MWR : Articles : Letters

Articles : Letters

April 1 issue

Slippery drone slope

I’m glad Barack Obama won the 2008 and 2012 elections, but I’m concerned about his drone attacks against suspected terrorists. The use of unmanned drones probably saves some U.S. military lives, but these weapons annihilate the people attacked, including innocent civilians, women and children among them. Further, the attacks violate other nations’ sovereignty.
‘Sort of’ welcoming

It is interesting that after a three-year discernment process Community Mennonite Church and other “welcoming churches” seem to only open the door part way to persons of varied sexual preferences. There seems to be a lack of clarity about who is welcome. Community welcomes anyone “regardless of sexual orientation,” while others list LGBTQs as included. I wonder how inclusive they really are. Will they welcome those who prefer a polygamous relationship? What about an adult incestuous relationship? Please don’t use the “it’s illegal” argument. In most states homosexual marriage is illegal. The real issue is a moral one.

Feb. 18 issue

Jesus and growth

Front-page articles on Mennonite failure to grow in the Jan. 21 and Feb. 4 issues of MWR are a useful reminder that healthy churches, like healthy tomatoes and voluntary organizations, do grow. I believe they actually grow in numbers by attracting new people, as well as in all the other ways that are used as excuses for not growing numerically.
Word from the heart

Have you heard about the new Scripture-telling movement? An interdenominational organization, Network of Biblical Storytellers International, promotes this ministry.

Feb. 4 issue

Am I innocent?

According to the American Friends Service Committee, the U.S. will spend 60 percent of its budget in 2013 on the military, including defense, war, Veterans Affairs and nuclear weapons. That means 60 percent of my federal income tax goes to warmaking. I believe it would be wrong for me to kill even if I were a soldier and killed on orders of the commander-in-chief. I would be breaking the law of God. So is it not also wrong for me to pay the government to enable it to kill? Am I sinning if I pay my federal taxes? Should I ask God to forgive me for the taxes I paid that were used to destroy and murder?
Counting souls

“Mennonite Church USA Membership Drops” (Jan. 21) suggests we need a broader conversation about the meaning of membership. Who belongs is important, but the framework for the question has changed dramatically.

Jan. 21 issue

Violence rebounds

We as a nation have reacted with appropriate shock at the killing of the school children in Connecticut. We have wondered what kind of person could do such a thing. Yet our nation regularly slaughters men, women and children abroad with bombs from drones guided by Americans here in this country. Our wars in Iraq took perhaps more than 100,000 civilian lives. Guns are rampant in our society. And we fill our amusements with mayhem and killing. Should we be surprised that violence rebounds against us?

Jan. 7 issue

Communion of saints

The story of Jun Yamada’s healing is truly inspiring (“Communion of Saints,” Dec. 10). However, the implication of the article by Laurie Oswald Robinson seemed to be that the teaching of the communion of saints is unique to the Catholic Church. In the Protestant Reformation, including Anabaptism, the teaching of the spiritual union of Christians living and dead was retained. Their understanding of the communion of saints differed from that of Catholicism in that they asserted that Christ was the sole and sufficient mediator between God and humanity. They feared that turning to other intercessors jeopardized the Son’s role in bringing us to the Father. Some of the reformers, like Calvin, held that the saints in heaven indeed pray for us but that they do so because of their now perfect conformity to the will of God. Others added that the saints in glory pray with us because of this perfect conformity, not because we appeal to them as if our appeal to Christ would not be sufficient for God to meet our needs. I have heard Catholics say that in their understanding appealing to the saints does not lessen their focus on Christ as mediator. This would be a good place for a conversation between Protestants and Catholics on the matter to begin. But on the communion of saints as a single mystical body we already agree.
Future of media

As one who was in the maelstrom that united Third Way Media with Mennonite Publishing Network, I take a slightly different view of the advisability of that decision (“Publish or Perish?,” Editorial, Dec. 10). As a new agency, MennoMedia is still in the process of defining itself. Due to ongoing budget restraints, the electronic media division has been eliminated. Electronic media in the new agency now seems to mean the creation of audio books — a great addition to the publishing entity — but a far cry from the vision of using the public media for kingdom purposes that drove over 60 years of significant media programming.
Modest proposal

We offer a new “modest proposal for peace”: Let Mennonite congregations and conferences agree that we will not cut off one another as we seek to become communities of healing and hope. We do so remembering the severed parts of our body — Germantown Mennonite Church, Philadelphia; Covenant Mennonite Fellowship, Sarasota, Fla.; Broad Street Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, Va.; and others.