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.)

Valid suggestions

Re “What would Jesus do?” (Viewpoint, January). Despite Tim Thiessen’s arguments, I don’t think we should dismiss Mark Driscoll’s suggestions, which are thoroughly biblical. The article said that Driscoll’s suggestion to young pastors to avoid flirtatious women and “the wrong people” makes him unevangelical, but that’s because Thiessen thinks Driscoll is equating “the wrong people” with sinners and unbelievers. Driscoll didn’t suggest avoiding unbelievers, but warned pastors to be accountable to other believers, avoid those temptations they might be weak in, and intentionally invest in their family. We must witness to non-Christians, but we must make sure that we don’t destroy our own testimonies by being hypocrites.

Paul warned Timothy to “flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:22). This doesn’t mean Christians aren’t supposed to talk to the sexually immoral, but we’re to flee from circumstances where our enemy can send temptations.

It’s unfair to criticize a Bible teacher for making valid suggestions. Our leaders need to represent the transformed life that is evidence of a resurrected Jesus. We have to do more than say to the world, “We’re as sinful as you!” We have to say, “I’m sinful just like you, but Jesus who died and was raised forgave me and is changing me, and he can change you too!”

Peter Hamm,
Kitchener, Ont.

Articles lack prophetic clarity

Re “What’s hell really like?” (Features, January). The articles in the January issue lack prophetic clarity. It would do far greater good to print the much talked about, but seldom read, sermon by Jonathan Edwards entitled, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Edwards can help us realize how far we in the Western church have strayed from what is clearly explained and warned of by Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles.

Consider the affect crystal meth has on those who are addicted to it. The drug eats away the brain, damaging the part that allows for the experience of pleasure. In some cases, the only emotion meth addicts experience is deep, dark despair. Hell on earth? Yes.

This is a horrifying example of what it will be like in hell, away from the One who is good, with no ability to experience pleasure. Knowing, instead, horror unimaginable with no end.

Nils Langhjelm,
Greendale, B.C.

God’s love: both fire and life

Re “Extricating Hell” (Intersection, January). James Toews proposes rehabilitating the concept of salvation as “fire insurance.” I’m pretty sure what he means by the phrase is something more like “fire avoidance.” Fire insurance doesn’t keep fires from happening, it only promises the replacement of one’s belongings in the event of their destruction by fire. Thus, salvation conceived as “fire insurance” would actually imply a restoration of life, hope, and a future after the disaster of losing everything in a blaze of judgment.

There’s definitely some biblical resonance to the idea. Consider the word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah (3:8): “I have decided to assemble the nations, to gather the kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them – all my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger.” Looks like end of story for the nations at this point. But the Lord goes on (3:9): “Then will I purify the lips of the peoples that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him shoulder to shoulder.”

Consumption by fire followed hard by purification for faith and service? How does that work?

Then there’s the scene near the end of Revelation in which the nations gather to besiege God’s people and fire comes down from heaven and devours them. In the very next chapter, the nations are walking by the light of the New Jerusalem while the kings of the earth bring in their splendour. Go figure. Do these people hold some kind of mysterious insurance policy without knowing it? Could it all be tied up somehow with God himself, who loves them with the kind of love that, according to Paul, “always perseveres” and “never fails”?

We might justifiably envision love’s perseverance as terrifying when it needs to be and love’s unfailingness as not able to be trumped by human freedom (notwithstanding Pierre Gilbert’s contention to the contrary, also in the January issue). Think of that: the sovereign love of God as both fire and fire insurance.

Chris Friesen,
Edmonton, Alta.

Choosing hell?

Re “When God’s justice and goodness collide” (Features, January). Pierre Gilbert suggests that an act of will (believing in and accepting Christ as Saviour) is all that’s required to avoid eternal damnation. This belief-centred paradigm of evangelical Christianity ignores the reality that one cannot will oneself to believe in something, even something with supposedly eternal consequences.

The doctrine of hell, like all doctrine, is based on human interpretation of Scripture. On my journey to transform my life through Christ, the various doctrines of hell to which I have been exposed defy logic, offend my sense of justice and reason, and succeed only in increasing my skepticism.

