Last spring I blogged about a first of its kind gathering of Mennonites and Jews at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) called “Reading the Bible after the Holocaust.”  We covered topics ranging from New Testament scholarship, shared historic experience, the dangers of emphasizing common ground in dialogue, Mennonites and the Holocaust, and Israel and the land.    Less than half a year later, members of Hamas crossed into southern Israel and slaughtered around 1200 people, taking another 250 hostage.  The ensuing war in Gaza has been devastating for Palestinians, the numbers of dead, displaced, and starving hard to fathom.  Throughout our calls for a ceasefire in Gaza led by Mennonite Action, I’ve continued to think about these bonds formed at AMBS.  Dialogue and friendship in themselves can’t stop a war, but it can keep us all human to one another – a frequent casualty of war.  Last week we Mennonite

One of my favorite living humans I’ve never met, Jane Goodall, turned 90 this month.  She is, perhaps, the matron saint of paying attention. She is most famous for her work among the chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania.  Initially an outsider to the scientific community, without a college degree, she did things one wasn’t supposed to do in her observations of chimpanzee life.  She affectionately named her subjects.  She attributed human-like emotions to them.  She bonded with them.  In other words, she paid attention not as a detached observer but as a curious and loving participant.  This, and observations such as chimpanzee tool making, blurred a once thick line between the human and animal world.  Jane Goodall has spent the second half of her life sharing her knowledge and love of the animal world while promoting conservation efforts.  At 90, she is on the road a hard-to-believe

A while back Joel preached a sermon where he talked about a theory originated by Phyllis Tickle that the Christian Church goes through a great shift or reformation approximately every 500 years. Tickle (and Joel) used the metaphor of the 500-year rummage sale as a way to think about how every once in a while the Church needs to reevaluate the things it is holding on to and what needs to be let go.  If this theory holds any water, it means we are in the midst of another great shift. Do you feel it? Author and Mennonite pastor Meghan Larissa Good picks up on these ideas in her recently published book, Divine Gravity: Sparking a Movement to Recover a Better Christian Story. She points out that the last great shift during the time of Martin Luther and the Reformation happened for a number of reasons, including the advent of

Sub.sti.tu.tion – the action of replacing someone or something with another person or thing. Sol.i.dar.i.ty – union or fellowship arising from common responsibilities and interests. It’s Holy Week, a time dense with memory and meaning.  Within this short span, the gospels speak of the betrayal by Judas, Jesus’ final meal with his friends, prayer and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter’s denial, the rushed trial before Pilate, the walk to Golgotha, the state execution of Jesus and burial of his body.  At the risk of vast oversimplification, two of the primary ways Christians interpret the crucifixion of Jesus have to do with substitution and solidarity.  Each comes with implications for how we view ourselves, Jesus, and God. Jesus’s death as substitutionary emphasizes a penalty for human sinfulness Jesus takes on himself in our place.  This has been the dominant teaching in Protestant Christianity.  But most versions are deeply problematic,

Tomorrow morning I’ll be driving up to Goshen for three days of meetings with the Mennonite Church USA Constituency Leaders Council.  The CLC is an advisory and listening group – rather than decision-making body — made up of representatives of area conferences and constituency groups.  As the President-elect of Central District Conference, I’m one of our three attendees.  I’m pleased that one of the newest groups to be represented is the Queer Constituency Council, a result of A Resolution for Repentance and Transformation passed by delegates in 2022. Our denomination is in a time of flux.  As LGBTQ members have claimed their place and been affirmed in the church, numerous congregations have disaffiliated.  A big role of denominational leadership these days is reimagining our church as a historic peace church engaging in shared justice-minded ministry and practices.  One of the reasons I have chosen to invest time into Central District