Canadian Mennonite online event will explore Indigenous-settler reconciliation
The second event in a series of online discussions that Canadian Mennonite is hosting will take place on Zoom on Wednesday, Oct. 5 at 8 p.m. ET. Hosted by Aaron Epp, CM’s online media manager, the discussion will explore Indigenous-settler relations and some of the concrete steps Canadian Mennonites are taking to further reconciliation. We…
Humble confessions, compelling stories
As Neill von Gunten and his Black companions departed an increasingly volatile Chicago rally at which Martin Luther King Jr. had taken a brick to the head, KKK members and other whites attacked their bus at a red light. Bricks flew through windows. Rioters rocked the bus. Amid panic, the driver ran the red…
Unsettling stories of darkness, healing and hope
I didn’t realize what I was signing up for when I agreed to write about Indigenous-Mennonite Encounters in Time and Place, a conference held at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ont., from May 12 to 15. It was an intense weekend of learning, emotion, sharing, dancing and stories. The conference started with a mix…
Sharing the land
Many Canadians are familiar with the saying, “We are all treaty people.” It is a slogan created to remind all people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, that treaties offer them rights and call them to responsibilities. A new grassroots organization in Saskatchewan is trying to help landowners live up to their responsibilities. The Treaty Land Sharing…
Indigenous leader critical of MC Canada decision
One of the co-founders of the grassroots Indigenous-led movement Idle No More says her trust in the Mennonite church has been shaken by Mennonite Church Canada’s recent decision to reduce its Indigenous-Settler Relations (ISR) position from full-time to half-time. Sylvia McAdam (Saysewahum) is a law professor at the University of Windsor who is from the…
‘The frontlines are where history is being made’
Allegra Friesen Epp is wrapping up a six-month internship with Mennonite Church Canada and Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), but she is already brainstorming ways to continue doing solidarity work. The internship is the first of its kind, created by MC Canada’s Indigenous-Settler Relations (ISR) office and CPT’s Turtle Island Solidarity Network. From February to July,…
Raise hard truths and turn toward healing
In their new book Healing Haunted Histories: A Settler Discipleship of Decolonization (Cascade Books, 2021), authors and life partners Elaine Enns and Ched Myers confront hard truths about settler complicity in historic and ongoing injustices perpetrated against Indigenous peoples. They also offer a way toward healing. Through the lens of Enns’ own Mennonite family narrative,…
Heinrichs launches online book club
Mennonite Church Canada’s Indigenous-Settler Relations program is running a five-week online book club beginning this April. The chosen text is Beloved Amazonia, a courageous collection of documents from the Pan-Amazon Synod, including an “apostolic exhortation” to the church from Pope Francis. “Carrying the wisdom cultivated from consultations with more than 80,000 people in the Amazon,…
Raising reconciliation from the dead
“Reconciliation is dead.” I saw that stark message on a sign at the Landback Camp in Victoria Park in Kitchener, Ont., in June 2020. Local Indigenous people established the camp as part of a larger effort to assert their presence and reclaim their space on the Haldimand Tract in Ontario. As chair of the Truth…
Dishonoured treaties are ‘the ghost of our history’
Myeengun Henry, Indigenous elder, says treaty relationships should be tended. “We need to shine those up every year so we don’t forget how important they are.” Henry was the first speaker in a seven-month, online storytelling series called “Treaty as Sacred Covenant: Stories of Indigenous-Mennonite Relations,” that centres on covenants made, broken and renewed. A…
