Canadian Mennonite
Volume 6, number 7
April 11, 2002

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Vancouver, B.C.

Confronted with increasing financial liability for Mennonite Publishing House (MPH), the top U.S. and Canadian denominational boards have voted unanimously to remove the MPH board and take control of the publishing program.

Assuming MPH board responsibilities are the 10 members of the Joint Executive Committee (JEC), which is composed of the executive committees of the Mennonite Church USA Executive Board and Mennonite Church Canada General Board.

The committee approved the move at its March 17 meeting in Vancouver and sent it to the two denominational boards, which ratified it via e-mail.

The boards' action came on the heels of a mediation committee's recommendation that MC Canada and MC USA assume payments for supplemental medical insurance for a group of MPH retirees, adding to the publishing-related financial burden that could fall on the church.

Dismissing the board "seems like a very radical move," said MC USA moderator Ervin Stutzman. "I would vote for such a move because the debt continues to grow."

Stutzman is vice chair of the new MPH board. MC Canada moderator Ron Sawatsky is chair, and Jim Harder from MC USA is secretary-treasurer. Also on the board are Ruth Naylor, Duane Oswald and Roy Williams from MC USA, and Bruno Friesen, Henry Krause, Joy Kroeger and Sam Steiner from MC Canada.

As part of a plan to restructure $4.5 million (all figures in U.S. dollars) in MPH debt, MC USA earlier this year borrowed $1.5 million from Mennonite Mutual Aid and transferred it to MPH. Using denominational property in Winnipeg as collateral, Mennonite Church Canada plans to loan $900,000 as soon as it can find a lender.

Should MPH shut its doors, the two groups would be responsible for more than $10 million in related costs.

Restructuring efforts were complicated in February when MPH's primary bank lender, Farmers First of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, refused a $1 million loan request, and called in a $700,000 line of credit and a $200,000 loan.

Then came the recommended annual payments of at least $75,000 to reinstate supplemental health insurance for 72 retired MPH employees-a potential liability that could run as high as $1.3 million. The former MPH board, while still a program agency of the former Mennonite Church, two years ago eliminated the benefits as a cost-cutting measure.

The retirees last year initiated a grievance procedure, and the JEC appointed a three-member mediation committee. In a report dated March 13, the committee determined that while the MPH board acted legally, it had "clear moral obligations" to continue the health insurance payments. But given MPH's situation, the committee said that "this issue is no longer a matter between MPH and the retirees alone, but also the sponsoring denomination" and that "the denomination must pay the bill."

The committee's findings have not yet been accepted by any party. If any object, it would go to arbitration.

"The way it's turning out, MC Canada and MC USA are liable and on the hook, and [dismissing the MPH board] is formalizing what happened," said Bruno Friesen.

Wes Sawatsky, the only member of the MPH board at the JEC meeting, appeared stunned by the move.

"I recognize that the JEC has every right to make this decision," he said. "There would have been the option of saying you have lost confidence in the current board and appointing a new board, which is what you are doing. But it's your decision, and you need to live with the consequences of it."

Other Canadian members of the former MPH board were Ken Loewen and Sandra Schiedel; the U.S. members were Eileen Roth, Jeff Wright, Cal Britsch and Pat Young.

While a transformation process was required for other former Mennonite Church and General Conference Mennonite Church agencies, the new MPH board was allowed to begin work without having completed such a process. When U.S. and Canadian leaders authorized the MPH board in December 2000, they stipulated that transformation would be required.

But tensions marked the relationship between the JEC and the MPH board during their 13-month history. At the MPH board meeting in February, some members strongly opposed plans for a "transformation team" appointed by the JEC to direct the revitalization of denominational publishing. MPH board members argued that such responsibilities should be lodged with their board.

The JEC will by May name an eight-member transformation team "to define the vision for the future of publishing."

Dan Nighswander, general secretary for MC Canada, said, "On the Canadian side, most publishing has not been done by MPH." He listed publishing by Canadian Mennonite Bible College in Winnipeg and Pandora Press in Kitchener, Ontario, as activities that need to be factored into a new binational publishing program.

The new MPH board will work with Paul Silcox, a management consultant hired last year by the MPH board, and Norman Shenk, a financial adviser hired by MC Canada and MC USA. The JEC will also work with the retirees and debt restructuring. The JEC has already initiated discussions with Mennonite Mission Network, seeking assistance to repay 122 debenture notes, totalling $2.4 million, that MPH owes.

