MWR : Articles : James C. Juhnke

Articles : James C. Juhnke

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.

The first volume — on Africa — was completed in time for the 2003 Mennonite World Conference Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. In 2011 a scholarly meeting at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, “Mirror on the Globalization of Mennonite Witness,” celebrated and evaluated the entire series. This fifth volume, written by Royden Loewen of the University of Winnipeg and Steven M. Nolt of Goshen College, deserves its own fulsome celebration.

Budget’s not all that’s fallen short

For four decades Ronald J. Sider has been a vigorous voice for evangelical social concerns. In the early 1970s he led in founding the Evangelicals for Social Action. In his latest book he states his ongoing commitment “to a biblically balanced political agenda that is pro-life and pro-poor, pro-family and pro-creation care, pro-sexual integrity and pro-peacemaking.”

From anguish to freedom

The Amish/Mennonite publishing sensation of the spring of 2012 was a memoir by Ira Wagler, Growing Up Amish. According to the author’s blog, the book “rocketed into the stratosphere” with sales both in print and on Amazon Kindle. It rose to number three on The Wall Street Journal’s best-seller list.

Martyr we remember most

On my desk is Dirk Willems: His Noble Deed Lives On by David Luthy, published by Pathway Publishers, Aylmer Ont., and LaGrange, Ind., 2011, 82 pages, $8.

Paraguay proposes new alternative service program

Mennonites in Paraguay are facing changes in the national system of military conscription and alternative service. At stake is the foundation of Mennonite relationships with the government.

Questions frame a memoir

On my desk is Water from Another Time: Today’s Questions, Yesterday’s Wisdom by Berry Friesen, published by Masthof Press, Morgantown, Pa., 2010, 209 pages, $15.

Third book of global history

On my desk is Mission and Migration by Jaime Prieto Valladares, published by Good Books and Pandora Press, 2010, 324 pages, $11.95. It is a general history of Anabaptist- Mennonites in Latin America, the third volume in the Global Mennonite History series.

Iran visit breaks stereotypes

On my desk is An American in Persia: A Pilgrimage to Iran by Richard A. Kauffman, published by Cascadia, 2010, 128 pages, $12.95.

Unresolved issues

The Lutheran World Federation’s adoption of the statement “On the Legacy of Lutheran Persecution of ‘Anabaptists’ ” is the ritual culmination of an ecumenical dialogue that has been going on for more than a decade.

Peace and Pentecostalism

On my desk are two books by Paul Alexander, a young scholar from the Assemblies of God, both published in 2009. Written first was Peace to War: Shifting Allegiances in the Assemblies of God, published by Cascadia Publishing House, Telford, Pa. It chronicles and laments the transition of the Assemblies of God from pacifism to militarism. The second is Signs and Wonders: Why Pentecostalism Is the World’s Fastest Growing Faith, published by Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. It explains the explosive worldwide growth of the Pentecostal movement.