Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Tolstoy and the Mennonites -- by Brad Jersak

As part of the centenary of Lev Tolstoy’s death, I was been asked to reflect on Tolstoy and the Mennonites. Levi Miller wrote a fine article on the Tolstoy-Mennonite connection twelve years ago,[1] reviewing those Mennonite leaders in Russia and America who interacted with Tolstoy’s work. My article will rather compare and contrast the roots and reasons of Mennonite and Tolstoyan communalism and nonviolence.

Mennonite and Tolstoyan Communalism

1. New Testament foundations: We necessarily begin by considering the New Testament teachings that inspired both movements. Both the early Anabaptists and the Tolstoyans looked to the New Testament for their communalism and nonviolence, but as we shall see, for quite different reasons.

Halfway House Lessons on Love and Hate -- by Joe Beach

Nearby our church, there’s a halfway house for men who are nearing the end of their incarceration. One of the core families in our church lives in between the church and the halfway house. The father in that family is an interesting character. He looks like some cowhand from an old cowboy movie: a rough, tough, fifty year old man, dirt all over and skinny as a nail. He wears an old hat with a hole in it, smiles with crooked teeth, has one eye that works, and loves to talk to anyone who walks by the place. Underneath that rough exterior is a very intelligent, thoughtful follower of Christ who loves to get in people’s faces, (lovingly, of course) and ask them questions about their life. Around the church, we call it the “GP interrogation” (although we say his full name). If you survive the GP interrogation, you can usually handle anything after that.

Well, a few weeks ago, one of the men from the halfway house was returning after work. The men are allowed to attend work and, sometimes, church, with very strict guidelines and rules. The man from our church (GP) met him on the street and began his loving interrogation. After spending some time to get to know the man and his story, GP asked him if he’d met Jesus while in prison. The man responded, “no, not really. I’d already met Jesus in Sunday School as a kid.”

On Going to Church -- by Joseph Beach

You’re probably familiar with statements such as, “we don’t GO to church. We ARE the church.” There are similar ones that go something like this: “Church is not what we do when we gather on Sunday mornings for an hour or so. Church is not a place or a building. It’s what we are OUT THERE.” Well, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and, although there’s some truth and some wisdom in these statements (which I’ve spoken myself), I’m no longer so sure about them on the whole.

This kind of thinking has developed enough steam over the last few decades that I think you could fairly call it a “movement.” I’d suggest that its full name is the “anti-church-as-an-institution-or-building” movement. It’s also quite opposed to all forms of regular, traditional (and, especially) LOCAL churches. I attended a pastors’ convention in June in which a youth pastor preached one of the workshops. According to his senior pastor, this particular young pastor was being greatly influenced by his buddies in the International House of Prayer (IHOP) movement (which may or may not be influencing him in this area). Anyway, the main thrust of his message was that “we need to get free from the local church” and “we’ve got to get away from local church kind of thinking and get out there and be the kingdom.” Naturally, I couldn’t help but notice that he was saying this in a local church that paid him a nice salary, etc., but I digress.

God's Great Secret -- Excerpt from Canterbury

From Rowan William's Enthronement Speech (Feb. 2003)

Once we recognise God's great secret, that we are all made to be God's sons and daughters, we can't avoid the call to see one another differently. No-one can be written off; no group, no nation, no minority can just be a scapegoat to resolve our fears and uncertainties. We can't assume that any human face we see has no divine secret to disclose: those who are culturally or religiously strange to us; those who so often don't count in the world's terms (the old, the unborn, the disabled). And this is what unsettles our loyalties, conservative or liberal, right wing or left, national and international. We have to learn to be human alongside all sorts of others, the ones whose company we don't greatly like, the ones we didn't choose, because Jesus is drawing us together into his place, into his company.