Also at the March 17 meeting, Silcox reported:

·MPH will now receive contributions under MC USA's funding plan. MPH's two predecessor organizations, Mennonite Publishing House and Faith & Life Press, received little in contributions and earned most of their revenue through product sales.
·MPH has paid off $1.9 million to vendors, using profits from its Provident bookstores last Christmas season, leaving the stores with little money to rebuild inventory.
·A fund-raising campaign for Vacation Bible School curriculum brought in $23,000, enough to publish materials for 2002 and 2003. Another campaign raised $42,000 for MPH's general operating fund.

-Everett J. Thomas, editor, The Mennonite

Strasbourg, France

The March presidential election in Zimbabwe left the country deeply divided. Despite post-election anxiety within the country, Brethren in Christ people there have reaffirmed their invitation to hold the Mennonite World Conference global assembly (August 2003) in Zimbabwe.

Ten days after the election, Bishop Danisa Ndlovu said, "There is no reason to change our minds about hosting the MWC in Bulawayo."

MWC officials are resolved to stand in solidarity with Zimbabwean brothers and sisters in these difficult times and to proceed with plans for the global gathering.

"The situation has deteriorated in the country since we made the decision two years ago to hold Assembly Gathered there," said Larry Miller, MWC executive secretary. "But all word that we are now receiving from Zimbabwe, including from foreign embassy folk, is 'sit tight, wait and see' what develops in the next couple of months. We are continuing to monitor the situation carefully."

A few days after the election, Jim Wall, Canadian High Commissioner to Zimbabwe, said, "Zimbabwe is going through a tense period.... I assume that matters will have sorted themselves out well before your conference, but not necessarily in the next few weeks or even months."

MWC leaders are considering contingency plans should a change be deemed advisable.

Amidst the unsettling political situation, Zimbabweans also face economic concerns. The worst drought in years and fields left unplanted due to land issues mean there will be food shortages. Inflation and the exchange rate remain in flux. These factors will also have an impact on planning for Africa 2003.

The annual meeting of the MWC Executive Committee will be held in Bulawayo in August this year. Together, members will be able to assess the situation.

Doris Dube, MWC Communications Team member from Zimbabwe, recalled last year's words by Ken Nafziger from the music committee for Africa 2003: "When the Zimbabwean people are no longer able to sing for themselves they will need someone to come and sing for them."

Mesach Krisetya, MWC president, said that going to Bulawayo is not supporting the repression of the country's government but showing solidarity with the people. Krisetya has called on the global Mennonite and BIC family to exercise their commitment to peace, citing a post-election statement by the World Council of Churches that concluded with these words: "We call upon churches and all peace-loving persons around the world to pray for the people of Zimbabwe and not forsake them, but support them in these difficult times."

-MWC release by Ferne Burkhardt

Newton, Kan.

Photo: The Mennonite Women executive will become two umbrella organizations that will carry some projects together. Back row, from left: Yvonne Bailey, Hampton Va.; Elaine W. Good, Lititz, Pa.; Paula Brunk Kuhns, Harrisonburg, Va.; Lorna Rogalski, Vineland, Ont.; Laura Vogt, New Westminster, B.C.; Nancy R. Sauder, Lancaster, Pa. Front row: Rickey Schrag, Goshen Ind.; Pauline Toews, Whitewater, Kan. (Not pictured are Sue Schmucker Coblentz, Susan E. Janzen and Maggie DeLeon.)

This spring, members of Mennonite Women are being invited to participate in a historic vote which will transform the organization into separate U.S. and Canadian groups that are no longer under the same umbrella.

"Try picturing it like this," suggests Rhoda Keener, MW executive director: "two women, each with her own umbrella, but carrying one shopping bag together. The Canadian umbrella represents the unique mission of Canadian Women in Mission (CWM). The U.S. umbrella represents the unique mission of a new organization, Mennonite Women USA (MW USA). In the shopping bag are the publications we will share."

Representatives of each country have agreed to share production of the annual Bible study guide for women and Women Together, a book of practical ideas for women's groups. MW USA will produce Timbrel with support from CWM and it will remain a bi-national magazine. The two organizations also will work together to host events for all women at the bi-national denominational assemblies, starting in 2005 in Toronto.

Mennonite Women was formed in August 1997 as a binational entity, reflecting the direction of the broader denomination at that time. Women in Mission (General Conference Mennonite Church) and Women's Missionary and Service Commission (Mennonite Church) merged to form Mennonite Women. Canadian Women in Mission-an association of the five provincial women's group-became a part of this organization but kept its 50-year tradition and name.

