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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.) |
Not anti-Christian
Recently it came to my attention that John Redekop mentioned me in a column published in the Mennonite Brethren Herald (Feb. 2, 2001). Entitled “Anti-Christian prejudice”, the article referred to a political column I had written for several community newspapers a few weeks earlier.
At the start of his column, Mr. Redekop invited readers to “Join me as I review one of my files, a fascinating one entitled ‘Anti-Christian Prejudice’. It raised my blood pressure; maybe it will do the same for you.” Then he quoted from my column, in which I wrote: (Stockwell) “Day’s eldest son Ben and his wife, Karen, gave their newborn old-fashioned Christian fundamentalist names: Gabriel Isaiah.”
From that one sentence, Mr. Redekop reached the conclusion not only that I have an anti-Christian prejudice but also that I am too stupid to know the difference between a Christian name and one taken out of the Old Testament. “Old Testament names have, apparently, now become both Christian and fundamentalist,” he observed. Had he included the next few words of my column – ”What? Not Christian names, you say?” – his readers would have rightly concluded that I was simply employing a bit of humour, which is a hallmark of my political columns.
Then Mr. Redekop correctly stated, “I have met Mr. Babych. As I recall, he told me he was Roman Catholic.” What Mr. Redekop didn’t say, however, was that we met in Ottawa at a meeting of the Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, an organization whose principle mandate is to free Christians from religious persecution. What he also didn’t say was that I attended the event as the Parliament Hill reporter for several Catholic publications, a fact that I thought I had made clear in our brief conversation. I ask, why would a person supposedly with an anti-Christian prejudice attend such an event, much less report on it?
In hindsight, I should have told Mr. Redekop that I am the first religion reporter to be accredited with the Parliamentary Press Gallery; that I am a former editor of one of the Catholic publications that I still write for; that I was in charge of the awards ceremony of the Canadian Church Press for two years in a row; that I have been a journalist for over 35 years and that I have won several national and regional reporting awards. But these facts, impressive as they may seem, would not be enough to get past anyone astute enough to discern anti-Christian bias in a 17-word sentence disguised as humour, anyway.
The most puzzling observation in Mr. Redekop’s article about me was his query, “How low will the press elite stoop in trying to make evangelical Christians look bad?” I must admit that being called a member of the “press elite” is somewhat flattering but, unfortunately, it is not true. A freelance reporter working for low-budget religious publications and spinning out a column in a few weekly newspapers hardly qualifies as another Conrad Black.
Mr. Redekop was right about at least one thing in his column. It did raise my blood pressure, but obviously not for the same reason as it did for him.
Art Babych,
Ottawa, Ont.
Redekop responds
I am sorry to have offended Mr. Babych. For some years I have been a regular reader of Art Babych’s column. He is generally an astute, perceptive, and clever writer who has my admiration.
In one respect, Mr. Babych certainly has a point. I should have stated clearly that I was criticizing him for making light of fundamentalist Christianity or evangelical Christianity rather than (as the title of the column implied) for criticizing Christianity in general. Because these branches are major parts of the total Christian church, his statement struck me as not being pro-Christian or even neutral in overall impact. Be that as it may, I apologize for not being more precise in this matter. In whatever way Babych’s column may be understood or misunderstood, Babych is not anti-Christian.
Having carefully reread Mr. Babych’s column in which he refers to “Christian fundamentalist names”, his statement still strikes me as an attempt to make fun of the Day family’s supposedly fundamentalist beliefs. The word “fundamentalist” has, unfortunately, become a pejorative term. Mr. Babych suggests that if I had also quoted his next statement, readers would have understood his prior statement to be humorous. Yes, he did begin his next paragraph with, “What? Not Christian names, you say?”, but he added no further explanation, and I could not understand why he included that sentence. In the following sentence Babych simply tells us that the baby was born at 3 a.m. I found no humour in his statements.
John H. Redekop,
Abbotsford, B.C.
Editor’s response
The Mennonite Brethren Herald concurs with John Redekop’s apology. We are sorry that we have offended Mr. Babych and we are sorry for any damage to his reputation as a result of the column. In commenting on his use of the word “fundamentalist”, we should not have implied that he was anti-Christian, and for this we apologize.
