Mennonites in Dialogue

Mennonites in Dialogue
Author: Fernando Enns
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 505
Release: 2015-07-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1498203639

Ecumenical dialogue is not an end in itself. It serves as an indispensable instrument to overcome the divisive, mutual misinterpretations of the past. Ecumenical encounters pave the way toward healing painful memories and lead to a deeper understanding of the church's given unity, thus becoming a more credible witness of that truth. Mennonites in Dialogue is a collection of all conversation texts involving Mennonites on international and national levels, covering forty years of encounters with Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed, Baptists, and Seventh-Day Adventists, among others. The texts illustrate growth in agreement as well as identify the remaining convictions that still divide. Several texts appear here for the first time in English. An introductory essay provides an overview of the motivations for dialogue, the challenges faced--both in the processes of dialogue and in their substance--as these conversations evolved, the achievements gained, and the prospects for the future. A detailed index enables a more effective comparison of the topics and issues throughout the collection. Mennonites in Dialogue is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to understand the process of identity formation within the Christian tradition through encounter with the other, as well as a rich introduction to the theology of that global peace church--the Mennonites.

Sharing Peace

Sharing Peace
Author: Gerald Schlabach
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2013
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0814680178

Sharing Peace brings together leading Mennonite and Catholic theologians and ecclesial leaders to reflect on the recent, first-ever international dialogue between the Mennonite World Conference and the Vatican. The search for a shared reading of history, theology of the church and its sacraments or ordinances, and understandings of Christ's call to be peacemakers are its most prominent themes. Contributors include: Scott Appleby (Kroc Institute, Notre Dame) Alan Kreider (Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary) Helmut Harder (Mennonite co-chair of the international dialogue) Drew Christiansen, SJ (Georgetown University, Catholic delegate to the international dialogue) John Roth (Goshen College) John Cavadini (University of Notre Dame) C. Arnold Snyder (University of Waterloo) Mary Doak(University of San Diego) Elizabeth Groppe (Xavier University) Thomas Finger (author of A Contemporary Anabaptist Theology) Bishop Gabino Zavala (past president of Pax Christi USA) Duane Friesen (Bethel College, Kansas) Gerald Schlabach (University of St. Thomas) Mary Schertz (Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary) Abbot John Klassen, OSB (Saint John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota; co-chair of Bridgefolk) Margaret R. Pfeil is assistant professor of moral theology at the University of Notre Dame and a Faculty Fellow of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. She specializes in Catholic social thought. She is also a cofounder and resident of St. Peter Claver Catholic Worker House in South Bend, Indiana, and is on the board of Bridgefolk, a movement of Mennonites and Roman Catholics who come together to celebrate each other's practices and honor each other's contributions to the mission of Christ's church. Gerald W. Schlabach is professor of theology and director of the Justice and Peace Studies program at the University of St. Thomas in St.Paul, Minnesota. He is cofounder and executive director of Bridgefolk. His books include Just Policing, Not War: An Alternative Response to World Violence (Liturgical Press, 2007) and Unlearning Protestantism: Sustaining Christian Community in an Unstable Age.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
Author: Rhoda Janzen
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 080508925X

In the spirit of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron comes Janze's hilarious and moving memoir about a woman who returns home to her close-knit Mennonite family after a personal crisis.

T&T Clark Handbook of Anabaptism

T&T Clark Handbook of Anabaptism
Author: Brian C. Brewer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 649
Release: 2021-12-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567689506

By utilizing the contributions of a variety of scholars – theologians, historians, and biblical scholars – this book makes the complex and sometimes disparate Anabaptist movement more easily accessible. It does this by outlining Anabaptism's early history during the Reformation of the sixteenth century, its varied and distinctive theological convictions, and its ongoing challenges to and influence on contemporary Christianity. T&T Clark Handbook of Anabaptism comprises four sections: 1) Origins, 2) Doctrine, 3) Influences on Anabaptism, and 4) Contemporary Anabaptism and Relationship to Others. The volume concludes with a chapter on how contemporary Anabaptists interact with the wider Church in all its variety. While some of the authorities within the volume will disagree even with one another regarding Anabaptist origins, emphases on doctrine, and influence in the contemporary world, such differences represent the diversity that constitutes the history of this movement.