"Our hope is that having two national women's organizations will give us more freedom in working with our respective church bodies in Canada and the U.S.," says Lorna Rogalski, president of Canadian Women in Mission and a member of the MW board. "Yet many lasting friendships have been made over the years and opportunities will arise from time to time to continue our relationship."

Ballots are being sent to every congregation in the U.S. and Canada with a request that these be photocopied and distributed to women in the church. Women who do not receive a ballot by May 1 may request one from the MW office (call 1-800-794-5101, ext. 227, or e-mail mw@mennoniteusa.org). Ballots should be returned to the MW office by May 31.

"This is a time of change, and while change brings energy and new ideas, it can also be difficult," Keener says. "We are needing to let go of some things and hold on to others. We hope this new configuration will serve women of both countries well for years into the future."

-Mennonite Women release by Cathleen Hockman-Wert

South Bend, Ind.

Mennonites today are viewed as more than an antiquated sect, and the Anabaptist peace witness has a global audience, due in part to the influence of John Howard Yoder.

So believe Yoder's students, friends and colleagues who gathered for a conference on Yoder's legacy at the University of Notre Dame March 7-9. The 300 participants came from a spectrum of theological voices, from Anabaptist and Roman Catholic thinkers to Duke Divinity School ethicist Stanley Hauerwas.

The event was the 14th Believers Church Conference, organized by the Institute of Mennonite Studies at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) and sponsored in part by the Joan Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at Notre Dame.

Perhaps best-known for his 1972 book, The Politics of Jesus, Yoder was a teacher for more than 30 years at Notre Dame and before that at AMBS in Elkhart. He died in 1997 at age 70.

Mark Thiessen Nation, now at the London Mennonite Centre in England, said his mentor "was largely responsible for putting Mennonites on the theological map at the end of the 20th century.... The name John Yoder is largely synonymous with what it is to be Mennonite."

Nation gave an overview of the influences that shaped Yoder's thinking, from his days at Goshen College under the influence of Harold Bender and Guy Hershberger, to his studies at the University of Basel in Switzerland and his peace work in France with Mennonite Central Committee.

Nation said Yoder's many-sided theology drew on classical Anabaptist ethics and tempered them with a distinctive evangelical sense, as well as a global view of the body of Christ. This fresh brand of theology led to Yoder's "love-hate relationship with the Mennonite church," a church Yoder hoped would become more radical and genuinely Anabaptist as it addressed the social storms of the 20th century.

"The Mennonite church did not know what to do with John Yoder," Nation said, "nor did John always know what to do with the church." Still, Yoder submitted himself to the church's authority, including a well-publicized period of church discipline over allegations of sexual misconduct.

Yoder "sought to be broadly 'catholic' and ecumenical," Nation said, "studying other Christian traditions and engaging them.... One of John Yoder's theological passions was his devotion to the church universal." His "profound and sometimes transformative influence" continues to shape the lives of many, not only in the Mennonite church but other denominations.

John Paul Lederach, a professor at Notre Dame and Eastern Mennonite University at Harrisonburg, Virginia, said he had been deeply influenced by Yoder, despite never having been his student.

"In Yoder I found an example of a faithful but nonsectarian Mennonite," Lederach said. Reading The Politics of Jesus and Yoder's 1971 volume, Nevertheless, as a student, he saw Yoder as a courageous if pragmatic visionary who glimpsed boundless possibility in the church's messianic charter.

Marion Deckert, philosophy professor at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, discussed the paradoxes in Yoder's theology. His presentation was typical of most, dealing with important but often esoteric issues of theology or linguistics.

Among the nearly 40 presenters were: Duane Friesen of Bethel College, speaking on "Yoder and the Jews;" J. Denny Weaver of Bluffton College, Ohio, addressing "The taming of John Howard Yoder's legacy;" and Thomas Heilke of the University of Kansas, tracing how Yoder's theology differed from that of Reinhold Niebuhr.

An open discussion addressed Yoder's sexual misconduct and how it was dealt with by church authorities.

Gayle Gerber Koontz of AMBS outlined the accusations against Yoder, and his church discipline, which lasted from 1992 to 1996. Michael Baxter of Notre Dame spoke of the lessons to be learned. Baxter said he was encouraged by the process of Yoder's discipline, and contrasted it with current allegations of sexual abuse involving Catholic priests.

"Would that my community, the Catholic Church, would be so humble," Baxter said. "Here were the Mennonites once again taking up Christian discipleship with authenticity and honesty."

About 10 conference participants chose not to attend the session. They said that an academic conference was not the appropriate place to raise those issues again.

