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.)

Burnout a no-win concept

Re “Positive burnout” (Letters, February). God bless Lawrence Warkentin! At long last a scriptural and refreshing perspective on burnout. I had the privilege of playing high school soccer with Lawrence and he always led by example. Literally taught us how to “leap over the wall” (Psalm 18:29). A wire fence separated our soccer field from the neighbour’s pasture. Frequently the ball landed in the pasture. No time to crawl through, under or around – with one leap Lawrence scaled the four-foot fence for the ball. The game must go on! As one poet so aptly said, “Who sets his hand upon the plough, and glances back with anxious brow; his calling hath mistook. God claims him wholly for his own. . . .” Also, Eugene Peterson’s Leap Over a Wall says it well. Fear of burning out is a modern, no-win concept, guaranteed to spawn failure.

Walter W. Wiebe,
Victoria, B.C.

Funerals give glory to God

Re “Instructions for my funeral” (Editorial, February). Thanks to Dora Dueck for her excellent article. In our current way of doing memorial services the reminder that we “go heavy on the Word, because if it’s all about me, it won’t be enough” is a very timely and relevant comment. Funerals and memorial services are wonderful opportunities to give glory to God for our hope in Jesus and to share the way of salvation for those who are not believers.

Wilmer Kornelson,
Abbotsford, B.C.

Don’t separate salvation and science

Re “From dogmatism to mindless tolerance” (People and Events, January). David Ewert, reflecting on changes in MB theology, recalls this decision: “It was recognized that the Bible is not a textbook on biology, geology, or astronomy, but is a history of salvation.” The inference is that the Bible is authoritative except when it trespasses on scientific matters.

Just because science is not the Bible’s main subject, it doesn’t follow that it can’t be a secondary subject. A science textbook, for example, may borrow material from history to explore the development of a scientific theory. So when the Bible includes an account of origins in its theology, the biblical author reasonably uses scientific material. Besides, salvation and science are not totally separate spheres. Science is the study of God’s creation – a creation over which he remains sovereign. God’s acts of power over creation (i.e. miracles) are prominent in the Bible’s salvation narratives.

Our discomfort over the claims found in Genesis should be a challenge to submit our hearts and minds more fully to God’s authority.

Kenneth Affleck,
New Westminster, B.C.

Forward-looking articles

Congratulations on compiling an outstanding series of articles in the March edition of the Herald. They were forthright, forward-looking, and relevant.

The point of view expressed by James Toews in his article, “On Science and Christianity,” is encouraging. It reveals an effort to address issues surrounding faith and learning that have been largely ignored by Mennonite Brethren in the past. Much wider debate regarding this controversy needs to be undertaken.

In “One mean mama,” Valerie Weaver-Zercher’s authentic description of the anger, perhaps rage, she occasionally experiences while raising her children has been expressed to me on countless occasions by other parents. Seldom, however, have these parents gone away from my office with the same healthy resolution of their issues that Weaver-Zercher addresses in her article. I find her resolution transformative.

John D. Friesen,
Vancouver, B.C.

Compassion in action

My wife and I recently moved from a condo setting to an assisted living place with four levels. We’re on the fourth floor where people are living more or less independently. However, there are some whose spouses are on another floor. It’s here we see compassion used as a verb.

One man brings his wife up from another floor and eats with her. Another friend, Mr. Harder, has a wife who is mentally ill. He goes and eats with her on her floor. And after our church service on Sunday afternoon, when a former bank employee in his 90s calls out “Willy, Willy,” wandering a little in his mind, a resident comes and wheels him back to his room. Talk about compassion in action!

My wife and I thought it was time to move. We’re both in a stage where we cannot help each other physically too much, and Mary is beginning to shake with Parkinson’s.

Here at Sun Pointe Village we see compassion in the eyes and actions of the staff. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3).

Norman Fehr,
Kelowna, B.C.

