Anabaptist and Quaker essays, sermons, and other writings
This past week, I was party to a conversation with a relative that turned to the Black Lives Matter protests. This relative, an older person, commented, “I don’t understand where all this is coming from.” Brothers and sisters, let me tell you, I was flabbergasted. For so many reasons. Having […]
Having spent years ministering with Quakers and Brethren, it should come as no surprise that I have often referred to myself as a pacifist. There was even a season when I would have preferred the term non-resistor. I used to pride myself on my peace-loving zeal. I ate up respectability […]
Few writers can unmask the injustice of colonialism, both 500 years ago and even today as I write this, the way Taiaiake Alfred can. Alfred is a Kahnawake Mohawk scholar who can walk easily between Native and settler cultures, helping us see what we could not see before. The heart […]
For this blog post, we are publishing two audio recordings in the style of NPR’s “This I Believe.” Below are the audio files as well as their respective transcripts. Each piece is less than four minutes. So listen. You will get a lot more out of both pieces this way. […]
My first trip to the Holy Land was one year and five months ago. It was a trip that absolutely enthralled me. When I returned home, I knew I had to go back. From February through May of this year, I lived with a Palestinian Christian family in Bethlehem. I […]
This blog post is the second in a two-part series adapted from a piece originally published on Scot’s personal blog (link below). For part one, visit http://www.brethrenlifeandthought.org/2017/04/21/on-hospitality-banquet-of-the-absurd-luke-1412-24-pt-i-guest-blogger-scot-miller/. What follows is a continuation of Scot’s story about serving the water distribution effort last year in Flint, Michigan. Over the next few weeks, […]
If the end-time fallacies of Tim LaHaye have any interpretive value, I propose a compare and contrast exercise with the city of Flint, Michigan. Flint is home to a people that have been “Left Behind.” While LaHaye’s apocalyptic lack of theological imagination is little more than a lie, the opportunity […]
Four days after this year’s election—one of the most contentious in our nation’s history—I traveled with a group of college students to a social justice conference in Washington D.C. I went to the conference in my role as a campus minister at a small Catholic college, where I had started […]
As brand-new Iowa transplants with our first landline, we both have to admit to being a bit giddy at our new-found status as coveted “swing state voters,” who happily give our time and opinions to nearly every pollster who seeks us out. So, we should admit to a bit of […]
By Brian R. Gumm As a Brethren sojourning with Mennonites at EMU in Harrisonburg, Virginia for the last four years, I’ve made many wonderful connections and friendships. As I went through my theological peacebuilding education, these friendships have often been fostered through deep conversations about any number of pressing theological, philosophical, […]