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Letters to the editor
Mennonite Brethren Herald welcomes your letters on issues relevant to the Mennonite Brethren Church, especially in response to material published in the Herald. Please keep your letters courteous, brief and about one subject only. We will edit letters for length and clarity. We will not publish letters sent anonymously, although we may withhold names from publication at the request of the letter writer and at our discretion. Publication is also subject to space limitations. Because the Letters column is a free forum for discussion, it should be understood that letters represent the position of the letter writer, not necessarily the position of the Herald or the Mennonite Brethren Church. Send letters to:
Letters, MB Herald
3-169 Riverton Ave.
Winnipeg, Man. R2L 2E5
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or by e-mail to mbherald@mbconf.ca. (Please ensure that your postal address is included in your e-mail correspondence.) |
Correction
The Nov. 3 editorial was good. The point that teachers’ religious faith should affect how they teach is often overlooked. Is it because we don’t want to be scrutinized? The bumper sticker says, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” Have we forgotten that grace is given not just to give us eternal life, but also to save us from our sin, to change us, to make us new creatures in our everyday life?
The editorial said that “children are legally required to go to school”. This is not entirely correct. B.C. home school regulations (Bill 67, division 4) state that a child must only be registered at a school.
Thanks for many thought-provoking articles.
Trudy Klassen,
Prince George, B.C.
Herald meets needs
Recently, I commented to my wife that whenever we face some important issue in our lives, the next issue of the Herald invariably includes one or more articles on that subject. You have done it again!
I grew up in a Mennonite Brethren home and attended various MB churches in several provinces before we became members of the Baptist church in Neepawa, Man. Recently we have been revisiting the issues of baptism, membership and communion in our constitution and practice. Finding answers that are acceptable to all is not a simple matter.
This morning, I gathered several recent copies of the Herald to file them, and the Sept. 8 issue caught my eye. Just what the doctor ordered! If you have back issues available, I would like to order seven copies.
Keep up the good work. Some magazines get scanned, some read, and some re-read at frequent intervals. The Herald falls into this last category at our home.
Peter Isaak,
Neepawa, Man.
Back issues of the Herald can be ordered for $1.00 plus postage. However, extra copies are not necessarily available for every issue. Ed.
Name appreciated by new members
I appreciated the letter “Name identifies what we believe” (Nov. 3). I once pastored a church that had gone through the name change a number of years prior to my coming. After I had pastored that church for almost seven years, the people in the community still referred to our church as “the Mennonite Church”. After 10 years, the new label had not changed the image of the church in the eyes of the public. During my ministry in that church, we ministered to, baptized and received into membership quite a number of people who had come from one of the mainline churches in that same town. They joined our church with the full knowledge that we were a Mennonite Brethren church, even though the name only reflected that in fine print. When some of these same people later received the MB Herald and read articles about the name change, they wondered why our churches would want to drop the Mennonite Brethren name. “After all,” they said, “we joined this church because it was a Mennonite Brethren church.”
We have nothing to hide. A name change is not only unnecessary; it detracts from our image. It is time to hold our spiritual heritage in high regard again.
Art Isaac,
Abbotsford, B.C.
Appreciate Herald
I’ve come to appreciate your publication, especially the international coverage of the “People & Events” section. This provides us with perspective, protecting us from the ravaging introversion so common in our part of the world. Our own “problems” seem so important until we read about those who have paid the ultimate price for faith.
Erich J. Ritzman,
Kitchener, Ont.
Challenged to be relevant and faithful
I express my appreciation for the issue on “We’ve been thinking” (Sept. 22). It felt good to be stretched in my own thinking by people who reflect deeply on the faith and life of the church. We do well as a denomination to give voice to those who challenge us to think carefully as we seek to be both relevant and faithful as a church.
David G. Dyck,
Edmonton, Alta.
Lives must be balanced
God bless Tom Warner for his caring pastoral heart (Letters, Oct. 20). My letter (June 9) was not printed in its entirety, and my point has been largely misunderstood. Mr. Warner, however, read with his heart, and I thank him for his loving, accurate response.
Indeed, my letter was a cry for help. However, I received only condemnation and silence. I feel dreadful that anyone would say that I have characterized pastors as whiners, or that I do not understand “the staggering emotional, psychological and spiritual investment” that a pastor’s job demands. My parents have been missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators for 40 years. I understand what Kevin and Stephanie Hall have experienced growing up.
Some jobs do demand more time and emotional energy than others, but I also believe we cannot blame the job itself for our “suffering” or burn out. How we use what time we have is up to us. I encourage all people – not just pastors – to set boundaries that will keep their lives in balance; 55 hours a week may not seem so staggering if we maintain a healthy balanced life.
The last part of my letter, which wasn’t printed, stated that if you have time or can make time for your family – if you can be home every night, tuck your children into bed, be there when they have a nightmare, attend a school play, enjoy a weekend together and never miss a birthday party or Christmas, then perhaps your job isn’t so bad after all. Many jobs worldwide impede such family involvement.
At this time, my husband still has to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day. How have we set boundaries to accommodate our family and maintain a balanced life? We are now living in a holiday trailer, with three young children, home-schooling, at a work camp near the Northwest Territories. As I said before, everyone makes choices, and everyone makes sacrifices.
Rosalind A. Smith,
Charlie Lake, B.C.
Article in poor taste
Re Personal Opinion (Nov. 3), I agree that Trudeau did much that was good and also that he had many faults. The underlying theme of this opinion is not Trudeau. It is the current election. I am insulted that you printed an obvious political bias in our church paper, timed for the end of the campaign when it is too late for a response. Do you really believe your readers will accept this kind of shoddy journalism in their denominational periodical?
The Herald is religious and spiritual, an arm of the Mennonite Brethren Conference, not a political tabloid. Partisan politics do not belong here. The editor should have had the wisdom to refuse publication of this opinion. We all need to make our partisan opinions heard in the public arena and the newspapers but to do so in our denominational publication is out of line.
Roland Sawatzky,
Chilliwack, B.C.
The Mennonite Brethren Herald has commissioned John Redekop as a regular columnist to write on public social and political issues as they intersect with Christian faith – an area in which he has considerable expertise. Mr. Redekop wrote the column in question at the request of the editors, on the occasion of Mr. Trudeau’s death, before an election had been called. The column was, in our opinion, a fairly balanced evaluation of a politician from the past and was not intended to be a comment on current politicians, even though some issues from the past may still be issues in the present.
Like churches, the MB Herald does not, and should not, endorse political candidates or parties. However, theology and morality intersect with political and social life at many points, and the Herald, like the church, has a right, indeed a responsibility, to address those theological and moral issues. Ed.
Previous | Next Last modified January 3, 2001.
© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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