Book Description

Arch B. Taylor Jr. traces his ancestry from colonial times, immigrating from Great Britain and Scotland. He describes his family life through high school and Davidson College in North Carolina. As a student in Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and newly wed to Margaret Hopper he served as student pastor in Indiana and later in a rural pastorate in Tennessee. With a young son they went to China as missionaries, only to end up in Japan. They devoted themselves to Shikoku Christian College for twenty-eight years, including Arch’s four years as its president. His biographical sketch of Margaret pays tribute to her as life partner and describes her outstanding qualities as a feminist activist. After Margaret’s death in 1984 Arch retired to Louisville, Kentucky, where Social Security and a Presbyterian pension support what he calls “retread.” Because the Creator God is love, and God sent Jesus as the savior of the world, Arch has devoted these years to nonviolence and justice and efforts for a better life for people on earth. Arch’s retread career was greatly blessed by his second wife Wanda Rowe Myers, who died in 2006. Arch has labored stoutly against the militarism of the United States. He opposed President Reagan’s Contra war and joined Witness for Peace in Nicaragua. As missionary in residence at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina he condemned Bush’s first Iraq attack as a war crime. He joined the 2001 Presbyterian Peace Fellowship delegation in Israel / Palestine. He criticizes U.S. complicity in Israel’s violations of international law and the human rights of Palestinians. Arch advocates the abolition of nuclear weapons and the death penalty, while supporting fairness for LGBTQ people and women’s freedom of reproductive rights. Now past ninety, Arch has reduced his activism but continues to write and advocate.