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Tell us what you think
Have you completed our opinion survey? If not, here is your invitation to do so. We need your help to re-think how Canadian Mennonite (CM) can best serve the church. Please use the link below. CM is actively researching new ways to gather and deliver news. We are looking at various options to engage our…
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Birding with Alvin
I don’t get out much. That’s true for my personal life. My wife and I are homebodies and we jokingly refer to ourselves as “indoor kids”—a nod to the kind of children who choose watching TV or reading a book over getting outside and running around. It’s also true for my work life. Since Canadian…
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Of beets and chainsaws
If integrity is the currency of change, the Wiederkehr family of Mildmay, Ontario should have a chunk of change to spend. In a world of compromise, greenwashing and homesteaders Instagramming their idealism, the Wiederkehrs have done far more than most to actually extract themselves from the consumerist machine that treats earth as waste bin and…
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Uncommon global access
The fact that Mennonites are spread throughout much of the world provides the global Anabaptist community with rare access to on-the-ground, first-person comment from both hotspots and forgotten corners of the globe. Sometimes we make good use of this access, sometimes we do not. In this issue—the first of three digital-only issues this summer—we hear…
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The poofy blue MCC couch
When I worked at the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) office in Winnipeg 20 years ago, I took pride in showing up early. Occasionally I even arrived before Norm, the custodian, who turned the lights on at 7 a.m. Sometimes, I was also the last to leave. I was doing advocacy with a Cree community and…
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The duty of tension
I did not plan to write about polarization—I’ve filled my quota on that topic—until Maxime Bernier held a rally near my home. Bernier leads the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) and may be the most prominent populist politician in the country. I couldn’t resist the chance to cross the political divide. I attended the June…
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Countering intuition
I’m not certain this is a good idea, but I’m going to tell you about four things in this issue of the magazine that don’t sit well with me. If that seems counterintuitive to you, it does to me too. Some intuitions are worth countering. I’ll circle round at the end to dial back the…
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How I almost bought a Tesla
I came closer than I’d like to admit. Three weeks before a family road trip to Ontario, our ex-Hutterite mechanic gave our 2004 Jetta wagon the death sentence. The ensuing car search turned into a troubling family crash course in the psychology of real-life environmental ethics. A used Prius—Toyota’s time-tested hybrid—was the obvious option: durable,…
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In-house acknowledgment
With this issue of Canadian Mennonite, Ross W. Muir completes his time with the magazine. As managing editor for almost 18 years, he has undertaken a central piece of the work required to put the magazine together every two weeks. Muir has worked diligently and consistently behind the scenes, attending to the finer points of…
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A centuries-old offer of peace
During the Papal visit to Canada in the summer of 2022, observers and news-watchers likely caught glimpses of banners and heard chants to reject or repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery. For some, this may have been a first introduction to the Doctrine; for others it represented decades of work to bring the Doctrine out of…
