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.)

Join us in Montreal!

We read the Key Cities Initiative update with gratitude (Nov. 26). As part of the Rendez-Vous Montreal effort we know firsthand how much it means to have the Herald as a link, informing congregations across Canada about what God is doing in Montreal. The prayer support and encouragement we receive is invaluable.

We are excited about the doors God is opening here. Though we find people skeptical about organized religion, they are open to conversation and authentic relationship. The Ten Thousand Villages store our church launched in September has been a great door to new relationships and Jesus-oriented conversations.

If there are readers who would be interested in moving to Montreal for work or school and joining the Journey Fellowship community as we work out creative ways of expressing the gospel in Montreal, we would love to get connected.

See our website. We value your prayers.

Heidi Gray,
Co-pastor, Journey Fellowship of Montreal

Peace close to home

I appreciated the editorial, “Talking about peace” (Nov. 5). However, it spawned a number of questions. If MBs are to be “agents of reconciliation in all relationships” what about abortion? What are we doing to bring reconciliation between a mother and her unwanted, unborn child? What are we doing for “the stranger on the street” who is pregnant and needs safety and counsel? Is abortion not one of the “many different forms of violence” in our culture? What could be more violent than taking the life of someone too defenseless to cry out?

“Peace is a choice,” the cover of this issue declares. Yes, but this choice is being drowned out by the voices of “pro choice.” Is MCC working toward peace between mothers and their unplanned babies? Will they protest the war against the unwanted child? Would they not try to eliminate the unspeakable injustice of abortion – the most unjust choice known to us? The abortion choice results in long-term – and sometimes permanent – emotional and physical suffering. Will MCC speak out on behalf of women?

Is there any cry more compelling than from the one who has no voice? These tiny lifeless forms are silently carried out the back doors of abortion clinics, but their evidence pulsates through their adult victims – women and men – who sit in our pews and suffer the forbidden grief of Post Abortion Syndrome. We have a message of forgiveness and healing, but is it spoken?

The rejection of unwanted infants is not unique to this culture. But through the ages the church intervened until the practices were stopped. In the 36 years abortion has been legal in Canada 2.5 million babies have been sacrificed. How will we answer someday?

Marcyne Heinrichs,
Abbotsford, B.C.

Appreciation

What a pleasure it was to peruse the Nov. 5 MB Herald. The cover was so striking! I am also impressed with the ease of access we now have to the electronic copies. Keep up the excellent work.

Claude Pratte,
Winnipeg, Man.

MBs neglected teaching peace

Thank you for the editorial and other articles related to peace (Nov. 5).

Re “Who is this Christ we claim to follow?” I agree with Pierre Gilbert’s assertions about the centrality of Christ and the importance of the vertical dimension in the salvation story of humanity, both in this world and the next. I would like to comment on the context he creates to make his point.

Gilbert characterizes an alternate perspective to his own in terms that are so extreme and narrow as to be virtually indefensible (e.g. “If sin, as is often the case in Anabaptist circles, is reduced to the construct of violence/use of force/conflict and nothing more.”) It might have been more helpful had he defined the issue in a more balanced way. Allow me to explain particularly with respect to “sin and mission” (his term).

Robert Ramseyer’s Mission and the Peace Witness (1979) gives some historical perspective on the first 70 to 80 years of Mennonite mission history in the last century. “In summary, most Mennonite churches founded by missionaries have had little or no peace witness because, correctly or incorrectly, most Mennonite missionaries apparently did not include the peace witness as an important part of their presentation of the gospel.” My own experience since 1975 in relating to churches begun by Mennonite Brethren missionaries all over the world, including the churches in Quebec where Gilbert began his faith journey, would suggest that Ramseyer’s conclusion is particularly true for Mennonite Brethren. MB leaders in other parts of the world (including Quebec) have expressed their disappointment to me, wondering how it was that the earlier missionaries decided to downplay such a core element of the gospel.

The point here is not to bad-mouth missionaries of the past but to create a more fruitful context for discussion. The interplay between peace teaching and evangelism is fruitful ground for an effective witness in a violent world. This is illustrated in Gordon Nickel’s Peaceable Witness Among Muslims. For obvious reasons, much of the world today, particularly the world of Islam, is unable to disconnect evangelicalism and evangelical mission “enterprises” or “crusades” from the militarism of the United States. To err on the one side, as Gilbert suggests is the case with some Anabaptists today, is surely much less damaging to the cause of Christ and the church than to have evangelicals identify so strongly with a strident militarism. Neither is, of course, adequate.

We might do well to ask the Indonesian Mennonite church to help us sort this out and together discern a more fruitful and faithful way to talk to one another and to witness in a hurting world.

Dave Dyck,
Winnipeg, Man.

Women leading women

It always raises a big question for me when I read about Christian women who feel their gifts of leadership are going to waste if they are not senior pastors. Where are the vibrant women’s ministries that should be exploding with leadership, ministries where mature women educated in the Scriptures bring sound teaching to other women? Where are the “older women” who should be “teaching the younger women”? If we followed that teaching, women with leadership abilities would not feel their gifts were underutilized.

And where is the Christian male leadership that teaches and supports this scriptural mandate? If we communicated to the women in our churches that we valued this leadership of women among women the subject of “women in the pulpit” might never have become an issue.

Elaine Neufeld,
Dallas, Texas