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A love for all seasons
“Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come . . . . Rise up my love, and come away” (Song of Songs 2:10b-12a, 13b, KJV) I learned these words from…
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Mennonite me
My grandmother’s church is, like all Old Order Mennonite churches, plain. The white walls are bare. There are no stained-glass windows, no gilded altars and no images of saints or martyrs. Pews of hard, blonde oak sit in tight rows on worn linoleum. Today, the small chapel is filled with people. Women, unadorned, wearing simple,…
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Out of control
“A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household! So have no fear of…
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Correcting a common misunderstanding
Matthew 10:37 reads, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” These verses have justified the rejection of countless sons and daughters who don’t conform to their parents’ understanding of what it means to love Jesus.…
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Healing the wounded city
For many people, the Christian faith and poverty are deeply interconnected. Acts of charity are widely viewed as a key aspect of the Christian life, and the church has a long history of providing relief and advocacy for justice for the poor. It’s somewhat puzzling then to discover that Christ himself said very little…
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The birth of Anabaptism in fire and water
Sometimes, a single act can have enormous consequences. In the religious ferment of 16th century Europe, a small group of Christians in the Swiss canton of Zurich gathered in a home on a wintry January day in 1525. One of them, George Blaurock, asked another, Conrad Grebel, to baptize him. Around the circle they went,…
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Facing history with courage
“History,” wrote American poet Maya Angelou more than 20 years ago, “despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has completed four years of hearings and investigations, witnessing testimonies from some 7,000 survivors of Indian Residential Schools and their legacy.…
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Definition: ‘Settler’
The term “settler” for Canadians of European descent was popularized by Roger Epp in his 2008 book, We are all Treaty People. This term acknowledges—rather than ignores—the conflicted history of the colonial project that began in Eastern Canada in the late 1500s. In the Canadian west in the late 19th century, the Canadian government aggressively…
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Making ‘restorative solidarity’ work
In an appendix to Ambassadors of Reconciliation, Vol. II: Diverse Christian Practices of Restorative Justice and Peacemaking (Orbis Books), which I co-wrote, I explored the question of how principles and practices of restorative justice might be applied to historic and continuing violence, as is the case regarding indigenous justice in Canada. In this article, I…
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The joy of pizza
My wife Rachel and I wanted to start practising radical hospitality, but we live in a cosy basement apartment. It would be so much easier if we had our own house with lots of common space. But we felt Jesus was calling us to open up our doors with the room we did have. We…
