What then must we do? Twice per month, our urban church hosts a community meal. I admire the planners, cooks, servers, clean-up crews, and especially those who sit and talk to the people who come in. By now, it is a tight-knit group with steady attendance. Meals are not only served but packed up for…

She is skeleton-skinny, and her face has the acne marks of the heroin user. She’s clever, but she talks too fast and her eyes bore in. I ask around at church and find that she has a different story for everyone: needs cash for a bus to pick up her car, needs cash for the…

Exodus 1: 8-14, where the Egyptians oppress their Jewish slaves, and Ex. 3: 1-15, where God calls Moses at the burning bush. (Links are provided to the highly recommended books/sermon below. The bold print is mine.) As I thought about these passages, I wanted to examine three things: systems that oppress, people who oppress, and…

The title doesn’t address what you may think, as in the women (like me) who love food too much. It addresses the truth that empowering women to produce and sell food strengthens whole societies. Mennonite Central Committee and the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women say so and have advocated for women for…

Let us begin with the way we will end today. Please take three and a half minutes to view a Mennonite minister, Samual Adams, define Liberation Theology, which intersects at places with early Anabaptist beliefs and actions. Summing up early Anabaptism: According to Stuart Murray/Biblical Interpretation in the Anabaptist Tradition, early Anabaptism followed diverse paths,…

Believers’ Baptism: Let us start with a four-minute clip from Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd at Woodland Hills on baptism and citizenship. They state the Anabaptists’ objection to infant baptism succinctly. We remember that Religion and the State were one. Even today, Christian religions argue about baptism: when to baptize and why, and where evidence…

  Welcome back! This is the first of several posts about the course I took earlier this year. A big thanks to Dr. Loren L. Johns and his AMBS online offering, ‘Understanding Anabaptist Approaches to Scripture: What is Different and Why?’ We students were a varied group from a number of countries and different Christian…

Thank you so much for reading my blog! I apologize for not writing yet in the new year. My friends, those of you who have done online courses will hopefully sympathize with my need for Time to Read and Study. Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash After trying to find time to write, while…

Some holiday thoughts, with my thanks for your reading this year: 1. A blessed Christmas and all good wishes from our place of worship to yours! Allison Troyer made our (Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship) beautiful, hanging artwork for the Advent season. Here is what she says about it: ‘The scrap-art weaving created for this Advent season…

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash Ah, Chicago, our Midwestern metropolis. You are out front again, this time with Lisle’s Northern Seminary’s hiring of Greg Boyd (one of the recently terminated lecturers at Brethren Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary) as an adjunct professor. The Northern Seminary, part of the American Baptist Churches USA, is interested in…