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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
3-169 Riverton Ave.
Winnipeg, Man. R2L 2E5
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or by e-mail to mbherald@mbconf.ca. (Please ensure that your postal address is included in your e-mail correspondence.) |
Learn from our troubles
In the June 9 Herald, the issue of persecution was well addressed. In the US and Canada, we have become so self-satisfied and self-centred that we think we face persecution when most of us have no idea what persecution really is.
I would not call the past three years in my life particularly enjoyable, but I do not believe that I faced persecution or real suffering. A more appropriate response to many of the things we face is “What am I supposed to learn from this situation?” or “How does God want me to respond here and grow so that I can be prepared for the next days in my life?” This allows God an opportunity to help me grow. I personally have learned that God is faithful, and He is changing me.
My heart goes out to my brothers and sisters who face torture and death for their faith in Christ. I recently read of a 15-year-old Indonesian whose arms were hacked off and his stomach slit open. In that condition, he responded to his assailants, “I am a soldier of Christ.” Then he was beheaded. That is persecution.
June Friesen,
Phoenix, Ariz.
Redemptive news coverage
I respond to “Director resigns”, (July 14). Such a heavy handed approach to “sexual moral failure” is not in keeping with Galatians 6:1-2. To go public in this way puts Bert Kamphuis under a cloud for a long time, if not for his entire life. Think of the family as well. It is hardly restoring him “in a spirit of gentleness”, showing empathy (“Look to yourself lest you too be tempted”) or being willing to “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ”.
Was this direction taken in consultation with the brother and his spouse, and did they see this as a way to bring healing to them and the community where they were serving with great distinction? Bert had excellent rapport with the men and women who came to New Life Mission, the volunteers and the community leaders. Was the larger community consulted before this drastic action was taken? This action left the Mission without a director for service to the “least of these”.
As MBs, we have developed a hierarchy of sins, with sexual sins being at the apex. The Scriptures have as much to say about greed, envy and pride, all in ample supply in our ranks. What seems to have occurred is a serious matter, but why broadcast it all over Canada? Was Matthew 18:15-20 consulted to provide maximum protection for the brother? Will the authorities who dealt with this case provide some answers?
George H. Epp,
Chilliwack, B.C.
God’s reign must be acknowledged
Reading the letters (July 14) in which my little Viewpoint (May 26) was torn to shreds, I feel that the point was missed completely. The dictionary definition of “to reign” was expressed as “to be acknowledged as supreme”. The operative word is “acknowledged”. God Himself may know that He reigns, but if almost none of the world’s people acknowledge it, then it is without practical application for those people. As with the promises of Scripture, unless we believe in them and claim them, they remain mere words on paper, their power locked in. The circuit has to be closed and the contact made; and this is what we do not see taking place in the nations, governments, cities and financial centres of our world. As Scripture says, “God is not in their thoughts at all.”
As for the church, as long as Sunday is Funday, our holy day is a holiday, fasting is turned into feasting, and Sunday school and evening service are cancelled because Christians will not attend, God is not being acknowledged as supreme – no matter how boisterously the sentiment may be sung on Sunday morning.
What might happen in the church if we really did allow God to reign and give Him all of His day? It makes me very sad to realize that I have never seen this take place. However, didn’t someone say that God is actually reigning everywhere? Perhaps I’m just looking at the world through morose-coloured glasses.
Over the years VBS has been cut down from two weeks, to one week, to Sunday-Thursday – because the people of the church are not willing to give their time and effort. A church congregation sings “Like a mighty army, Moves the church of God; Brothers we are treading, Where the saints have trod! We are not divided! All one body we! One in hope and doctrine! One in charity.” – all with a straight face. Are they thinking of what they are singing? Perhaps we should sing, “Like a mighty turtle, Moves the church of God; Brothers we are treading Where we’ve always trod: We are all divided, Many bodies we! Our chief characteristic is our inability to agree.” Someone said, “If the church really were an army, most of us would be court-martialled.” And this is the organization which has a backlog of four-and-a-half billion unevangelized, which it has failed to reach.
Sad to say, the church where God is said to reign shuts down largely for the summer, while the agony of the world continues all around it.