-From Meetinghouse story by Robert Rhodes

The writer is assistant editor of Mennonite Weekly Review.

South Bend, Ind.

Photo: Hauerwas

Stanley Hauerwas of Duke Divinity School has been called one of America's most compelling theologians. He frequently acknowledges the profound influence that John Howard Yoder had in shaping his thinking.

"Yoder brought the Mennonites into this world," Hauerwas said during the recent conference on Yoder at the University of Notre Dame. "In other words, Yoder brought the world into your lives."

Had there been no John Howard Yoder for him to encounter, "I don't know if I'd be a pacifist," he said.

Thin and supple as a fly rod, Hauerwas can be as cantankerous as the next twangy Texan. But his laughter comes fast and easy. Behind the power of his rhetoric resides a man of deep, excitable devotion, and an immense drive to express that devotion on paper and from the many platforms Hauerwas is offered.

A former Notre Dame theology professor who has taught at Duke since 1984, Hauerwas has written several influential books, including Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer on Christian Ethics, and Against the Nations.

Meanwhile, his name has approached household status as an important spiritual authority, a rarity for pacifist evangelicals who quote Wittgenstein.

Craig Hovey, a Fuller Theological Seminary student who spoke at the Yoder conference, said that "many readers come to Yoder by way of Hauerwas."

Hauerwas views the church as a vessel of truth, a Christ-centred well of wisdom and divinity. To Hauerwas, the church must never accede to the influences of the world, or sell out to liberal activism, lest it lose its authentic message of salvation.

Yoder, Hauerwas said, truly represented "a different way of thinking...in order to help the world see what the difference of having Jesus is."

As a layman in the United Methodist Church, Hauerwas does not inhabit a tradition sympathetic to his Anabaptist views. He also chafes at the suggestion that he should just chuck it all and become a Mennonite.

"Probably most Methodists don't understand me.... But God knows why he made some of us ecclesially homeless."

Hauerwas' criticism of the U.S. war against terrorism has sharpened his isolation.

"After September 11, life is not easy," Hauerwas said. "It has caused some real tensions that I have with friends." His connections to Mennonite groups seem especially to rankle some.

"My Catholic friends would say, 'I don't see how you can be attracted to such a non-sacramental, non-eucharistic tradition'," Hauerwas told the conference audience. "What's so lonely about that is that it's largely true. I don't belong, and I don't have any basis for claiming you."

As for Yoder's legacy, Hauerwas believes the time has come for a broader examination of his theology. But the going may not be easy, because many of Yoder's ideas remain radical, especially among mainstream Christians.

"John quite literally was a wild thing, and he was hard to tame," Hauerwas said. "John rightly never gave you an easy summary of what he was saying. He couldn't give you an easy summary because he was scriptural.... The historicization of John means continuing engagement with scriptures."

In the meantime, Hauerwas believes Yoder shouldn't be unduly idealized.

"I think you're going to have to worry about fetishizing John," Hauerwas said. "The Politics of Jesus is not just about pacifism."

-Meetinghouse report by Robert Rhodes

When Fast joins Grebel faculty

Waterloo, Ont.-Conrad Grebel University College welcomed Larissa Fast to the faculty in January. Fast is a graduate of Bethel College (Kansas) and the University of Notre Dame, and is completing her PhD in conflict resolution at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Her dissertation focuses on security for non-governmental organizations in Angola, Ecuador and Sierra Leone. She has worked in development, both in the U.S. and Africa. Fast is teaching in Peace and Conflict Studies and working half-time in research for Project Ploughshares. She is the daughter of Loretta and Darrell Fast of Leamington, Ontario.

-From college release

Bible teacher dies

Elkhart, Ind.-Howard Charles, long-time New Testament teacher at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, died March 16 at the age of 86. He is remembered most for his careful, diligent study of the Bible and his gentle spirit. Even with his last course in 1989, he stayed up past midnight each night to make sure that he was incorporating the most recent resources into his lectures. Charles began teaching at Goshen College in 1947. For more than 30 years he wrote monthly essays on biblical themes for The Herald Teacher and Builder, resources for adult Sunday School teachers. He was the first New Testament editor of the Believers Church Bible Commentary series. "While well aware of contemporary biblical scholarship, he gave himself to a teaching and writing ministry within and for the church," said colleague Erland Waltner. Charles earned a master of theology degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1948, and a doctor of philosophy degree from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1958. His wife Miriam survives, along with sons, J. Robert and Thomas K. Charles.

-From AMBS release