Premarital counselling a must

Re “Setting the marriage bar for a new generation” (Features, March). I’m encouraged that someone like Dave Currie is working hard to teach people what it takes to make a good marriage. I’m discouraged by the fact that most people seem to spend more time researching a vehicle purchase than learning about marriage before entering into one.

We say marriage is serious business and something that should be protected. Look at the political efforts made in the recent gay marriage debate to protect the institution of marriage. And I’m sure many of us would support measures that would make divorce more difficult. But we’ve got it backwards. We shouldn’t make it harder to get divorced; we should make it harder to get married.

I’d like to see pastors and community leaders stop marrying couples who refuse to go through rigorous premarital counselling or who have obviously dysfunctional relationships. Marrying these couples sends a message that we don’t really take marriage seriously. If we want the marriages in our churches and communities to be better, let’s stop blessing the bad ones before they even start.

Jason Rekker,
St. Catharines, Ont.

At peace with science?

Re “On science and Christianity” (Intersection, March). Hats off to James Toews for recommending The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project. This book demonstrates that you don’t have to sell your soul to keep your brain, and you don’t have to sacrifice intellectual integrity to maintain spiritual integrity.

Along similar lines is a book from an author with Saskatchewan roots, Darrel R. Falk, called Coming to Peace with Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology. These books challenge traditional belief without forcing an either/or choice between faith and science.

Arnie Berg,
Saskatoon, Sask.

Evolution not the problem

Re “On science and Christianity” (Intersection, March). Thanks to James Toews for responding to the invitation to discuss the conflict between science and Christianity. Toews seems to suggest that the “reasons for the original conflict are long lost.” I think only the symptoms have changed. Gerald Holton (Science and Anti-Science) claims “we are watching here an ancient, persistent, obstinate, and hardly ameliorating combat.” This struggle, he suggests, is for the control of “power, production, and belief.” He says “scientists in the seventeenth century based their chief claim to attention . . . on their role in replacing the whole pre-scientific belief system.” Though much of that belief system involved superstition, it also included Christianity.

Science wants to teach that valid knowledge is based only on experiment, which undermines faith. It wants to teach that reality is what I can see and measure. What I believe to be moral, good, or true is not among that. God is excluded. Thus, evolution is the wrong issue “on which to stake our orthodoxy.” The issue is the underlying philosophy – the religion – of science.

Science as a description of nature and God’s creation fascinates me. Science and technology have produced developments far beyond the wildest dreams of our forebears. How much are we failing, because of this success, to recognize the danger science poses as a false belief system, a false religion? That religion, of which evolution is an almost irrelevant part, is the issue.

Henry Bergen,
Winnipeg, Man.

Genesis the foundation of faith

Re “On science and Christianity” (Intersection, March). I don’t know where James Toews gets his idea that creationists base their beliefs on “longstanding assumptions.” Most creationists, including me, were brought up to believe that evolution is a fact. I came to question my evolutionary assumptions only after reading some gracious and well-educated Christian scientists and thinkers like Ken Ham, Carl Wieland, Andrew Snelling and Henry M. Morris. They explain the many insurmountable problems with the theory of evolution and offer a more logical, biblical interpretation of the fossil record. It’s a relief to know I can trust the Word of God; my faith has grown as a result.

The reason this debate isn’t going away is because it’s not an obscure side issue as Toews suggests. Rather, it’s the foundation of our faith. Genesis is the only book that provides an account of the origin of everything: life, humankind, government, marriage, culture, nations, death, the chosen people, sin, and clothes. Even the meaning and purpose of the Christian gospel depends on the origin of the problem for which the Saviour’s death was and is the solution. When we doubt the reliability of the account God gave us, we hurt the foundation of our faith.

It’s good to read different views and have mature discussions or debates about differences like this, but as brothers and sisters in Christ we should refrain from the sort of provocative and insulting remarks that make Toews’ article sound so mean-spirited.

Kari Turnbull,
Delta, B.C.