Anabaptist–Mennonite Confessions of Faith: The Development of a Tradition. Karl Koop. Pandora Press, 2004. Canadian Mennonite University professor Karl Koop makes a significant contribution to Mennonite historical studies by looking at confessional developments among Anabaptists of the early 17th century. Within the realities of multiple Anabaptist origins (the “polygenesis” paradigm), Koop finds “an identifiable and coherent Anabaptist–Mennonite tradition.” This exploration of developing doctrinal roots comes at a time when many Mennonite groups, including Mennonite Brethren in North America and their international body, ICOMB, have recently written new confessional statements.
Mountaintop Drive. James Coggins. Moody Press, 2005. The third of Coggins’s John Smyth mystery series is set in Abbotsford, Canada’s so-called Bible belt. Themes of rich and poor, effective church ministry, and racism (a Caucasian and Sihk Indian are paired on the detective team) are also woven through the whodunit aspects of the tale, in which a woman is found murdered in the house next to the one where editor Smyth and his wife Ruby stay during a church convention.
