What does the past mean for the present?
The past two years have seen the publication of two interesting new collections of academic writing on Mennonite themes, one theological and the other historical. While other reviewers such as Jamie Pitts and Ben Goossen have reviewed these books in detail elsewhere, I would like to reflect on them in much broader terms and ask…
Before I go
Paul Loewen is wrapping up his time as youth pastor at Douglas Mennonite Church and he’s given the youth he currently works with a unique gift. He wrote and self-published a book entitled Before I Go: Nine Ideas You Should Know and presented each youth group member with a personal copy last month. The book…
Reading books in prison
Seven years ago, two friends and I from Rockway Mennonite Church in Kitchener, Ont., agreed to begin a book club with inmates in the local Grand Valley Institution for Women, a federal prison. Except for breaks in the summer, every month since then we have made our way through prison security and along a maze…
Contemplative journal an expression of creative process
April Yamasaki and Lois Siemens have collaborated across the miles on a second creative project. In 2014, the women, who are pastors of Mennonite Church Canada congregations in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, respectively, joined forces to produce the My Sacred Pauses Daybook, combining text from Yamasaki’s book Sacred Pauses with Siemens’s photographs. This year, they…
2014 Fall list of Books & Resources
Theology, Spirituality Good News: The Advent of Salvation in the Gospel of Luke. Darrin W. Snyder Belousek. Liturgical Press, 2014, 140 pages. As the executive director of Bridgefolk, Snyder Belousek brings together the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition with the Benedictine prayer tradition in looking at what salvation means for life on earth. Snyder Belousek teaches religion at…
Pastor’s first novel invites discussion
William Loewen has written a theological book disguised as a novel. This makes it challenging to classify, but it also opens new possibilities for how it can be used. I would recommend this book for a book club or other group discussion, especially for young adults who are exploring their own spirituality. Loewen, pastor of…
Helping us not to forget
After getting a coffee I sat down to read The Winter We Danced. On the table next to me I noticed a book someone left behind. On the cover was a bold notice stating “2.5 million copies sold.” The book was a contemporary work of fiction re-telling the conquest narrative of America expanding into the…
Books show Old Order Mennonite culture from the inside
Amsey Martin, an Old Order Mennonite deacon and long-time parochial school teacher, loves books. While most people in his community are farmers, he says that sitting in his study surrounded by books is “a dream come true.” The idea of making a book has also appealed to him, and when a writer from his Old…
Steiner pushed open doors for other women
Sue Clemmer Steiner’s recent publication crosses genres within autobiography. It is personal memoir and spiritual recollection. It is reflections on a life in pastoral ministry. It is a historical snapshot of a 1950s eastern Pennsylvania traditional Mennonite community and a Mennonite girl facing the social upheaval of the 1960s. Steiner offers poetry and evocative images.…
Uncle Sam goes to jail
Of memories I have of family members, the one about my Uncle Sam’s arrest on April 19, 1944, and his imprisonment, which became legendary in our community, left an indelible mark. Uncle Sam was born in the U.S. and was 18 months old when the family moved to Duchess [Alta.]. He had been baptized into…
