Editorial

Hearing young voices

As a person old enough to be their grandparent, I have to be careful with my words about young people. Having grandchildren of my own, I have learned, sometimes the hard way, to regard the boundaries which respectfully guard the integrity, identity and idealism of the younger generation.



A teachable moment

Have we learned anything about resolving church conflict in the past 50 years?

After reading the painful account of the German/English language dissension resulting in several congregational splits (“Changing the language of worship is a test of love,” page 4), our faith community should take a contemplative look at how to redeem this blot on our past.

Conversing in the ‘big tent’

“If we step back and review the letters to the editor in this magazine over the past several years, we generally find debates in the church and religion framed in terms of conservative and liberal.

“Each side thinks the other is at best misguided, perhaps even profoundly wrong, and misinterprets Scripture. There tends to be a fair bit of each side yelling at the other.”

A political lament

As an American living and working in Canada, I am both intrigued and saddened by two political events of the past ten days in these two North American countries—the take-out of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. military and the take-over by a militaristic Conservative majority government in Monday’s elections in Canada.

‘Habits of repair’

Not in my lifetime did I imagine that neuroscience and the Anabaptist construct of “community” would come together as a paradigm shift “away from the cult of the individual and back to nurturing relationships,” as one planner of a recent weekend seminar on “Attachment Theory” put it.

Vote your core beliefs

While we won’t endorse candidates of the five political parties in the upcoming May 2 election, or tell you how to vote, we do ask Mennonite voters to both examine the political views and voting records of candidates regarding our deeply held core beliefs in peacemaking, compassion for the poor and care for creation before placing your ballot in the ballot box.

Yes, we are online

We do have a website, dear readers, a recently re-designed one, in fact.

And we know many of you are reading Canadian Mennonite online. Our Google Analytics tell us that as many as 2,400 unique visitors a month are coming to the website for some 16,000 page views and staying an average of three minutes to read something of interest.

The past as prelude

As a people of hope, what should we, as a Mennonite faith community, expect on the road ahead in 2011?

If the past is prelude, as the adage goes, there are road signs, some of them giving helpful direction, others giving us warnings. At the risk of oversimplifying, we will deal with only three: cultural shifts, ecumenism and a new mission/service focus.

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