Then there is the Bible, the preserved and inspired and inerrant Word of God, a veritable treasure, and yet we don’t read it. Does any other world religion have such a book, inspired by God Himself? Yet over my lifetime I have seen a steady stream of plans and schemes and innovations to get Christians to read their Bibles. Do we acknowledge God as supreme in our devotion to His Book?
The church so often seems to me like a seriously ill person, limping along on crutches, bandaged, deformed, yet steadfastly refusing to take the medicine or undergo the surgery which would provide health. We go a little way with God, but further we will not go.
Last Easter, a United Church minister wrote in the local paper that Jesus was just one of thousands of criminals executed by the government of the time, that His body was thrown into a mass grave with all the others and that the Gospels are just “faith stories”, written much later by the disciples and telling things as they wished they had been. No resurrection. Nothing supernatural about this man Jesus. What did that congregation sing on Easter Sunday. They could not sing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”.
God does not reign in such a church; it cannot even be designated Christian.
George Whitney,
Orillia, Ont.
Choral component missing
I read, with great interest and gratitude, John Redekop’s report on Convention 2000 (Aug. 11). Among all the positive, one observation is discouraging.
With such a strong choral tradition, it seems that this was the first time in the many decades of conventions that the choral ministry was non-existent. This is an indictment of the theological, administrative and musical leadership of the Conference.
Having been involved in choral work in the three Prairie provinces and now in British Columbia, I can assess how great a loss we are experiencing. Working now with the Jubilee Singers of Central Heights Church, a group of 75 senior singers who represent the skills and dedication to ministry acquired during past decades, the loss of this discipline is even more apparent.
If this really represents the end of an era, might I suggest that our Conference schools delete the choral component from the curricula, to be replaced by other materials relevant to the services in the churches? If we prepare singers, conductors and musicians only for them to participate in professional, and semi-professional community activities, perhaps secular institutions should provide this instruction.
Wilmer Neufeld,
Abbotsford, B.C.
Issue confusing
I am grateful that the Board of Faith and Life grapples with difficult issues. However, one of their exhortations to the Canadian Conference convention this summer was confusing and disturbing. Pastors baptized by methods other than immersion are no longer required to be immersed and yet, in brackets, they are still encouraged to do so.
To me it reads, “Brother, give me your hand and we will walk together. But please go wash your hand first; it is not clean enough for me to hold.”
Dorothy Siebert,
Winnipeg, Man.
Good-bye
Twenty-five years ago, my husband, children and I began to attend Richmond Bethel MB Church. The decision was influenced by the fact that my parents, my sister and her family and my brother and his family were all attending Richmond Bethel and participating in a home Bible study. We had joined the Bible study and now wanted to join them in the fellowship.
My family came from an Anglican background. The church was a focal part of our family, but I did not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ until I started attending a tiny Baptist church in 1973. My husband made his commitment through the Richmond Bethel Bible study. Two years later, God had worked in a wonderful way, leading my whole family to commit their lives to Him, many through that home Bible study, and then bringing us together to worship within Richmond Bethel Church. We were among the first non-ethnic Mennonite names to be added to the church roster.
The first article I wrote for the MB Herald, (June 1977) was a poetic expression of an “Armstrong” trying to find her place among the multi-related Mennonite names and yet standing on the knowledge that we are all related in Christ. One of the joys of belonging to the MB Church was being allowed to write for the MB Herald. I am grateful to the editors for printing my letters to the editor, children’s stories, poems and articles. I have always enjoyed reading the Herald because, through articles, letters to the editor, people & events, personalia, and obituaries the Herald taught me what it meant to belong to the Mennonite Brethren Church and to the greater church of Christ.
Over the past 25 years, many of those original Richmond Bethel members have scattered throughout B.C.; my own family members have also moved on to live in other districts and attend other churches, but I retain my affection for all of them, rejoicing in the part they have played in my life.
My Christian walk has now led me back into a Baptist Church. This decision was not lightly made, but was again made with family in mind. My husband and I felt a strong call both to begin a weekly family night Bible study and to begin attending the church where some of our grown children and our three grandchildren attend.
While this necessitates a transfer of membership, it does not mean a transfer of connectedness with the people we have come to know and love at Richmond Bethel or the bond we feel with the Mennonite Brethren Church in general. As Christians, we are related in the family of Christ and will remain so throughout eternity.
