Captive is a coming-of-age novel about friendship and self-discovery in the context of war, pacifism and the little-known story of German prisoners of war in the United States during World War II. About...
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What does it take to believe? Perhaps it is a body. The writer of the letter to Colossae is filled with longing. “I am struggling for you”; “I am with you in spirit.” His letter pours forth with the...
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Just four miles from Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, I pause among ruins of a Muslim cemetery next to a hill where historians say Jesus may have found employment as a youth. On this hill stood the ancient city...
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Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society’s recent research expanded the pool of groups included under the Anabaptist umbrella. The Community of Christ has moved toward declaring itself a peace church....
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What do you do if the nearest worshiping community to your church is a Sikh gurdwara? Plant a garden together, of course. That’s what River East Church, a Mennonite Brethren congregation in Winnipeg, Man.,...
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When I heard my Amish grandparents’ farmhouse was being razed because of black mold, and a new house would be built, I knew change was coming to a place that seemed timeless. I spent summer vacation there,...
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By the mid-19th century, North American Mennonites and Amish had barely crossed the Mississippi River, venturing west only as far as southeastern Iowa. That changed with the discovery of gold in California in...
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After being released overseas last year, Mary Magdalene made it to U.S. theaters in early April and began streaming this month on Amazon. Directed by Garth Davis (who also directed Lion, one of my favorite...
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The going was slow, but I was meditating on how fit I felt compared to when I started biking again the week before. Some sort of whooshing commotion blew up on my left. Before I knew what it was, I heard...
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The number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border has risen sharply in recent months. Previously the majority apprehended at our southern border were single adults seeking work. Now, more than 60...
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This winter, as I read Karen González’s excellent new book on immigration, troubling news continued to unfold about events at the United States’ southern border. Governmental policy, fueled by xenophobic...
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“Take, this is my body”: These words are the crux of contention, the source of division for any hope of a shared communion practice in the universal church. What did Jesus mean? Did the bread become his...
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I confess, at times I judge people by their hats. We don’t need hats to tell us our society and our churches are plagued with divisions. Divisions are nothing new. They are as old as tribes, as old as us and...
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When I started reading Fire by Night, I expected the usual Old Testament topics: gore, war and law, with the author’s new insights. Or, might it be a book-by-book review from an Anabaptist perspective....
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Some people think global warming is a hoax. Scientific evidence shows it is real. A November report by scientists from 13 federal agencies concluded we are headed toward disastrous climate change that we may...
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Last fall I grafted a half dozen varieties of apples onto my apple tree. I’m a poor and inexperienced grafter, so not surprisingly only a couple of them took. I discovered one in the spring — a stout...
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Recently I was in Sarasota, Fla., due to the forces of what church historian Phyllis Tickle describes as the church’s every-500-year rummage sale. Tickle’s words in her book The Great Emergence have...
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In a bare, block-walled room I see them: young mothers. Their faces hang in that state of half-life between breath and desire, hungry. “Do you have any children?” I ask them. “How many?” “How old are...
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Two kilometers west of Capernaum, a stream of warm water swirls around my feet and spills into the Sea of Galilee. This is Tabgha (“Seven Springs”), where a lush oasis covers the shoreline. Warm water...
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Like other Canadians, every year Ernie and Charlotte Wiens file their taxes. Unlike others, the LaSalle, Man., farming couple doesn’t send the federal government everything it says they owe — the part that...
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The power of new ideas in the global spread of Christianity is perhaps nowhere more strikingly illustrated in the modern church than in an understanding of the “bridges of God.” Donald McGavran used the...
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As the ground thaws and snow piles yield to beds of dark brown soil, I begin to scan for signs of new growth. For days on end in these colder regions, the earth still holds its riches underground. Finally, the...
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How is it that Old Order Amish and some Old Order Mennonites remain bilingual more than 10 generations after their arrival in North America? Most immigrants give up their native tongue after the third...
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One thing I love about Kansas is the mountains. Oh, we have them all right. They’re just buried under 600 feet of Harney Silt Loam. These Kansas mountains, called the Nemaha Ridge, are composed of massive...
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Oh, for a video camera trained on the tomb on that original Easter Sunday! How perfect it would be to witness the grinding of the grave stone, the genuflection of the soldiers, the gleaming of the...
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