MCC centrality questioned
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is the largest and most influential Anabaptist organization in the world. It has nearly 1,200 workers and an annual budget of $82 million. Its reach extends to 62 countries abroad, and here in North America it encompasses 14 denominations, covering the spectrum from Amish grandmothers to the Meeting House, a Brethren…
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…
“’Twas in the moon of wintertime” not included in new Mennonite hymnal
Choosing whether or not to include a song in Voices Together is more complicated than whether or not people like singing it. The song known as “Huron Carol” or “’Twas in the moon of wintertime” is one example of a beloved song that raises difficult questions. To assess songs in recent Mennonite denominational collections, including…
Writing in the dust
We know of Jesus writing only once, Tom Yoder Neufeld told the Mennonite Church Canada Assembly gathered here for Sunday morning worship. Urging his listeners to use more than the written word, he recalled the story of the woman adulterer’s accusers fuming while Jesus wrote in the dust on the ground. “Perhaps Jesus will reach…
Mosquitoes are part of life
I recently told someone that our family holiday plans this summer included tenting for 10 days in northern Ontario. They replied, “Why on earth would you do that? That sounds awful.” Unfortunately that’s the same reaction I get when I tell certain people I go to church. I reflected on this last week while our…
In the current of wavering defiance
I want to know how to pray. It’s December 2021. Advent. A season of waiting. Everything is waiting. Waiting for the pandemic to be over. Waiting for our leaders to start acting like we’re in a climate emergency. Waiting for our hemisphere to tilt back into the light. We are hunkered down for our second…
Cultural markers and faith markers
When Hyejung Jessie Yum first encountered Mennonites, she found value and inspiration in the writings of the 16th-century Anabaptists and adopted them as her faith ancestors. At the same time, she sensed some unspoken rules that seemed to make some groups of Anabaptists “more authentic” than others. “At first, I thought it was only my…
MC Alberta defers approval of Future Directions report
“Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.” Chuck Neufeld’s confident voice set the tone for the 2016 Mennonite Church Alberta delegate assembly as he sang the theme words from Mark 4:50. Assured that where Christians gather, Christ is near, discussions at the annual general meeting were frank but constructive. Concerns around possible implications…
‘Where is God?’
It’s hard to imagine a force powerful enough to keep an academic from his books, a father from playing with his children, a husband from attending to the wife he loves.
Finding value in challenged lives
What is a human life worth? What makes my own life worthwhile? Is my time valuable only when my efforts add up to some measurable achievement I can document on my résumé or in my exercise log or my family’s “brag book”? And if that’s the case, what value is there to a less productive…