I hope to stay in touch with Richmond Bethel Church and those members I know; I plan to purchase a subscription to the MB Herald so I can stay informed on MB news. It’s been a wonderful adventure these past 25 years; I thank God for leading my steps along this path, and I look forward to what He has planned for my future.
Barbara Armstrong,
Delta, B.C.
Terminology correct in usage
If, as the respondents to the June 23 editorial indicated, the editor was not completely right when he referred to the “Kirchlich” Church in Russia as “the General Conference Mennonite Church people”, he probably was not completely wrong either. In my experience, the thousands of “Kirchlich” Mennonites who immigrated to Canada in the 1920s and after World War II, continued to be called “Kirchlich” by those Canadian Mennonites who still used the German language; those who spoke English generally referred to them as General Conference or GC, even when making reference to their prior life in Russia. No one, at least in my experience, equated the term “General Conference” with a denomination that came into existence in Iowa in 1860.
In any event, given the fact that the editorial in question deals with present realities, one wonders why the respondents chose to focus on past designations and structures.
Edwin Lenzmann,
Winnipeg, Man.
Quote qualified
In response to Walter Unger’s letter re the renewal group, now Mennonite Brethren, leaving the Mennonite Brotherhood in 1860 in Russia: It is well for us to remember, as Walter points out, that it was not the General Conference Mennonite Church that the MBs left, but the Mennonite Brotherhood.
Walter quotes the founders of the General Conference Mennonite Church, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.” What he does not say is that while we need to let charity characterize all our relationships, charity does not eliminate the absolute imperative to assess doctrinal positions and practices by God’s Word, the Holy Scriptures. While the above quote is beautiful, it must, nevertheless, be qualified.
Wilmer Kornelson,
Abbotsford, B.C.
Complete forgiveness needed
“I hated my Father,” (Aug. 25) was a wonderful story about healing and transformation. I’m sure that this will help a lot of people, but I encourage the author to go one step further and have the joy of also forgiving her earthly father. It really does bring peace, joy and healing! If she already has done that, that’s wonderful! Just keep growing in Jesus!
Judy Heidt,
Simcoe, Ont.
Re: “The ministry of the divorced and remarried”
I appreciate that the Board of Faith and Life is reconsidering their position on disallowing ordination of a divorced and remarried believer, although not without qualification (Aug. 11). As a divorced ex-MB, you could say I was biased, but that’s not the position on which my comment is based. If you put the lives of two men under a microscope – one divorced and remarried, the other a “family” man with one wife – you might be surprised by what you see. Personal spirituality and the ability (and God’s enabling) to lead spiritually is not guaranteed in one, or necessarily absent or invalid in the other.
Name Withheld
Suffering has value
Paul Unger (Letters, Aug. 25) encouraged us to consider that on occasion God is the author of suffering. I fully agree. The Scriptures he quoted all speak of times when God does bring both calamities and good things to His people (Lamentations 3:38).
I’ve found that endless analysis of why I am suffering is counterproductive. It doesn’t make the suffering any less. In fact, it adds to it. If Satan or somebody else has caused my suffering, I feel like a victim. If I’ve brought it upon myself, I feel like a worthless human being who should have known better. But if I concede that a loving God has thoughtfully prepared a package of suffering for me, I find comfort. I may not understand this aspect of His love at the moment, but I trust that in the future it will become clearer. C.S. Lewis calls this aspect of God’s love “severe mercy”.
I believe Christians in North America find the thought of a loving God causing suffering distasteful because they do not understand the value of suffering. In. C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, Eustace learned to be grateful for the wounds that Aslan inflicted because it freed him from the confines of being dragonish. The Scriptures have much to say about the refining nature of suffering. Moreover, times of suffering present an opportunity to experience God in a deeper, more intimate way. “I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who calls you by Name” (Isaiah 45:3). Suffering provides an opportunity for God to reveal Himself in a unique way.
We in North America seem to value comfort above these deeper truths. We’ve come to see God as a doting Parent who would never initiate suffering for His children. This is not the God of the Bible.
Helen Grace Lescheid,
Abbotsford, B.C.
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© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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