Articles : Book Review
May 13 issue
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Home for a wanderer
Within most refugees’ hearts is the intense longing for a home and a homeland. This was true of 3-year-old Nikolaus Kampen, who, in 1943, together with his family and thousands of others, was forced to leave his home in a Mennonite village in Ukraine. They joined the Great Trek to Poland/Germany together with the retreating Nazi army to begin several years of homelessness.
The fall of the German Reich in 1945 became a pivotal time for the masses of refugees in Europe struggling to find a secure place as the Allied forces decided the fate of Hitler’s Germany. To fall into the clutches of the Soviet military was the great fear. Some refugees were caught and shipped like cattle to the cold hell of Siberia to die of overwork and undernourishment in forced labor camps. My aunt Aganeta Janzen Block, whose story was serialized in MWR, falls into this category.
April 29 issue
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On health care, no easy answers
Willard M. Swartley writes about health care with poetic vision: “The prophetic phrase ‘with healing in its wings’ (Mal. 4:2) signifies what health care ought to be… . Health care ought to ring hope, gift and gratitude in our hearts and minds, with God and scientific knowledge and skill together a blessing for us all.”
April 15 issue
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One body, many voices
At Fort Collins Mennonite Fellowship in Colorado, worship begins with silence, a “time of quiet,” as it says in the order of service. As I sit I let my thoughts wander, drawing me into the stillness of God, drawing me into the body of Christ at rest yet poised for liturgical movement, prepared for singing and praying, for reading and speaking, for listening to God’s words, for feeling God’s presence. Soon people take turns leading us in various parts of worship: from praying to reading Bible passages, from guiding our singing to inviting us to greet one another with the peace of Christ.
April 1 issue
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Voice of awe and gratitude
Is it unseemly within a church that values humility to encourage people to write whole books about their own lives? In case you have qualms about Mennonites entering the realm of memoir, here is a book that should quiet your fears.
March 18 issue
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Testimonies of peace from Iraq
Last year two significant stories from Christian Peacemaker Teams’ work in Iraq were published. Both are wonderful testimonies of peacemakers who took risks and made sacrifices — even to the point of death — as acts of devotion to the nonviolent God.
March 4 issue
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Way stations on an eventful journey
Robert S. Kreider, academician, churchman, historian, writer, traveler, innovator, husband, parent — the list could go on. In this continuation of his earlier autobiography, this well-known Mennonite leader states that adulthood began for him at age 33 when he joined the Bluffton College faculty. He had finished 13 years with Civilian Public Service and Mennonite Central Committee. He would soon become dean and then president of this small Mennonite school in Ohio.
Feb. 18 issue
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Implications of ‘in God’s image’
Norman Kraus provides something that has, by and large, been missing from Christian theological discussions about homosexuality — careful theological analysis of foundational issues about how we understand human beings as created in the image of God.
Feb. 4 issue
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Gun Empire exposed
Several weeks after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, Vice President Biden convened a meeting with interested groups in an effort to devise a political response. It was reported that representatives of the National Rifle Association were not happy with the conference. They did not perceive they had been heard, and they would go back to the Congress, where they are heard because they bring money.
Jan. 21 issue
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Global history project completed
Seeking Places of Peace is the fifth and final volume of the most significant Mennonite historical project of the last 20 years. In 1997 Mennonite World Conference commissioned the Global Mennonite History project. John A. Lapp and C. Arnold Snyder took on the roles of project coordinator and general editor. The commitment to a global history series that would celebrate the emergence of a truly global church required that the authors be from the continents about which they wrote: Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe and North America.
Jan. 7 issue
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From farm relic to cultural symbol
This account of what author and industrial designer Glen Ediger calls the layered history of a simple limestone farming tool is among the most interdisciplinary books I’ve read in recent years.
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