So an authentic church has a difficult job. On the one hand, it must be constantly learning from the Bible and its shared life of prayer how to live with Jesus and his Father; its life makes no sense unless we believe that the secret Jesus reveals to those hungry for life is the very bedrock of truth. The Church can't believe and say whatever it likes, for the very sound reason that it is a community of people who have been changed because and only because of Jesus Christ. I am a Christian because of the change made to me by Jesus Christ, because of the gift of the Holy Spirit, which gives me the right to call God 'Abba Father; what other reason is there?

The Prophetic Culture of the Kingdom (conclusion and appendixes) by Eric H. Janzen

Conclusion

As I neared the end of writing this book I had coffee with a close friend of mine.  He told me a story about a young man that he had become friends with.  This young man left the Church because his experience of it had been of a surface faith.  He saw people calling themselves Christians, but living their lives as they pleased and caring little for those around them.  Sadly, this led to not only his rejection of Church, but Jesus as well.  He continues to be a spiritual man seeking God and attempting to live a spiritual life, but due to his experience of Church he wants nothing to do with Christians and thus nothing to do with Jesus.  How many of us know people like this?  Too many have encountered Christians not living out the culture of the kingdom and have as a result not encountered Christ.  This story is why I care about the things I have written.  That my friend’s friend was at the gate and walked away because of those within breaks my heart.  It should break your heart as well. 

The Prophetic Culture of the Kingdom (pt. 6) by Eric H. Janzen

Chapter Six

Identity Storm

I have suggested that the Church is in the midst of an ongoing identity crisis.  It is a crisis that has arisen out of our disconnection with the culture and paradigm of the kingdom.  We must face some significant questions as we consider our identity crisis, but I believe that a biblical faith and a relationship with Jesus offers some compelling answers to these questions.  I offer what insight I have in the three sections that follow taken from my journal.

The Prophetic Culture of the Kingdom (pt. 5) by Eric H. Janzen

Chapter Five

A Call to Citizenship

At the outset of this book I said that the basic question the Church needs to answer today is what it means to be in the world but not of the world.  In understanding that the community of Christ has a distinct culture in the kingdom of heaven I believe we have found an answer.

Jesus calls us out of darkness and into his light.  He rescues us from the bondage of sin and our imprisonment in the kingdom of darkness.  Consider that we were all once citizens in this dark kingdom, but now that citizenship has been negated.  When we choose to follow Jesus we shed our old home and walk freely out of that spiritual darkness to our new home in the kingdom of heaven.  We are now a part of the community of Christ, citizens of his realm.  When we choose this narrow path we are answering a call to leave one culture for another, opting for the spiritual culture of Christ’s kingdom and accepting the divine paradigm of God.

Reconciled to What? by Brad Jersak

Reconciled to What? Personal and Public Reconciliation in Canadian Aboriginal Context
by Brad Jersak with thanks to the Honourable Iona Campagnola

Recently, I was honoured to attend a gathering hosted by the Lytton First Nation, entitled ‘Bright New Day’ Workshop. The facilitators of the event were John McCandless and Chief Robert Joseph. Approximately sixty registrants attended, half of whom came from a variety of Aboriginal communities and organizations, while the other half represented a wide range of governments and businesses that have a stake in building relationships with the First Nations communities. It seemed symbolic that the modern facilities selected for the event were unfinished but that could enjoy meeting in one large circle within a tent with a grass field as the floor. Significant too was the fact that we were situated on the grounds of what had once been St. George's Residential School, with all the loaded history that its memory carries. To have a conference on reconciliation among such people in such a place was a profound experience that I will not forget. Before I go on, I want to thank the Lytton First Nation for welcoming me to the traditional territories of the N’Laka’Pamux Peoples. You treated me with great hospitality and respect.

Losing Breath -- Al Sergel

“For there can be no particularism of hope; hope loses all sense and all force if it does not imply the statement of an ‘all of us’ or an ‘all together’.”

-Gabriel Marcel

The heresy of individualism: thinking oneself a completely self-sufficient unit and asserting this imaginary “unity” against all others.  The affirmation of the self as simply “not the other”.  But when you seek to affirm your unity by denying that you have anything to do with anyone else, by negating everyone else in the universe until you come down you: what is there left to affirm?  Even if there were something to affirm, you would have no breath left with which to affirm.

