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…
An assumption of grace
After the Vatican’s recent repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, I spent two hours speaking with three Indigenous people about the 500-year-old church doctrine that is as much the bedrock of Canada as the Canadian Shield. I asked about its relevance, the potential of its undoing, and a question I had never asked before. Those…
Readers write: April 21, 2023 issue
The religion of peace The week the F-35 fighter jet was on the cover (Jan. 30), I had pulled an antique book of sermons off the shelf that my wife had from her grandmother. Published in 1896, it is titled The Message of Peace by R.W. Church. It was written within memory of the U.S.…
Jesus and the 4 Cs
Have you ever heard of the 4 Cs? In education, the 4 Cs refer to 21st century learning skills including critical thinking, creative thinking, communicating and collaborating. In my role now, I have been thinking about how Jesus connects to the 4 Cs, and how they can connect to our work in the church and…
Bernhard Schellenberg
In 2023, the Mennonite Heritage Archives celebrates 90 years of service to the Mennonite community. It can trace its roots to the Conference of Mennonites in Canada’s annual sessions held June 26-28, 1933, in Gnadenthal (near Plum Coulee, Man.), when Bernhard Schellenberg (1879-1966) was appointed archivist. Schellenberg advocated for the creation of the archive, citing…
‘An old nose’
A recent weekend was exhausting, delightful, enlightening, hilarious, touching . . . and exhausting. The stars lined up in such a way that we kept our youngest grandchild, seven-year-old Jaxon, here for the weekend. Usually when he’s here, he is accompanied by his two older brothers, but they were busy doing other things. “Excitedly” is…
Dandelions for the Gospel
A dandelion tattoo festoons my left forearm, a puffball ready to launch its wispy seeds. Asked to speak at one of our congregations one Sunday, I intended to start the children’s feature by showing the tattoo. “Can you do that?” a friend asked. “Can you show a tattoo in church?” That exchange is object lesson…
What more could I want?
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). Despite regular self-reminders of my abundance, I want. Despite the ongoing conversations with my children about our relative wealth, they want. Despite overflowing shelves of books and games, and complaining about lack of storage space, and instruments that barely see the light of day,…
School’s out
Hundreds of students are preparing to graduate this month from post-secondary institutions supported by Mennonite Church Canada and its regional churches. Canadian Mennonite spoke with five students about their experiences studying at Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, B.C., Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) in Winnipeg and Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ont. Columbia Bible College…
