Great Trek’s legacy
The 39 families who followed Claas Epp into the Central Asian wilderness to avoid military conscription and meet Christ’s return in the late 19th century have received undo derision from descendants of other...
[read more]Long-delayed exhibit is set to open in Uzbekistan
A decade after its opening was canceled, a historical exhibit about a band of Mennonites from Ukraine who migrated far eastward in the 1880s to avoid military service and meet Christ’s return will finally go...
[read more]From persecution to reconciliation
SHIPSHEWANA, Ind. — Persecution of Anabaptists in the 16th century by Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed churches created centuries of mutual mistrust and suspicion. In the last 30 years, however, these...
[read more]Book review: ‘Flight: Mennonites facing the Soviet Empire in 1929-30’
We live in an era of human flight and displacement. The United Nations Refugee Agency says there are more than 68 million refugees throughout the world. A top political issue in North America and Europe is...
[read more]Research digs into Ukrainian Mennonites missing and murdered during Soviet era
Among the lists of those disappeared during the dark times of the 1930s and ’40s in what is now Ukraine, researchers have found roughly 400 pages of Mennonite names, with five or six names per page. That...
[read more]Drinking coffee with Canada’s National Mennonite Historical Society
Over the Nov. 15-17 weekend, I listened to no less than 30 academic presentations in a space of 2.5 days as Canada’s National Mennonite Historical Society hosted scholars and speakers for the annual...
[read more]The cross or the flag?
Do evangelical Christians want to move the needle of government to the point where the cross and the flag are synonymous? The U.S. Constitution promises justice and democracy for all, which on paper looks like...
[read more]Discovered documents detail French Nazi resistance
More than seven decades after World War II ended, revelations about Mennonites and the war continue coming to light. Stéphane Zehr of Anduze, France, presented research about French Mennonite resistance to...
[read more]Some other ways to talk about Indians this Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is almost upon us. How do you talk about it with your children? Many of us learned a story about Pilgrims and Indians sharing a happy meal of New World foods — turkey and cranberries and...
[read more]Our troubling Mennonite inferiority complex
“Many American Christians simply assume that the state has no business dictating church beliefs or practices, that a church should be a gathered body of believers rather than a net that that scoops up...
[read more]“Djagalah Anak Kambing Koe” (“Tend My Lambs”)
Renewal 2027 is a 10-year series of events organized by Mennonite World Conference’s Faith and Life Commission to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the beginnings of the Anabaptist movement. This series...
[read more]Hutterite heirloom seeds – A harvest of memories
“As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night” (Gen. 8:22). On a Hutterite colony, typically one couple is in charge of the vegetable...
[read more]History: At war’s end, a last gasp of violence
One hundred years ago next month, on Nov. 11, 1918, an armistice brought World War I to an end, ceasing the four-year-old conflagration that resulted in 40 million casualties, unprecedented destruction and...
[read more]Reflections on Ukraine: Can it happen again?
Women in Odessa, Kherson, Zaporozhe, Dnipro and Kiev adorn themselves in the colors and fragrances of happy gardens that belie Ukraine’s brutal history. Men without shirts in the villages of what had been...
[read more]A civil rights reunion
While on the faculty of Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., J. Lawrence Burkholder participated in an integration effort on March 31, 1964, in Saint Augustine, Fla., which made headlines in newspapers...
[read more]Swiss project highlights reconciliation in Bern
A decade ago in Switzerland, a process of reconciliation emerged among Anabaptists and contemporary representatives of the government that oppressed them during the Reformation. To make that reconciliation...
[read more]Mennonites and empire
Every Mennonite in the small town of Goessel, Kan., knows the date 1874. It is emblazoned on the “Turkey Red Wheat Palace,” erected on the centennial of Mennonites’ migration to the Great Plains from...
[read more]Opinion: Late for the 500th birthday party
A new direction and a different interpretation are mother’s milk to the historian. At times this is helpful. At other times, not so much. Anabaptism, defined from its inception by its enemies, more recently...
[read more]Curiosity about Anabaptists creates teachable moments
SHIPSHEWANA, Ind. — People who come to northern Indiana with curiosity about the Amish and Mennonites often find their way to an Amish-country attraction that teaches them about Anabaptism. About 260 people...
[read more]Our hymns shape our church
“Out of the fullness of the heart, the language of each mortal springs. If you would truly know a man, just listen to the songs he sings.” — Amish hymn writer John Paul Raber, Songs from Within...
[read more]What do historians look like?
The first time I submitted a piece of scholarship for consideration to an academic journal — at age 21 and having just earned B.A. in history — a rejection letter came in quick response. Why? Because I...
[read more]Anabaptism’s 500th anniversary is 2025, not 2027
At times of historical celebration, there is often debate as to the veracity of classical interpretations of a movement’s beginnings. Such a debate is with us again, as we begin to commemorate the...
[read more]Statue to honor martyr
STEINBACH, Man. — Manitoba sculptor Peter Sawatzky has been commissioned to create a bronze statue of martyred Anabaptist Dirk Willems. Based on an engraving of Willems by Jan Luyken in Martyrs Mirror, the...
[read more]Group seeks forgiveness for trauma of Münster
MÜNSTER, Germany — An unprecedented time of forgiveness came in May to the site of a notorious and violent Anabaptist uprising. A litany of healing and exchanges of understanding were part of a national...
[read more]History: How confirmation came to be
Martin Bucer has been called “the father of Protestant confirmation.” That makes the early Anabaptists, particularly Pilgram Marpeck, grandparents of the now-common rite. Bucer was a Catholic monk who was...
[read more]About Me