Jim Coggins
Babych’s response
Mr. Redekop says he could not understand the humour in the sentence – ”What? Not Christian names, you say?” – which followed “Day’s eldest son Ben and his wife, Karen, gave their newborn old-fashioned Christian fundamentalist names: Gabriel Isaiah.” The sentence – which did not appear in Redekop’s column – was a flip employed to emphasize the point that the names given the children were not Christian and to show that I was not oblivious to the difference between Christian and Judaic names. It is not a rare journalistic ploy. In his Dec. 13 column in the National Post, Parliament Hill correspondent Paul Wells wrote: “I returned from out of town yesterday to learn that Stockwell Day has quit politics.” Wells continues in the same vein and then adds, “You mean he’s not really leaving?” In other words, the flip is simply a light joke played on the reader to draw attention to a particular point. Mr. Redekop pins his arguments on my use of the word “fundamentalist” and judges that I used it in a pejorative sense. No such interpretation is given to the word in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary or the Cambridge International Dictionary of English. Even so, Mr. Redekop came to the conclusion that I used the word pejoratively, which I did not. Nevertheless, I accept the apologies of Mr. Redekop and the Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Art Babych,
Ottawa, Ont.
Remembering
On Rememberance Day, while pastor Dave Esau was preaching at Cedar Park MB Church, these thoughts came to me. The MB churches are missing the boat when it comes to remembering. The Bible clearly states that we are soldiers of the cross and that we are in a constant warfare. Therefore, I not only remember those who have given the great sacrifice, lost their lives and been wounded on the battlefield of war, but also those who have given the great sacrifice and have been wounded in the front lines of the spiritual battles of the world. I remember the innocent people who have died in acts of terrorism in the world. I also remember the Christian soldiers who are in spiritual warfare; may I lift them up every day.
George Jewell,
Delta, B.C.
Good job
Thank you for the good job you did on my brother Herman’s obituary (Nov. 23), also for the link from the online Herald obituary to “Lift For Living”, the web site for the devotional book which my brother published a few years before he died.
Harry Kroeker,
St. Catharines, Ont.
Men vs. women
Surely the great debate, “Women vs. Men” in church leadership, will not come to an end any time soon. It’s not a question of male superiority. Women have tremendous ability and in many areas outshine men, but that is not really the issue either. Jesus knew what He was doing when He chose men to take the leadership in building the church. That became their God-given responsibility, but men tend to become slackers. Frank Klassen said it well: “Men are forfeiting their roles as spiritual leaders in the home and the church.” Women were to be helpmates, but not just to wait upon the men while the men sit on easy chairs. They are to help the men fulfill their God-given responsibility, and they should challenge the men to accountability.
If women take over the leadership in homes and churches, relieving men of their responsibility, I believe more and more men will meet in coffee shops or on golf courses while the women and children do church, and young boys will long for the day when they can join their dads.
For 10 years I was a member of a Toastmaster club; our membership was made up of male and female. Another club developed an all-female membership. They held a special meeting, to try to find some way to entice some men to join their club. As a first step, they decided to invite a male to speak to them. Is that the future of the church? Will that be the ultimate conclusion of the great debate?
If men want to lead and build the church, which they should, then they better face up to their God-given responsibility – which will mean doing more than donating money and serving on some church committee. If the ladies insist on leading the church, they may well gain that privilege, but they may lose the men, and then there would be no further debate.
Jake Peters,
Winnipeg, Man.
The value of a care group
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My wife and I have been going to our care group for about six years. It has become a part of our life and a part of our week that we look forward to.
This was not always the case. In fact, in the beginning I was skeptical about going to a “care group”. Growing up in a family that did not attend church regularly, I was taught to be leery of Christians. It had been pointed out to me that many Christians go to church on Sunday, then betray you on Monday. To say I was leery is an understatement.
God moved in our care group and showed us continual love, patience and kindness. Through our care group leaders, Dale and Janice Lowen, He taught us many lessons. The greatest was faithfulness. We had been living two lives – attending church because we thought it was the “right thing to do”, and going to care group for a “social connection”. How well intentioned we were.
As our pastor, Vern Heidebrecht, preached passionate sermons that touched us deeply, we were still outside observers. Our church mission statement, “To bring people to passionately follow Jesus Christ”, had passed over us like a wind on a spring day. Thank God for our care group. In six years, our group has ebbed and flowed in numbers, and at present numbers only six. Yet it is the strongest and has had the most impact on us it has ever had. Our growing love for Dale, our leader, has left us feeling unable to repay the kindness he and his wife have bestowed upon us.
We now are no longer observers. Our faith has been sufficient, and God has done the rest. We now know that God comes first in everything. We will serve others and follow Christ for all of our days. Thank you, Dale and Janice.
Mack and Rose Magrath,
Northview Community Church, Abbotsford, B.C.
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Previous | Next Last modified January 11, 2002.
© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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