-Thomas Merton

Double or nothing! -- Anouncement by Brad Jersak

For those who haven't heard yet, we made quite an important and wonderful announcement at Fresh Wind on Sunday, Sept. 15. For those who only have a moment, if you just skim down to the bold letters below, you'll get the basic idea. Let me begin by sharing a visitation that I experienced the night before the announcement that finally gave me some perspective on it.

I came before the Lord in prayer and engaged with something he had been speaking to me through the writings of Hans Urs Von Baltasar. I sensed him say, 'Gaze on me and I will gaze on you. I will see you and see through you and into every part of you. I will open up every door and every drawer of your soul and I will evaluate you. I will judge you thoroughly, even where you would not dare judge yourself. I will see and know what you cannot even see and know. And I will render my verdict of mercy, my sentence of kindness, and my gaze will be adoration.'

Be One and Love -- by Eric H. Janzen

What follows came as I reflected on the idea that Christians are a sign in the world pointing to Jesus Christ and the kingdom of heaven.  In his book “The Presence of the Kingdom” Jaques Ellul presents this idea and states that it is the Christian's primary role in life to be this sign.  I found this to be a compelling and powerful idea.

We are to be this sign on the road for humanity as they wander spiritual paths seeking truth and meaning.  A common belief is that all ways lead to God.  However, Christ's followers are the signs along the One Way pointing to the One Truth and Life, Jesus.  This message is vital for at least two reasons.  First, it simply is not true that all ways lead to God.  This is the reality of the spiritual landscape.  It does us no good to pretend that it is otherwise and it may not be a popular move to state it so plainly, but there it is none the less.  Those seeking God along the wrong road deserve to know that they are going the wrong way and it falls to Christ's community to sound the alarm.  Other roads may lead to genuine spiritual powers, but they are not the One God, and thus they are pretenders to a throne that is not theirs to sit upon.

Theology, Culture and M.E. by Brian Schmidt

Theology, Culture & M.E. Brian Schmidt, BGS, M.Ed. [& M.E.]

The following is an excerpt from my All Saints’ Day, 2007 reflections on living with M.E. after having the illness for 17 years, and a month after a dear person who had M.E. took her life after living with it for 28 years—mostly on her own, without much help, and not believed most of the time.

M.E. is a poorly understood chronic illness affecting thousands of people worldwide. It’s closely related to Fibromyalgia [FM], a disease that also involves neurocognitive symptoms, pain and chronic fatigue.

Thinking on Community by Eric Janzen

There is a Hebrew word that most Christians are aware of: Shalom.  It is generally understood to mean “peace”, but this word contains a deeper and broader meaning.  Shalom more accurately means an absolutely unbroken and whole, as well as peaceful, state of existence and reality.  In such a state there is no separation or enmity between anyone and anything in existence.  All relationships are whole and unbroken, perfectly interconnected.  In such an idyllic state the relationships between God and humans, humans and humans, humans and nature, and nature and God are whole and unbroken.  Where and when did such a state of reality exist?  It was the blueprint with which God created the earth and everything in it. If Shalom is the foundation for community that we are trying to discover then we must first consider the source of Shalom and in doing so we shall see that it is of immense value, for it is a very part of the nature of God.

Watchmen versus Watchdogs by Brad Jersak

Many of the newsletters and articles that I’ve written throughout 2007 have been a repetitive reminder to the church that these days call for an upgrade in our discernment. I’m convinced that we must vigorously test the spirits (1 John 4:1-4) to see whether their messages originate in God. We do this both to guard ourselves from swallowing that which is toxic AND to avoid dismissing that which is essential. Sifting for truth enables us to watch for and watch out: we want all that God has for us—we want only what God has for us. 

That being said, one of my intercessors alerted me to the distinction between two types of discerning watchers. In prayer, she was shown the vast difference between those whom God has appointed as “watchmen” and those who’ve appointed themselves as “watchdogs.”

