Aw, shucks. Larry beat me to it. I’ve been dreaming of writing a memoir of pastoral life describing critical moments of formation and practice. But Hauder, a Mennonite Church USA pastor and retired area...
[read more]
Theatre of the Beat in Stouffville, Ont., is taking on same-sex sexuality and gender within Mennonite Church Canada in a new play written by artistic director Johnny Wideman. “We would hear, ‘Oh, if you...
[read more]
Heaven, what used to be the primary motivator for many to become a Christian, or be a faithful Christian, has fallen on hard times. I discuss each of these questions (below) in my book, The Heaven Promise. I...
[read more]
This survey of Mennonite migrations and developments in California from 1850 to 1975 focuses on three groups — the Mennonite Brethren, the General Conference Mennonites and the Mennonite Church —...
[read more]
Stories about artificial intelligence and robots can be good opportunities to explore what it means to be human. That’s the case in AMC’s Humans, a series set in present-day London where human-looking...
[read more]
“I never saw my father saunter,” says Katie Funk Wiebe as she introduces the hero of her latest book — her father, Jacob J. (Jake) Funk. These few words tell readers we are meeting a man of action — a...
[read more]
The title of Emily Hedrick’s novel might initially seem problematic, even sacrilegious. What believer would wish to read the confessional work of someone who has killed God, even in fictional form? Yet...
[read more]
It was 36 degrees Celsius around these parts yesterday, which, for many Canadians used to considerably more chilly climes, means a general experience of sticky, sweaty unbearableness that makes us despair of...
[read more]
I was pacing in the living room. My son had been making his way through the Harry Potter series all summer, and he was reading the climactic chapter in the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince....
[read more]
In The Good War That Wasn’t — And Why It Matters: World War II’s Moral Legacy, Ted Grimsrud attempts to prove that American involvement in the war was unnecessary and unjust, that tactics employed were...
[read more]Poet Jeff Gundy offered a workshop on Mennonite writing during Mennonite World Conference’s assembly. Tucked away in a hard-to-find, overcrowded room overlooking youth playing basketball in a gym, a...
[read more]
Linda Maendel is the first Hutterite to write and illustrate a children’s book. She blogs, writes news articles and teaches school. Hutterite Diaries is one of the Plainspoken series — insider stories by...
[read more]
One of the reasons I love comic book stories is because I often see something of our own story in them. Daredevil is a Netflix series based on Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer who dons a mask and uses his...
[read more]
The shutdown of Mennonite Brethren Herald has been put on hold, but it is unclear what the future holds for the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches’ denominational magazine. CCMBC leadership...
[read more]
The “promised lands” of Sam Steiner’s comprehensive history of Mennonites in Ontario are both geographical and spiritual destinations. Ontario was a land of opportunity for Mennonites who came from...
[read more]
The question of how to understand the peaceable message of Jesus in relation to less-than-peaceable pictures of God in the Bible and in the Christian tradition has challenged ethically concerned people of...
[read more]
Imagine experiencing a future of such beauty and possibility that it transforms the way you think about reality and the choices you make in the present. That’s what happens to Casey Newton — an optimistic...
[read more]
Several years ago, while strolling through a farmer’s market just outside of Guatemala City, I encountered a group of teenagers dressed in distinctive, conservative Mennonite garb but speaking fluent Spanish...
[read more]
A Mennonite filmmaker has announced plans for a documentary that he hopes will be the highest-profile production ever focused on Mennonites. Buller Films and the Anabaptist Center for Religion and Society at...
[read more]
It is a show full of emotions – laughter, joy, pain, remorse, sadness and grace. Ted Swartz, in Listening for Grace, twists goosebumps into tears of sadness, only to transform them into tears of...
[read more]NORTH NEWTON, Kan. — Two major sections of articles in the annual issue of Mennonite Life, now live, deal with the life and legacy of Vincent Harding and with ongoing issues surrounding theologian John...
[read more]
Among the dozens of guides to spirituality that swamp today’s bookstore shelves, one by Jamie Arpin-Ricci stands above the rank-and-file. Arpin-Ricci, an Anabaptist who helped found the mission-oriented...
[read more]
We walked into an old convent in the town of Cholula, Mexico. A choir from the University of the Americas was rehearsing for an evening concert. The program included music composed by Mexican and Spanish...
[read more]
Myths and stories breathe life into the way we construct our societies. Stories explain our origin, dictate our afterlife, and assign meaning to everything in between: friendship, marriage and families. As...
[read more]
Joel Kauffmann, whose cartoon strip Pontius’ Puddle has enlivened the pages of church periodicals for three decades and whose screenplay for the 1990 film The Radicals dramatized the birth of Anabaptism,...
[read more]
