The Mennonite provides Anabaptist content and is a publication of Mennonite Church USA.
Daily News
Friday roundup: Five things worth paying attention to this week
Here are five things worth paying attention to this week. These are designed to expose you to a perspective you may not normally come across in your daily lives. Demoting, ousting, severing, canceling. Mennonite World Review has set all of us connected with Fresno (California) Pacific University into concerned conversations. The article by Tim Huber […]
When they come for you(r whole neighborhood)
I am frustrated and infuriated. I live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a community that on Sunday experienced an occupation level I haven’t seen since I was in the West Bank during a study abroad term in college. Before Sunday, I never in my own neighborhood had to hold my camera in the air and state what […]
September recipe: Aunt Mary’s spiced pumpkin bars
My great aunt Mary was a meticulous and brilliant woman, who also happened to have a stellar repertoire of holiday baked goods. Years ago, she passed her recipe for spiced pumpkin bars down to my mother. I returned to Aunt Mary’s recipe after a run of failed pumpkin bar experiments. Aunt Mary’s spiced pumpkin bars are a […]
God’s love in action changed my life
I still remember that cold and rainy Sunday as we drove to the evening service at our church, Iglesia Mennonita del Cordero. As we drove past the immigrant-homeless shelter, we saw families gathering pieces of cardboard boxes on the side of the road, ready for trash pick up the next morning. My dad slowed down, and […]
Ethiopian woman survives beatings to serve Christ
A Mennonite World Conference release by Karla Braun Renewal 2027 testimony: Anabaptists today Renewal 2027 is a 10-year series of events to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the beginnings of the Anabaptist movement. This series highlights leaders in the movement, past and present. “With the grace of God, I escaped many deaths throughout my journey […]
Friday roundup: Five things worth paying attention to this week
Here are five things worth paying attention to this week. These are designed to expose you to a perspective you may not normally come across in your daily lives. BlacKkKlansman This is the best movie I’ve seen all year. Spike Lee is in great form as he tells the true story of Ron Stallworth, a police […]
Thoughts on staying together
At the end of the Virginia Mennonite Conference annual assembly, July 21, assistant moderator Kevin Gasser encouraged us to stay together. Spoken from his heart, unrehearsed and on the spot in front of the delegates, Gasser, pastor of Staunton (Virginia) Mennonite Church, encouraged delegates to “please stay together.” These wise words of counsel from a […]
An unhurried journey: Walking the Camino de Santiago
This is a web-exclusive article on the theme “Pilgrimage” For more stories on this theme, see the September issue of The Mennonite, available here. For nearly 20 years, the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, beckoned me. Since the ninth century—and possibly longer—pilgrims have walked to Santiago de Compestela, largely along a route […]
Pilgrimage: From far away to near at hand
Photo: H.S. Bender (front, center) enters the Grossmünster in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1952. Photo from the Mennonite archives in North Newton, Kan.; it appeared in a photo essay on Mennonite World Conference in Mennonite Life (June 1978) This article comes from the September issue of The Mennonite, which focuses on “Pilgrimage.” Read more reflections online or subscribe to receive more original features in […]
3 principles at the core of church planting
This article comes from the August issue of The Mennonite, which focuses on “Church Planting.” Read more reflections online or subscribe to receive more original features in your inbox each month. The Holy Spirit is the architect for new bodies of believers, but it takes people guided by principles to carry out the plans. Calling leaders, sustaining ministry and encouraging multiplication are […]
Discovering a sustainable peace as I age
This is a web-exclusive article on the theme “Aging with Dignity.” For more stories on this theme, see the July issue of The Mennonite, available here. “Great posts on Facebook of your China trip,” my friend said when we met in the grocery store. “Was China on your bucket list?” “Not really” I said. “The opportunity […]
Continuum of care is an answer to prayer
Photo: Siegfried Wendt. Photo provided by Landis Communities. This is a web-exclusive article on the theme “Aging with Dignity.” For more stories on this theme, see the July issue of The Mennonite, available here. Siegfried Wendt and his family experienced the upheaval and violence of World War II. Following the end of the conflict, he was able […]
My father’s journey into dementia
This article comes from the July issue of The Mennonite, which focuses on “Aging with Dignity.” Read more reflections online or subscribe to receive more original features in your inbox each month. Holding out his hand, my 85-year old father beseeched me, “Am I still the same person I was before?” It was a farmer’s hand, weathered and rough from a long […]
Doors, not walls: Why LGBTQ inclusion is so divisive in MC USA
I joined the Mennonite church as a teenager. Mennonite Church USA as a denomination was still new, and I found it fitting that I was starting my journey as a Mennonite at the same time this denomination was trying to get itself off the ground. I was pretty convinced this denomination was a perfect fit […]
Three reasons why gay acceptance has been so divisive in MC USA
Since its formation in 2001, Mennonite Church USA has declined from more than 120,000 adult members to about 67,000 adult members today. Most of this loss has been due to congregations, as well as some area conferences, leaving the denomination. Although congregations and conferences have left over a variety of issues, the most prominent one […]
What would Mr. Rogers do with the Muslim travel ban?
I know a thing or two about the power of fear. I was grounded by a fear of flying many years ago. I traveled to Europe twice in a cheap cabin deep in the belly of the Queen Elizabeth 2, near the rumbling engines, because I couldn’t bring myself to get on an airplane. With […]
A place of refuge or oppression?
The recent “zero tolerance” policy that has been conducted by the Trump administration toward asylum seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border has left thousands of families horrified and traumatized as parents and children were detained separately. Such an abhorrent policy does not take into account the vulnerability of these migrant families who have escaped violence and […]
What I learned at the Philadelphia Detention Center
I recently participated in a tour of the Philadelphia Detention Center. After doing a lot of reading about the injustice of mass incarceration in our country, including The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, I feel like my eyes have been opened to a new reality that I had previously ignored or had not chosen to see […]
The cost of not remembering 1525
Two articles previewing an observance of a 500th anniversary of Anabaptism stressed the importance of “right remembering.” Another way to describe it might be “not remembering.” In 30-plus pages, in the January 2017 issues of The Mennonite and Mennonite Quarterly Review, there is no mention of three founders present at Anabaptism’s start, nor a brief […]
