What kind of peace church are we?
As Israel obliterates Gaza, and hostages await sunlight, it’s easy to look away. Indeed, sometimes we must. Not everyone can take every war to heart. But this war demands something of us collectively. Mennonite Church Canada issued a brief statement on November 2, calling churches to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia in Canada and pray for…
Readers write: December 1, 2023
Don’t ignore pain and rage I was encouraged to see Canadian Mennonite give space to understanding the conflict in Palestine that is currently so front and centre (“Palestinian voices,” October 20; “Attending to war,” November 3). I was especially pleased to see the focus on the stories of Palestinians themselves. Given that our own government…
Bethlehem Bible College
Bishara Awad stands outside Bethlehem Bible College in Bethlehem in 1985. Awad, a Palestinian Christian, founded the school in 1979. He had previously served with Mennonite Central Committee in a Palestinian school and attended Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno, California, in 1981-82. For more historical photos in the Mennonite Archival Image Database, see archives.mhsc.ca. More…
Battle for the character of Israel
Uri Weltmann says support for Israel’s government and support for the people of Israel are two different things. “This is not one and the same,” he says, speaking by video call from Tel Aviv, where he lives. Weltmann is one of the founding members of Standing Together, a grassroots political movement of Jewish and Palestinian…
False unity vs. true unity
In B.C. we’ve heard stories of churches in at least two denomina- tions choosing to use secondary or tertiary doctrines and opinions as litmus tests for belonging. These groups are doubling down on the wrong ways of trying to maintain unity. The more you focus on secondary sources of unity, the farther away you get…
Witness workers visit from Philippines
Growing up as a member of the Sumacher Indigenous peoples group in the Philippines, Tala Bautista listened to American music. She longed to see snow and perhaps roast chestnuts on an open fire. She wanted to see the West Virginia country roads of which John Denver sang. American cultural influence is pervasive in the Philippines,…
Cultural or biblical?
It is exactly 100 years ago that my congregation, First Mennonite Church in Kitchener, divided over the issue of women’s head coverings. Two-thirds of the congregation left because they did not want women to be forced to wear head coverings. They moved one block up the hill to create Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church. A century…
Peace from the podium
Working for a more peaceful world can take place anywhere. For Susanne Guenther Loewen it takes place at the front of the classroom at Saskatchewan’s largest public university. Guenther Loewen is in her third year of teaching Introduction to Peace Studies at Saint Thomas More College on the University of Saskatchewan campus in Saskatoon. She…
The rally call
Curiosity is a powerful spiritual discipline. Curiosity has blessed me with many opportunities to spend time with kind, intelligent and reasonable people, in many different social, political and theological camps. I’m grateful for the privilege of hearing the typically calm and logical explanations they have for the positions they hold. In these moments, I’ve seen…
