Partners of Mennonite Central Committee in Colombia continue to walk with people affected by more than 50 years of violence as new armed conflict emerges even after a peace accord. Violence among armed groups...
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The Mennonite Church of Congo has sustained “major wounds” to its people and infrastructure, said Adolphe Komuesa Kalunga, the church president. Komuesa was reporting on the annual administrative council...
[read more]In 1950, U.S. leaders decided it would be a good thing to shoot some people in Korea who were called Communists. For young men of Anabaptist heritage, it was time to decide: bear arms or be conscientious...
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Mennonite church members report increasing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Central Kasaï Province, where Michael J. Sharp, an American Mennonite, died on a United Nations peacebuilding...
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The shooting at a Quebec City mosque that killed six people has been on many of our minds over the past few days. There has been the predictable outpouring of support and outrage on social media. There have...
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After months of speculation about a United Nations Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements, everyone assumed it was no longer in the works when the Security Council seemed to wrap up its work before...
[read more]I shook my head with incredulity after reading Hillary Watson’s column, “I’ll Take the Pat-Down” (Dec. 19). The airport security system is flawed, to be sure. Everyone who has flown has experienced...
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Sunday morning, Dec. 4, soldiers grabbed a Mennonite pastor as he stepped from his house at the headquarters of the Mennonite Church of Congo in Tshikapa, Democratic Republic of Congo. The pastor, whose name...
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I am slow going through airport security. I tend to hold up the line. Confuse other passengers. Disrupt the TSA agents. That is because I always decline the full-body scanning machines in favor of a pat-down....
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My husband, Stuart, and I saw Hacksaw Ridge, based on a true story, and both of us were tremendously moved, for similar although markedly different reasons. We were emotionally affected in spite of this being...
[read more]It’s 300 steps from the street up the ancient spiral stone stairway to the tower keeper’s room of St. Lambert’s Church in Münster, Germany. The stone steps are worn from centuries-long use by the tower...
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I don’t always understand our world. It’s a tough, complicated mess of lives and loves, fears and failures. And core to our world and news about it these days is violence; which comes in an ever-increasing...
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Things whose existence is not morally possible cannot exist. — Old German Proverb In his book States of Denial, Stanley Coheni writes about the deadly triangle of perpetrator, victim and bystander. In...
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I just now came across a fascinating story from back in December about Kyle Hinckley, who managed to beat the game Fallout 4 without killing a single person. Well, not really. He managed to avoid directly...
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“This is a bad girl, and this fairy is killing her with a sword,” my daughter explains about the picture she has drawn. “Oh,” I remark. “That’s interesting.” “I’m going to pick up a stick and...
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The news of violence broke late in the evening in Philadelphia, mid-morning in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Jan. 14. Philadelphia, where I live, has the largest concentration of Indonesian immigrants on the East...
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An increasing number of people, especially in conservative Christian circles, are claiming that Islam is an inherently violent religion. They point to all the violence in the history of Islam and all of the...
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It seems some conservative Christians are up in arms because of something President Obama said at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 5. After condemning ISIS and religiously-motivated violence in general,...
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I spent a few days this week away from my home in Durham, N.C., in another southern town, visiting with young people who’ve relocated to under-resourced neighborhoods there. They told me what they’ve...
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ALEPPO, Syria — This morning I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to the sound of a mortar exploding. I said to myself, “A new day is started.” This is normal in Aleppo. I went to the kitchen, hoping to get some tea...
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As 2014 ended, “I can’t breathe” was the mantra for many who demonstrated across the United States in the wake of the death of Eric Garner. It feels like our nation, and our world, can’t breathe. The...
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Every so often we meet someone who tells the truth so plainly and persistently that our worldview rocks, then adjusts. Thomas King is like that. In his recent book, The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account...
[read more]Neighbors have bought, burned and buried the house of a couple facing federal charges after kidnapping a pair of New York Amish girls. The (Syracuse) Post-Standard reports Jamie and Kimberly Matthews of...
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I’ve now watched two lousy Academy Award-nominated films in a row. But American Sniper is infinitely worse than Foxcatcher. Foxcatcher at least has its heart in the right place. It is trying in its...
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HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Nguyen Hong Quang, leader of the unregistered Vietnam Evangelical Mennonite Church, was severely beaten on his way to evening worship Jan. 18. A few minutes after leaving his home...
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