7th Cousins auto-mythography
Erin Brubacher and Christine Brubaker are seventh cousins, more or less. Before their 700-kilometre walk from Brubaker Valley Road in Lancaster, Pa., to the historic John E. Brubacher House in Waterloo, Ont., they discovered a common ancestor, Hans Bruppacher, born in Switzerland in the 1600s. Erin comes from the Abraham Brubacher line and Christine from…
New definitive history of Mennonites in Ontario
In Search of Promised Lands: A Religious History of Mennonites in Ontario By Samuel J. Steiner. Herald Press, 2015, 877 pages. Sam Steiner has pulled off an amazing feat. He has written the definitive history of Mennonites in Ontario in an interesting way that makes it accessible to ordinary readers. This is a very complicated…
Pastor brings compassion to same-sex debate
A letter to my congregation: An evangelical pastor’s path to embracing people who are gay, lesbian and transgender into the company of Jesus. By Ken Wilson. Read the Spirit Books, 2014. Into the fevered and polarizing debates about churches responding to those who are same-sex attracted comes a clear, compassionate and discerning voice, that of…
Church growth is the wrong narrative
“Church growth strategies are the death gurgle of a church that has lost its way,” is how Stanley Hauerwas describes this book, noting that, “God is making us leaner and meaner.” This insightful analysis of contemporary churches comes from a pastor who wanted to become a great leader by using “successful” pastors as his model.…
Concerts raise funds for relief
With the Canadian Federal Government’s pledge to match funds for Nepal relief coming to an end, a flurry of events in Waterloo and Toronto raised an additional $28,000 on May 24. The Grand Philharmonic Choir under the direction of Mark Vuorinen, also assistant professor of music at Conrad Grebel University College, performed Fauré’s “Requiem” and…
Mennonites extend influence via media
Steven Carpenter’s new book, Mennonites and Media: Mentioned in It, Maligned by It and Makers of It, offers a summary of both the ways Mennonites have been portrayed in popular media and the ways they have used it in North America to convey distinctive Mennonite insights. While not exhaustive, the book provides a representative study…
New Christian music festival focuses on justice
Organizers of Canada’s newest festival of music, faith and social justice hope that the Skylight Festival will invigorate a generation of socially conscious Christians. The first Skylight Festival will take place this summer in Paris, Ont., from July 31 to Aug. 2. It’s patterned after the Greenbelt Festival in England that draws more than 20,000…
Pax Christi Chorale revives Judith oratorio
The apocryphal book of Judith contains the story of a righteous Jewish widow who saves her people from the ravages of the Assyrian/Babylonian army led by Holofernes. While her city is besieged she leaves with her maid and is welcomed into the general’s tent. He thinks he will seduce her, but when he is alone…
History surprises
Lewis Burkholder’s A Brief History of Mennonites in Ontario, published in 1935, is a “brief” book compared to Sam Steiner’s new book on the same topic: In Search of Promised Lands: A Religious History of Mennonites in Ontario. The book was released on March 28, 2015, at Conrad Grebel University College, where the retired Grebel…
‘Inspired by his own vision’
A one-of-a-kind collection of museum-quality art and artifact replicas has found a permanent home at Columbia Bible College. With the cut of a ribbon, the Metzger Historical Collection was officially opened to the public on March 14 in the basement of Columbia’s Resource Centre. The Metzger Collection contains more than 1,200 replicas of significant archeological…
