Christian Living
The Five Languages of Apology. Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas. Northfield Publishers, 2006. 280 pages.
The author of the bestselling The Five Love Languages (and its related titles) enlarges the franchise by dealing with five aspects of apology (expressing regret; accepting responsibility; making restitution; genuinely repenting; requesting forgiveness). Apologies are essential in authentic relationships, but we don’t often apologize well, he says; we leave out what the other person most needs to hear from us. The book includes a 14-session group study guide as well as self-assessment tools.
Everybody Wants to Change the World: Practical Ideas for Social Justice. Tony Campolo and Gordon Aeschliman. Regal Books, 2006. 224 pages.
Designed for college and church youth groups, this book contains scores of do-able ideas for making a difference in the areas of poverty, evangelism, environment, prisoners, the oppressed, the elderly, sick and disabled, immigrants, and more. It also includes discussion and study guides for each topic. Most of the examples and organizations listed are American; Canadian users will have to do some research for application here.
Grief and Sexuality: Life After Losing a Spouse. Rachel Nafziger Hartzler. Herald Press, 2006. 241 pages.
Rachel Nafziger Hartzler was 51 when her husband died suddenly of a heart attack. Her book describes the process of her grief but much more; it also includes her research of others’ experience of life after the death of a spouse and excellent insights for pastors and friends of the widowed. She reminds that grief doesn’t end in a year.
History/Academic
The Vice of Curiosity: An Essay on Intellectual Appetite. Paul J. Griffiths. CMU Press, 2006. 96 pages.
The 2005 J.J. Thiessen lectures at Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg, were presented by Paul J. Griffiths, professor at University of Illinois, Chicago, and are reproduced in these pages. Griffiths discusses the “desire to know” and the distinctions that must be made between good or “well-ordered desires” (which he calls studiousness) and bad or “disordered ones” (which he calls curiosity), with particular reference to Augustinian thought.
Mennonite and Brethren in Christ Churches of New York City. Richard K. MacMaster. Pandora Press, 2006. 366 pages.
New York, New York! A Mennonite presence is probably the last thing that comes to mind about this legendary city. But, several U.S. groups of Mennonites established mission “outposts” there, the first in 1949. Half a century later there were about 20 congregations, most of them quite small, in the boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Historian Richard MacMaster tells the stories of the missionaries, the neighbourhoods, and “church in the big city.”
The Muria Story: A History of the Chinese Mennonite Churches in Indonesia. Lawrence M. Yoder. Pandora Press, 2006. 386 pages.
The Chinese Mennonite churches of Indonesia, today called the Muria Church, originated in Dutch mission work of the 1850s, but had a strongly indigenous character, the result of a kind of “spontaneous combustion.” (There is also a Muria Javanese Church, with a more linear connection to European mission efforts.) Lawrence Yoder, on assignment with Mennonite Central Committee in Indonesia, was asked to assist in a history of the Muria synod and eventually became responsible to complete it. This overview is interesting and well-documented.
—Dora Dueck
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