Cynic or Prophet? What’s the difference? by Brad Jersak

Cynical Prophets and Prophetic Cynics

In recent years, I’ve had the joy of pastoring many fine prophets, some highly gifted, some deeply wounded, and some with a potent combination of gifts and grief. I’ve know the sorrow of watching broken prophets decline into cynicism and the joy of walking cynics forward into their true calling as prophets. In some ways, cynics and prophets are exactly opposite; in other ways, there are virtually identical. Maybe they are the flesh and spirit manifestation of the same gift.

Grief by Fi Calder

Grief.

A few months ago I was fortunate enough to hear Mike Stewart from St. Matts, give a talk on suffering. He asked us ‘have you got room in your theology for suffering?’ So here was the challenge; suffering and sadness is a part of life, but do we have a Christianity which can embrace it. It really got me thinking and remembering my nursing days. I was a nurse for 14 years. The last 8 years of that was spent working as a registered nurse in a hospice. We cared for people with terminal cancer and just a few with AIDS. About half of them died with us, and half of them went home. It was a part of the British National Health service and was therefore by no means a Christian setting. The patients and their families taught me most of what I will share with you now on the subject of grief. 

Grief is a very important part of life. We all experience it. It’s a God given gift, designed by Him so that we not only survive life’s trials and sufferings, but we also grow through them.

Uncle Eddie--A Tribute by Laurel Braun

My earliest memories of Eddie are from when I was a little girl. My family attended Central Heights MB Church, and from where we sat, each and every Sunday – In the first row of the balcony on the far right side – I had an ideal vantage from which to view the faithful crew of Twin Firs, always located on the main floor, near the front, on the far left side. Week after week, the faces became familiar, as did their individual quirks and personalities. To me, Eddie was the Downs Syndrome guy that would occasionally utter what I thought were untimely and loud vocalizations. I remember, “That’s right!”, and many a hearty, “Amen”. I noticed his tendency to stand up and conduct either the choir or the congregation during times of song.  My thoughts about Eddie and his motley crew of companions, as well as my observations about how caregivers, the church leadership and congregation related to this population of “special” individuals, made an impression on me.

WhatEVER! Healing the Wounded Cynic by John VanVloten

“A cynic is a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing” (Oscar Wilde) 

“I have seen all of the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” (Ecc. 1:14)

 The cynic is a wounded idealist. In order to summon a true bitterness toward the world, it is first necessary to greatly believe that the universe is fair and that you will be loved unconditionally. This idealism is especially evident when you spend time with adolescents. They are starry-eyed and truly believe in happy endings. When I was a history teacher, they always insisted on being told which side was in the wrong and which was in the right. There had to be a good guy and a bad guy. You see, the idealist looks at the world through rose-colored glasses: people are good, the poor are noble and the Sixties are still with us. “Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody try to get together, try to love everybody right now.” And look! Here comes the New Jerusalem floating out of the heavens!

Flatlanders Inn - Winnipeg Centre Vineyard

Flatlanders Inn is a transitional housing community for people at risk of homelessness. We hope to attract and invite the wanderer, the seeker, the stranger, the foreigner and those who need a positive environment, into a life giving intentional community. We will seek to create an atmosphere that provides a safe and supportive living space for shelter, laughter, healing, capacity building and spiritual growth.

"Honour" by Michelle Wiebe-Santschi

A while ago, I started getting frustrated with some of the things that I was hearing people saying about people with disabilities.  I didn’t like hearing people in my community referred to as “residents” or “the disabled”.  These are my friends.  These are my brothers and sisters.  I just wanted everyone to be equal, for each one of us to be given a fair chance, to be treated as worthy human beings.  I don’t like there being “us” versus “them.  …I vented to those around me and to the Lord.  He answered my questions with one word.  The word that God kept bringing to mind was “honour”…both as a verb and as a noun. So I started to think about what this word meant.  What does it mean to honour someone?  What does it mean to give someone honour? And what does it mean to take away somebody’s honour?