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MCC celebrates 75 years of service work in India
This year, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is celebrating 75 years of relief, development and peace work in India, making it one of the oldest international aid organizations in the country. MCC began work in India in 1942, in response to severe famine in Bengal province in which more than two million people died from starvation,…
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Telling Anabaptist stories old and new
The two nights of the 2018 Bechtel Lectures at Conrad Grebel University College were connected by David Weaver-Zercher and focussed on Mennonite stories and how they are used in the media and elsewhere. The professor of American religious history at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pa., is probably best known for explaining to the worldwide media…
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More about Oscar Romero
This online supplement accompanies the viewpoint, “Evangelical social justice,” about Archbishop Oscar Romero, in which Will Braun considers Romero’s message for Mennonites. Oscar Romero’s sermons English transcripts of his sermons and Spanish audio of many of them are available at http://www.romerotrust.org.uk/homilies-and-writings/homilies Henri Nouwen comments on Oscar Romero Oscar Romero is a humble man of God. His…
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MCC may allow exceptions to ‘lifestyle expectations’
The boards of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada and U.S. have approved the possibility of exceptions to the “lifestyle expectations” for some MCC personnel, although those parameters have not been completely defined. The updates came as the boards reviewed MCC’s human resources framework at their annual joint meeting on March 16 and 17, 2018, in…
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Scholars uncover hidden stories of the Holocaust
In 2004, Joachim Wieler of Weimar, Germany, opened a small wooden box he inherited after his mother’s death. To his surprise and horror, it contained letters his late father wrote while serving as an officer in the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany. “I almost fell off the chair,” Wieler said, speaking to more…
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Canadian Mennonites and Anglicans meet for first dialogue
As the Anglican Church of Canada has increasingly found itself on the margins of power in Canadian society, it decided to reach out to a group of fellow Christians that has long been in the position. At the invitation of the Anglicans, a group of Mennonite Church Canada leaders and lay people met with their…
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AMBS conference models practices for sustaining faith and hope
With contentiousness and fracturing in the body of believers, and hostility and injustice all around, these are difficult days for church leaders, who are supposed to provide guidance for people struggling with the trials of the times while at the same time often wrestling with their own challenges. “How do we deal with our anxieties…
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UWinnipeg Fellowship to crack open KGB archives
In the 1930s, thousands of Mennonites disappeared in the Soviet Union without a trace. The KGB archives in Ukraine has thousands of files on these missing Mennonites, and a newly announced University of Winnipeg Fellowship wants to crack into these archives to uncover the stories of lost relatives, ancestors and much more. Through the Centre…
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Generous love amid war in DRC
Loving the generous people of the Democratic Republic of Congo is not difficult, but evil happening in the rural Kasai region of that lush country is hard to comprehend. In December 2017, survivors of civil war there told a delegation from the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) Deacons Commission of surprise attacks on their villages from…
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Award-winning Herald Press book gets an update
In Donald B. Kraybill’s The Upside-Down Kingdom, Jesus is slightly irreverent. He critiques the rich, scorches nationalism, redefines Old Testament law, and undercuts the authority of religious leaders. Kraybill points out that Jesus is into sharing, not hoarding. Service, not status. Community, not competition. Basins, not swords. Loyalty to God, not nation. Kraybill, a prolific…
