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 1310 Taylor Ave. Winnipeg, Man.  R3M 3Z6 or send via e-mail. (Please ensure that your postal address is included in your e-mail correspondence.)

Thank you

Thank you to the Herald and Herb Brandt, who reviewed my book (Feb. 28). The review was sensitive to the writer’s inexperience, considerate of weaknesses in expression and generous in recognizing the positive intent of the book. A number of inquiries arose out of the exposure, and some very helpful and encouraging comments.

We always look forward to the arrival of the Herald in our home. Many articles speak to the hearts and minds of the readers. In the obituaries we read the stories of men and women who are often familiar to us. I like the columns by writers such as Redekop, Willms, Pankratz and especially Coggins. News items about church life tell us that God is working in many places. More could be said that is positive. I cannot think of anything that is negative except my wish and prayer that the cutback in budget will not harm the strong impact the paper has in our constituency.

Jack Block,
South Surrey, B.C.

The Bible includes stewardship

I commend Jim Coggins for holding our denominational and congregational feet to the fire in recent issues. What triggered the “ouch” in me was a reminder of how penurious/stingy we are as a denomination. I experienced “shock and awe” reading the Canadian MB Conference Council of Boards report (Feb. 28): “Only 9% of Canadian MB churches pay the full MBMSI annual norm of $125 per member.” That works out to a shameful 34 cents per member per day for missions, and 91% of Canadian MB members pay even less than that! With great fanfare, we announce that we are now a global MB family. Canadian and US MBs are the very wealthy partners in this global family. What are we modelling for our partners who are not blessed with our North American affluence? When inflation is factored in, we are giving progressively less and less to missions. Once we were proud of our MB overseas missions. Missionaries with “faith missions” had to raise their own funds before they could be dispatched to the field, but we as an MB brotherhood provided the funds for our missionaries. That has all changed. Our missionaries now also have to beat the bushes for their funding, with all its attendant disadvantages, inefficiencies and distractions.

Why is this happening? The excuses I have heard really don’t wash. The editorial of March 21 answers these questions very well. The MBMSI Witness insert (Jan. 17) has some wonderful stories about how our missionaries, in partnership with the indigenous population, are using creative approaches in presenting the Good News (e.g., “For the beauty of the earth” and “So much more”). We are being well served by the administrators, staff and missionaries who are doing their best to facilitate the delivery of the missions programs. A much better job needs to be done at the congregational level to inform and support the MBMSI enterprise.

The breakdown seems to be in the leadership of local congregations. There is too much preoccupation with local congregational programs, with the consequence that congregations are becoming increasingly self-absorbed, bureaucratic and institutional. There appears to be very little resolve to teach what the Scriptures have to say about stewardship. One MB stewardship minister reminded our congregation recently that there were 2,000 references to stewardship in the Bible. It appears to me that there is a deafening reticence to preach the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:26–27). Ephesians 5:5 says a greedy person is really an idolater. Observe our church parking lots, homes, personal investments, cheque books and wills. How many cheques to God are we writing out? Judah and Israel had many prophets skipping around the issues of justice and stewardship (Hosea 4:9,10). Amos 9:9–10 warns that all sinners [unfaithful stewards] will die by the sword, as well as those [prophets] who say nothing bad will happen to them. The risks in not preaching all of Scripture (Revelation 22:17–21) are scary! Let’s let go of “healthy church” rhetoric and be one instead!

The editor is prodding us all to take “an honest look at the church”; let’s join him.

George H. Epp,
Chilliwack, B.C.

Worship and performance blur

Re Peter Thurley’s letter on applause (March 21): Angels do not have physical bodies like human beings. Consequently, while worshipping, they probably don’t shake and move about as we do.

More seriously, I believe God isn’t impressed with the volume of sound that we achieve in a worship service. He looks at our hearts, not at our outward expressions. That means He is as interested in two or three people quietly singing from a hymnbook (or by memory) as several thousand crammed into a noisy auditorium. Applause is generally an expression of approval for a performance. When the boundary between worship and performance becomes blurred or eliminated, people tend to focus their attention away from God and on to the performers. God isn’t fooled when this happens. Isaiah 29:13 says, “These people come near to Me with their mouth and honour Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is made up of rules taught by men.”