Baptism, Peace and the State in the Reformed and Mennonite Traditions

Baptism, Peace and the State in the Reformed and Mennonite Traditions
Author: Alan P. F. Sell
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2012-12-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0889208816

What are the most significant points at issue between the Reformed and Mennonite communions–Baptism, peace and church-state relations? Is there a way forward? In the hope that there may be, the contributors to this book attempt to clear the way to closer relations between Reformed and Mennonites by careful scholarly discussion of the traditionally disputed questions. The papers gathered here were presented at the second phase of the international dialogue between the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Presbyterian and Congregational) and the Mennonite World Conference. There are Reformed and Mennonite studies of the topics, together with the responses of a philosopher of religions, a sociologist, a systematic theologian and a church historian. In the Introduction the dialogue is set in its historical and contemporary ecumenical context, and the Conclusion, drafted by the dialogue participants, has been forwarded to the two world bodies for their consideration and action. This important work will be relevant to all future scholarly research into the growing debate between Reformed and Mennonite communions.

The Church Made Strange for the Nations

The Church Made Strange for the Nations
Author: Paul G. Doerksen
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2011-09-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1608993981

Christians have sometimes professed that the church ought to be "in the world but not of it," yet the meaning and significance of this conviction has continued to challenge and confound. In the context of persecution, Christians in the ancient world tended to distance themselves from the social and civic mainstream, while in the medieval and early modern periods, the church and secular authorities often worked in close relationship, sharing the role of shaping society. In a post-Christendom era, this latter arrangement has been heavily critiqued and largely dismantled, but there is no consensus in Christian thought as to what the alternative should be. The present collection of essays offers new perspectives on this subject matter, drawing on sometimes widely disparate interlocutors, ancient and modern, biblical and "secular." Readers will find these essays challenging and thought-provoking.

Secular Nonviolence and the Theo-Drama of Peace

Secular Nonviolence and the Theo-Drama of Peace
Author: Layton Boyd Friesen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2022-02-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 056770405X

What happens when a five-century tradition of Christian pacifism no longer needs Jesus to support nonviolence? Why does secularity cause this dilemma for Mennonites in their theology of peace? Layton Boyd Friesen offers an ancient theology and spirituality of incarnation as the church's response to the non-resistance of Christ. He explores three key aspects of von Balthasar's Christology to help Mennonite peace theology regain its momentum in the secular age with a contemplative union with Christ. This volume argues that the way to regain a Christ-formed pacifism within secularity is to contemplate and enter the mystery unveiled in the Chalcedonian Definition of Christ, as interpreted by Hans Urs von Balthasar. In this mystery, the believer is drawn into real-time participation in Christ's encounter with the secular world.

Growth in Agreement III

Growth in Agreement III
Author: Jeffrey Gros
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 641
Release: 2007
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0802862292

This volume contains the official dialogue results and common statements issued between 1998 and 2005 by an astonishingly wide range of Christian churches and communions. Reflected here are the solid advances made by well-established dialogue partners, as well as explorations in dialogue by churches new to the dialogue process at world level. Also included is the ecclesiology text adopted by WCC member churches at their assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Recovering from the Anabaptist Vision

Recovering from the Anabaptist Vision
Author: Laura Schmidt Roberts
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2020-02-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567692760

This volume performs a critical and vibrant reconstruction of Anabaptist identity and theological method, in the wake of the recent revelations of the depth of the sexual abuse perpetrated by the most influential Anabaptist theologian of the 20th century, John Howard Yoder. In an attempt to liberate Anabaptist theology and identity from the constricting vision appropriated and reformulated by Yoder, these essays refuse the determinative categories of the last half century supplied by and carried beyond Harold Bender's The Anabaptist Vision. While still under the shadow of decades of trauma, a recontexualized conversation about Anabaptist theology and identity emerges in this volume that is ecumenically engaged, philosophically astute, psychologically attuned, and resolutely vulnerable. The volume offers a Trinitarian and Christological framework that holds together the importance of Scripture, tradition, and the lived experience of the Christian community, as the contributors examine a wide variety of issues such as Mennonite feminism, Anabaptist queer theology, and Mennonite theological methods. These essays interrogate the operations of power, violence, exclusion, and privilege in methodology in this changed context, offering self-critical constructive alternatives for articulating Anabaptist theology and identity.

The Jewish-Christian Schism

The Jewish-Christian Schism
Author: John Howard Yoder
Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2008-11-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0836197739

Between 1971 and 1996 the late John Howard Yoder (1927-1997) wrote a series of ten essays revisiting the Jewish-Christian schism in which he argued that, properly understood, Jesus did not reject Judaism, Judaism did not reject Jesus, and the Apostle Paul’s universal mandate for the salvation of the nations is best understood not as a product of Hellenization, but rather in the context of his Jewish heritage. This posthumous collection of essays is arguably his most ambitious project and displays Yoder’s original thesis that the Jewish-Christian schism did not have to be. Originally published in 2003 by SCM Press and Eerdmans.