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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.) |
Roots and reasons
Thanks for addressing restorative justice (March 22, April 9). While it was named by Mennonites and others, it has been practised for much longer by indigenous peoples (Australian Aboriginees and North American First Nations are examples). In fact, it is likely that all small, close, traditional communities practised some form of restorative justice at some point, partly because people were just too valuable to be garbaged or warehoused. Perhaps Western, European colonialists have much to learn from “primitive, backwards” people who, in some instances, knew much about the value of people and how to keep communities sustainable.
Some reasons Christians are resistant to restorative justice are legitimate. Some prefer similar concepts like transformative justice, while others have valid concerns that needs of victims may be sacrificed for the rehabilitation of the perpetrator. Still others of us are afraid to admit that in giving up revenge, we must also give up the scapegoat – that person who can be sacrificed so that the part of each of us that is capable of violence and destruction can remain hidden and ignored. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (who suffered in the same Soviet prisons that many Mennonites did) said it well: “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Geoff Dueck Thiessen,
Winnipeg, Man.
Support needs to come from all churches
“Challenging three denominational myths” by John Redekop (March 22) promotes another myth that unless you are born and raised “Mennonite Brethren” you are unlikely to support the policies, programs, institutions and vision of the MB denomination. That kind of inference questions the integrity of non-MB background pastors who have affirmed that they will support the denomination in their initial interviews and processing. My observation is that denominational support is as lacking from churches that have “denominational” pastors as those that do not, and that past affiliation has little to do with present promotion.
On the other side of the issue, pulpits of other denominations are being filled by clergy who have a Mennonite background, and they do not have to be indoctrinated or given a litmus test in the same way it is practised in this denomination. Why is it that clergy, who are recruited and affirmed by congregations to come to MB churches, must pass this excessive scrutiny and still be identified as non-supportive? Did not Jesus break down the barriers between Jew and Greek, bond and free, denomination and denomination?
W. E. (Bill) Glasspell,
Vauxhall, Alta.
The great distraction
Re: the debate over women in leadership: If you have the gift of leadership, then lead with all diligence. Whom exactly are we arguing with? The Holy Spirit, for accidentally giving leadership gifts to some women? Let’s quit stumbling over one another, get on with what we all are gifted to do, and make the Bride something worth looking at.
Teresa Klassen,
Kelowna, B.C.
Previous | Next Last modified April 30, 2002.
© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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