Anabaptist and Quaker essays, sermons, and other writings
In the beginning as God created, a wind –the spirit of God swept— hovered—over the face of the deep. The first people—Eve and Adam– “heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze…” A swoosh of grass? Crunch of leaves? Abraham […]
25 “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. 26 People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. […]
Is the Love Feast essential?1 The Love Feast faces a critical moment: will Christians in general, and Brethren in particular, seek to reclaim the Love Feast as an essential communion practice post-COVID? Or…will COVID put a metaphoric nail in the already waning practice of the Love Feast? These past two […]
Sometimes in the middle of the week, we would bike, walk, or drive about a kilometer down a dusty road through farm fields and past mango trees from Kulp Bible College to Church of the Brethren (Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria) Headquarters and the Women’s Fellowship (Zumuntar Matan Ekklesiyar) Restaurant. Often […]
We all have toolboxes of one sort or another. Sometimes it’s a literal toolbox, or at least a tool drawer in the kitchen or the utility room. It’ll be filled with hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches, and other things that help us accomplish a task of some kind. Maybe we have […]
Why join one of the Historic Peace Churches? Jesus is at the center of this question. Jesus is at the center of this passage (Romans 5:1-11). Jesus at the center of our faith. Jesus is the source of our strength. Jesus is the source of our peace. Jesus is the […]
9 What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, 10 as it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one. 11 There is no one who understands; there is no one who […]
I still remember an insight from Stanley Hauerwas’s commencement speech at Eastern Mennonite Seminary over a decade ago. He said something to the effect that learning how to be a Christian is not just like learning to speak a new language. It is speaking a new language. Christianity is its […]
Like many Mennonites, Hutterites, and Amish my grandparents kept a copy of the Martyrs Mirror on their bookshelf. It’s a massive book, over fifteen hundred pages long, so it stood out among the other books, It was first published in 1660. Now 360 years later, it is still available in […]
Beatitude: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This is the beatitude that I am most nervous to speak about. I’m not nervous because it is a topic that involves actual physical harm. I’m nervous because of all the beatitudes, this […]