A Bridge in Babylon
Stories of a Military Chaplain in Iraq
by Owen R. Chandler
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Pub Date Jun 15 2021 | Archive Date Jun 18 2021
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Description
Experience the battlefields of Iraq with army chaplain Owen Chandler.
As an Arizona Army National Reservist, Chandler was deployed to Iraq as chaplain of the 336th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, leaving behind his wife, three young children, and a congregation for more than a year. In this painful but eloquent memoir, Chandler shares his story of serving as an "embedded presence of hope" in Iraq through personal letters, journal entries, scriptures and photos exchanged with family back home. Expanding far beyond the military chaplain caricature of M*A*S*H's Father Francis Mulcahy, Chandler reflects on the brutal realities of war, his fellow soldiers, and the families waiting for them all to come home. He shares the struggle to hold onto faith and hope in the midst of battlefields, opening readers' hearts to the challenges of military chaplaincy and the plight of veterans shattered by their experiences. A Bridge to Babylon inspires readers and provide tools to create bridges to our veterans, especially Reserve soldiers with shockingly high rates of suicide and substance abuse.
About Author
A recipient of the Bronze Star, Rev. Owen R. Chandler serves Saguaro Christian Church (Disicples of Christ) in Tucson, Arizona. His ministerial emphasis centers on discovering the healing, transformative power of the intersections between our story and God's story.
A Note From the Publisher
Author is available for interviews, blog tours, autographed tours, autographed book giveaways, contests, and book club discussions.
Advance Praise
"Captivating, original, honest. Seeing war—and peace—through a chaplain's lens is a necessary and insightful read."—Kathryn Bertine, author, STAND: A memoir on activism. A manual for change.
“Owen is the voice we need right now as a nation engaged in endless war. With both humor and hope, he offers a blue print for congregations to better support soldiers and their families as we wake up to the terrible cost of war upon the soul of our nation.”—Alison Harrington, Pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona
“A Bridge in Babylon is a must read for every church leader whose congregations and classrooms include veterans, military reservists and military family members. This intimate and authentic record of one chaplain’s deployment and return home clearly demonstrates the joys, frustrations, sacrifices, doubts, fears and successes of ministry within highly diverse, pluralistic, and often, lethal environments.”—Kyle Fauntleroy, Captain, Chaplain Corps, USN (Ret.), and Director of Development, Brite Divinity School
“Owen Chandler’s A Bridge in Babylon is searing testimony about the effects of war abroad and at home, a tender love-letter to his family and the Tucson congregation he left for more than a year, and a compassionate tribute to those whom he served as “padre.” A master storyteller – with an ear like Raymond Carver’s, an eye like Tim O'Brien’s, and a heart like Carolyn Forché’s – Chandler proffers a gift we didn't know we needed so desperately: compelling inspiration to care with renewed commitment for soldiers whom we have sent into “perpetual war.”—Robert Lee Hill, Minister Emeritus, Community Christian Church, Kansas City, Missouri
“Chandler invites us into the realities of ministry in the context of war and the emotional and relational costs of deployment for families as well as troops.”—Nancy J. Ramsay, Director of the Soul Repair Center, Brite Divinity School
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9780827203174 |
| PRICE | $16.99 (USD) |
