Tongue Screws and Testimonies: Poems, Stories and Essays Inspired by the Martyrs Mirror
Categories: Web First – OpinionTongue Screws and Testimonies, a book of essays, poems and artwork reflecting on the Martyrs Mirror, is written by insiders for insiders. In the introductory essay, Kirsten Beachy, the editor, states that this volume reflects a wide variety of opinions and…
Dora and the Prince of Peace
Categories: Web First – OpinionEnough with trying to save the world – that’s an impossible and thankless job. Our real task is to save Baby Jaguar. As I sit on the living room couch with my youngest child nestled on my lap and a…
Biography sheds light on story of southern Manitoba’s conservative Mennonites
Categories: Web First – OpinionThis highly detailed and comprehensive biography of Wilhelm H Falk (1892-1976), founding bishop of the Rudnerweide Mennonite conference, is an important addition to the history of Mennonites, particularly in southern Manitoba. It provides a rich account of that era with…
Small Town Murder Songs: Movie Review
Categories: Web First – OpinionSmall Town Murder Songs is a Canadian movie with a Mennonite connection, first shown at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. The story, set in what is supposedly a small Mennonite town in Ontario, deals with a local police chief who…
Bonhoeffer biography examines a disciple’s life
Categories: Web First – OpinionDietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who spoke out against the Nazis, has been a controversial figure. Mennonites have valued him for his book, The Cost of Discipleship, but many people don’t know how to interpret his involvement in the plot…
Outsider explores self in Hutterite community
Categories: Web First – OpinionNightwatch is a gentle and introspective book, written by an outsider who has chosen to live within a Hutterite community. This outsider perspective reveals different facets of the culture and community than books written from within (such as I am Hutterite…
Is history repeating itself?
Categories: Web First – OpinionJust released in Canada Chanting Denied Shores by Tariq Malik is a book I have been waiting for. This is an historical novel based on the true story of the Komagata Maru, a ship carrying 376 Indian immigrants who were…
The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada
Categories: Web First – OpinionI am not exactly a fan of the Christian Right. I was therefore surprised at my growing negative reaction as I read McDonald’s engaging description of the rise of the Christian Right in Canada. McDonald seems to make a convincing…
Faith now ‘a consumer commodity in America’
Categories: Web First – OpinionIn a culture that places a high premium on the consumer marketplace, U.S. churches have become too willing to embrace a “market mentality” in trying to attract followers, says a new book by a journalist who is an ordained minister.…
About those Reimers
Categories: Web First – OpinionAbout Those Reimers vividly demonstrates how much of one’s life is determined by factors outside one’s control. Elizabeth Reimer Bartel begins her memoir, not with her birth, but with the Mennonites, their movements, and a view of the city of Steinbach…
Guy Hershberger an under-appreciated church leader
Categories: Web First – OpinionLate in his life, Guy F. Hershberger reflected that 1944 had been a watershed year for the Mennonite Church. That year Hershberger’s book, War, Peace and Nonresistance, was published as was Harold Bender’s essay, “The Anabaptist Vision.” And during that…
Healing Memories: Lutherans/Mennonites
Categories: Web First – OpinionThe document that helped lay the foundation for the historic reconciliation in July 2010 between Lutherans and Mennonites is now available as a downloadable document. The 120-page Healing Memories: Reconciling in Christ offers churches and individuals historical background on the early condemnations…
Dancing Through Thistles in Bare Feet
Categories: Web First – OpinionThis is a jewel of a book: its structure, seamless use of metaphor, the powerful quest motif and the humour make it a captivating and stimulating read. Although the title’s byline adds A Pastoral Journey, it actually is, and reads…
‘Must reads’ for thoughtful Mennonites
Categories: Web First – OpinionThe Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith. Stuart Murray. Herald Press, 2010, 191 pages. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. James Davison Hunter. Oxford University Press, 2010, 358 pages.…
Mennonite German Soldiers
Categories: Web First – OpinionMennonite German Soldiers: Nation, Religion, and Family in the Prussian East, 1772–1880, by Mark Jantzen. University of Notre Dame Press, 2010, 384 pages. Mennonite German Soldiers traces the efforts of a small, pacifist, Christian religious minority in eastern Prussia—the Mennonite communities of…
Theological differences should be seen as a gift
Categories: Web First – OpinionThe Gift of Difference: Radical Orthodoxy, Radical Reformation. Chris K. Huebner and Tripp York, eds. Canadian Mennonite University Press, 2010, 240 pages. The Gift of Difference makes two substantial attempts—first to frame a dialogue between two very different Christian traditions and…
Mennonites described with biting wit
Categories: Web First – OpinionMennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home. Rhoda Janzen. Henry Holt and Company, 2009, 241 pages. My sister lent me her copy of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress saying, “You’ll hate it, but you’ve got…
Opinion/columns