People don’t necessarily reject God or Christ. They do, however, reject literal interpretations of Scripture that lead to disbelief, which is different than rejection or hatred of God. One of God’s many gifts to humanity is the human capacity for reason, insight, and analysis. There is grave danger in not questioning the doctrine of hell, or any other doctrine that seems absurd. I believe the Bible exists to transform us through a relationship with Christ, not to act as a belief checklist used to avoid hell.

Scott Gibson,
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

Taking a local mission trip

Re “Thrift shops surpass $5 million” (News, January). I read with interest about the work of MCC this past fiscal year. There is much for which to be grateful for the many ways MCC supports its ongoing work of humanitarian aid.

We’re all acquainted with the many worthwhile mission trips made by people of all ages in our constituency. Why not make a “mission trip” to the MCC Thrift Store? There’s a constant need for volunteers, and serving at the store can give a glimpse of what mission is all about in our own communities. There, one will discover street people, people on social services, and a great spectrum of ethnicities. Treating people with respect is also a mission.

George Epp,
Chilliwack, B.C.

An apology

Re “Between bad and worse” (Letters, Dec. 15). I extend my most sincere apologies to the author of “Lest we forget” (Crosscurrents, Nov. 3) and to those who may have been offended by the comments in my letter to the editor. Nor was it my intention to challenge articles 12 and 13 of the MB Confession of Faith. I abhor violence and have never promoted participation in the military.

I admit, however, that I have been concerned by what I see as the MB community’s increasing move to a radicalization of the peace position, a view of peace that focuses on violence per se and seems to characterize all violence as equally evil (with sometimes puzzling implications for our Christology).

Regardless of where our conversation takes us, we need to ensure that we always parse our peace position with profound humility and lucidity. As General Romeo Dallaire tirelessly points out, we must be keenly aware of the human cost of our choices. At the very least, we should acknowledge the possibility that some may die because of our stance.

Pierre Gilbert,
Winnipeg, Man.

Moral use of force

Re “Between bad and worse” (Letters, Dec. 15). While Pierre Gilbert might well have used less dismissive language in his letter, the responses to him in the February Herald largely ignore an important point Gilbert was trying to make. It is this: can there be a moral use of force? When I once put that question directly to one of the letter writers, the answer was simply “No.” I think it’s a question with which we must wrestle more seriously.

Why was it Paul could write so passionately about the reconciliation between Jew and Gentile that Jesus accomplished on the cross and then write, as he does in Romans 13, that if we want to be “free from fear of the one in authority” we should “do what is right . . . for the one is authority is God’s servant . . . rulers do not bear the sword for no reason” (13:3,4)?

Paul appears to have recognized that our fallen world needs the exercise of power that can hold back the forces of evil, forces that are constantly at work against peace and our common good.

It is unfortunate that we remember our own history so poorly. If we did, we would have a greater appreciation for the dilemmas we sometimes face. During the dark days of the Communist revolution in Russia and ensuing civil war, Mennonites had to contend with waves of bandits and barely disciplined armies (there were as many as half a dozen armies operating in the Ukraine during Russia’s civil war) and were forced to ask themselves very difficult questions. Even though virtually none had accepted Russian military service during WWI, and thousands went into the medical corps, when all government broke down, significant numbers chose to take up arms in self-defence (and some joined one of the sides in the civil war).

It is significant that at two conferences, one in June 1917 and the second a year later in 1918, the talk about non-resistance took a very different turn. At the first, participants with one voice said they “stood firm and unshaken on the foundation of non-resistance.” But at the second, after a year of increasing chaos, random killings, rape, pillaging, and constant insecurity, the conference no longer expressed the same assurance. Now it spoke of making the non-resistance “question” a matter of “individual conscience” and while it concluded by reaffirming the principle of non-resistance, it also said it did not believe churches should have the right to demand of their members that they refuse to bear arms.

We have to ask ourselves how governments are to restrain evil. Do we not see how much we rely on those who use coercive power to provide us with protection? Would we not have supported some intervention to stop the genocide in Rwanda? We are citizens of a heavenly kingdom, but we are also citizens of an earthly kingdom. Even the Amish who forgave the killer of their young children assumed the presence of police for their protection.

Before we dismiss the letter by Pierre Gilbert, let’s ask ourselves the tough questions. When unrestrained violence comes close to home, as it did for our forebears 80 years ago, we may take a more humble stance. A broken world also forces us at times to imperfect solutions.

Harold Jantz,
Winnipeg, Man.