If I dare put it this way, I’m grateful to J. Terry Todd for offering, in “Following Jesus to the Altar: One Pentecostal’s Reflection,” a Pentecostalism large enough for my marriage. This marriage, of a former atheist and semi-former charismatic, has called for a large room–even, in Todd’s language, a theater. And in relation to […]
Robert Millet’s winsome portrayal of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints took me first back to my growing-up years. As has been true in the case of many traditions I’ve responded to, my early formation in Anabaptist-Mennonite communities and theologies predisposed me to view the Mormons, as we then knew the Church of […]
Thank you, Farris Blount, for an accessible yet multi-layered overview of the Black Church in A Tale of Many Options: Following Jesus in the Black Church Tradition. The “many options” of your “tale” of the non-monolithic Black Church tradition captures well both central emphases and the many variations. Your first words fit well with my […]
Reading Sarah Lancaster’s insightful overview of Wesleyanism and keeping in mind its United Methodist denominational expressions took me back to when it was my responsibility to articulate overlaps between Mennonite and United Methodist teachings and values. The United Methodist University Senate oversees UM higher education, including in non-UM institutions it approves to teach UM students. […]
In his stirring rendition of “A Week in the Life of a Pietist,” Christopher Gehrz illumined for me the reality that a fair amount of what I’ve experienced as just part of my heritage is indebted to Pietism. I needed barely to read more than that one of my favorite hymns, “Children of the Heavenly […]
What a poignant, moving story of pursuing something he doesn’t know how to name David Gushee offers us in “One Account of a Baptist Way of Following Jesus.” Yet one thing becomes clear to his younger self once raised Catholic as he tries out a Sunday morning service, a Sunday evening service, a Monday night […]
It’s interesting to note that Wesley Granberg-Michaelson joins the significant number of “Respectful Conversation” partners reporting having made some sort of journey beyond or at least through evangelicalism as part of embracing their current tradition. I’d count myself among such. Though I was born into the Mennonite church and raised by Anabaptist-Mennonite parents, whether what […]
Reading Randall Balmer’s post on why he left evangelicalism to become Episcopalian reminded me that way back when, as a young Christian committed to my Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, I was also experiencing a hunger for spiritual resources I wasn’t fully finding (perhaps partly due to my own blindnesses) in my own communities of faith and worship. […]
Summaries, as I found when delineating five values in “Amid Complexities, Five Things Many Anabaptist-Mennonites Emphasize,” leave unsettling numbers of things unsaid. So I’m grateful for conversation partners’ responses; repeatedly you brought to life precisely the “bones” of those stripped-down values. Let me respond appreciatively in the order in which you each posted. Robert Millet, […]
Yes, I will summarize five Anabaptist-Mennonite emphases. But I don’t dare try before addressing complexities of doing so when so many groups stress so many different things. We can link some Anabaptist-Mennonitisms back to Swiss Anabaptism. Even as approaches to Anabaptist origins and contemporary implications vary (as historians contest whether “polygenesis,” “monogenesis,” or some blend […]
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