David Belden was born in 1949 in Switzerland, where his English parents were working fulltime with MRA. He was christened by Frank Buchman in the English church in Caux, blessed with two co-founders of Caux as godparents, Philippe Mottu and Dorli Hahnloser. From age three he was raised in one of the six large communal homes that formed the MRA Headquarter in Mayfair, London. For five years from age 17, when he gave his life to God in the MRA way, he was a passionate activist for that way—as a volunteer in India, a student at Oxford, and a full time MRA worker in Ethiopia. By age 22 he was so puzzled by this movement that he wrote a doctoral thesis to answer his own questions. He has led an eclectic life since then including countercultural activism, fair trade innovations, two published feminist science fiction novels, twenty years as a carpenter, college teaching, business writing, web columnist on openDemocracy, and managing editor of the spiritual progressive magazine Tikkun. For the last six years he has prioritized his work as a writer and a facilitator of prison groups in the field of restorative justice, now with the Ahimsa Collective. He emigrated to the US from England in 1982 to marry his American love, Debi Clifford. Their son Rowan is a video game designer.