The example of King David “dancing before the Lord” should not be considered as a normative form of worship. There are only four references in the Bible (including 2 Samuel 6) about that kind of dancing. There are twice as many about worldly dancing, and a warning to the Israelites not to allow themselves to be exposed while worshipping (Exodus 20:26; 28:42–43).

Roland Derksen,
Vancouver, B.C.

Symbol of God’s shelter

A March 21 letter to the editor expressed concern about the link between The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and the Anabaptist Women Doing Theology Conference advertised in the Herald. I am writing as a member of the planning committee for this conference. While recognizing Diamant’s Red Tent as a work of fiction, we are drawn to the image it provides for women – God as our shelter and strength. We chose the symbol of the red tent as an imaginative metaphor. Under its shelter, we hope to offer women healing and Sabbath rest. Through biblical motifs of wonder, welcome and wandering, the conference theme expands the Psalm 61:4 image of eternal refuge under God’s tent.

Mary Lou Weaver Houser,
Lancaster, Penn.

War questions continue

I am writing partly in response to John Redekop’s, “The Iraq War” (Feb. 28), and partly on the more general issue of our response to war and relationship to government. I appreciated much of what Redekop stated in the first section, but felt confused by the latter part. Some of my concerns were partially addressed by Bruce Guenther’s letter (April 11).

The terms “ordained” and “instituted”, which are most often used in translations of Romans 13, may both be stronger than the Greek. Some scholars suggest that a more appropriate term may be “ordered”, by which may be meant that the authorities are “arranged” or “placed in line” with God’s ultimate purpose so that all things ultimately serve God’s divine will. Certainly it is much too strong to suggest that a particular government is “ordained” (i.e., “blessed”) by God. Are all governments “ordained” by God, or only the “good” governments, or the principle of government, or what? Was the Iraqi government also “instituted” by God? Who decides which governments are legitimate and which not? And should all illegitimate governments be removed by legitimate governments? We need to be much more careful about how we use such a text.

Redekop also states that the Christian ethic should not be applied to political regimes “in the same way as it is applied to citizens of the heavenly Kingdom.” Such an attempt is described as “simplistic” and “naive.” It seems to me that this introduces a very problematic dualistic ethic, one ethic which applies to Christians and one to non-Christians. While it may be true that we cannot expect non-Christians to act like Christians, even though they sometimes do, certainly we should not fall into the trap to suggest that non-Christians should not act like Christians. If we accept that “governments live by a sub-Christian ethic”, then it would be very difficult to contemplate a Christian in government. In other words, this ultimately seems to suggest that it is appropriate for Christians to act in a sub-Christian way in government. It is true that God often uses the non-Christian actions of various nations to achieve His purposes, but they are still held accountable for their actions. There certainly are biblical examples of this.

Redekop also fails to distinguish between the use of force (e.g., some forms of police action), and the use of violence (e.g., military in war). While it may be difficult to define the lines very clearly, there must be a difference. To define military action as police action can be very problematic. Is military action always the equivalent of police action, and if not, who determines when it is not? When police act, they are accountable to other bodies, and our legal system differentiates between judge, jury and executioner. The United States has assumed all the roles in the Iraq instance, and this must be cause for serious concern, whatever the failings of the United Nations.

I also find the reference to John 18:36 very problematic as a justification for war. There should at least be an acknowledgment that the passage could mean something very different than is suggested.

The past several months have been tense ones for many Christians in North America, particularly Mennonite Brethren. We have not done our homework on the question of war and peace, and went into this era largely unprepared. It seems that teaching on this question is almost non-existent, and those who believe strongly in our confessional peace position are almost seen as being out of touch. We need more education in our Sunday schools and our colleges and more preaching from our pulpits.

Abe Dueck,
Winnipeg, Man.