dozen
countries, including South Africa, Bangladesh, the Philippines, South
Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, India, Haiti, Kenya, Lithuania, Russia,
Colombia, Palestine and Israel. He led numerous Journeys of
Reconciliation to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the Cold
War. Deats was part of an FOR peace effort in Iraq and he met with the
PLO in Tunis, with Burmese liberation groups, and with indigenous
movements in Ecuador. In 1986, he was part of an IFOR nine-week training
project that contributed to the "people power" revolution in the
Philippines.
A native of Big Spring, Texas, Deats holds a B.A. from Mc Murry
University, an M. Div. from Southern Methodist University and a Ph.D.
from Boston University. He was president of the Texas Methodist Student
Movement and student body president at Southern Methodist University.
Since his college days he has been active in the civil rights movement
and was a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday
Commission until it was terminated in 1996. His wife, Jan, is a concert
pianist and music teacher. They have four children, sixteen
grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Deats' books include Nationalism and Christianity in the Philippines,
Ambassador of Reconciliation: A Muriel Lester Reader, and How to Keep
Laughing Even Though You've Considered All the Facts. He co-edited
Active Nonviolence: A Way of Life, A Strategy for Change. His book,
Martin Luther King, Jr., Spirit-led Prophet(1999), with a foreword by
Coretta Scott King, is now in its third printing and his biography of
Gandhi, with a foreword by Sister Mary Evelyn Jegen, is entitled Mahatma
Gandhi. Nonviolent Liberator(2005). The King and Gandhi books (by New
City Press) have German editions as well as English. Deats writings have
appeared in such publications as The Christian Century, Sojourners, The
Progressive, The Philippines Free Press, The National Catholic Reporter,
The Other Side, USA Today, Newsday, Reconciliation International, and
Fellowship.
Deats lives in Nyack, New York with his wife, Jan.
Would you like to e-mail Richard? click here
This website and all its contents ©2000
by Richard Deats
Website design by Jason Trotta
Deats photograph by Stefan Merken
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