Canadian Mennonite
Volume 6, number 18
September 23, 2002
Arts&Culture

EMC leader argues for ‘gender justness’


Arden Thiessen. The Biblical Case for Equality: An Appeal for Gender Justness in the Church. Guardian Books, Essence Publishing, 2002, 164pp., $12.00.

Here is a personal, yet carefully reasoned biblical study on the role of women in the church by a recently retired pastor, educator and former moderator of the Evangelical Mennonite Conference (EMC).

The book, not initially intended for publication, was written for believers “who sense that there is a conflict within the Scriptures and who have looked for a readable and accessible study on how the differing scriptural writings can be brought together.” For the most part this integration is successful.

The first few pages give personal tidbits of the author’s insights on equality which evolved over “many years of reading, teaching, preaching, and pondering denominational policies and church practices which restrict the role of women.” He concludes the section with a confession that he has always believed in equality, but on female leadership in the church he “hid behind” the traditions of his church.

In recent years, he has become “deeply aware of the ugliness of the male supremicism I continue to see around me.... Since I have an aversion to saying things with which anybody might disagree, I have been silent when I should have spoken. I repented of that attitude and, consequently, undertook this writing.”

The writing is clear and concise. The book would serve well as a resource for individuals and groups studying the role of women in the church.

For me, a member of the EMC until recently, this book represents a personal dream come true. A well-respected EMC leader has spoken out on behalf of equality for women! He did this despite the current five-year “moratorium” on gender issues in the conference.

That moves me deeply and is the beginning of healing old wounds. I see the glimmerings of a new day, not only for EMC but for other churches where “gender justness” is seen as a problem instead of a sign of the redemptive work of Christ, as Thiessen passionately believes.

The book can be ordered from the author at P.O. Box 3045, Steinbach, Manitoba, R0A 2A0; e-mail: ardenths@hotmail.com.

—Leona Dueck Penner

The reviewer, now a member of Charleswood Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, is national correspondent for Canadian Mennonite.

 

 

Signs and Symbols

Movies after
September 11

Last year, the events of September 11 all but shut down the Toronto International Film Festival. Movies didn’t seem to matter anymore.

The numbness has lingered among filmmakers, observed film critic Rick Groen at the beginning of this year’s festival. “It was as if the crumbling towers had shattered the foundation of their self-worth, and had realized their worst fears...that art and entertainment were...really no more than frippery and distraction, marginal to the substantial business of any society.”

That’s a common misconception, said Groen (September 6 Globe and Mail). The arts should not be seen as an “escape” or an “oasis” from daily living. The arts are about engaging life, about “re-imagining” its possibilities, as well as its failures.

“Literature does not reflect life, but it doesn’t escape or withdraw from life either; it swallows it,” said literary critic Northrop Frye in The Educated Imagination (1963).

One of the questions posed at this year’s film festival was, “Can cinema function as an instrument of peace?” The question was partly answered by the festival’s own program—sharing the spotlight were films from all corners of the globe. Art gives us a universal language, the language of human nature, said Groen, even if “most movies speak this language badly.”

Groen concluded by quoting a prophetic passage from Frye on the Tower of Babel. That biblical image comes back to haunt us on the anniversary of 9/11:

“The civilization we live in at present is a gigantic technological structure, a skyscraper almost high enough to reach the moon. It looks like a single world-wide effort, but it’s really a deadlock of rivalries; it looks very impressive, except that it has no genuine human dignity. For all its wonderful machinery, we know it’s really a crazy ramshackle building, and at any time may crash around our ears.”

In this civilization, we depend on religion, and art, to tell us the truth, to speak for humanity. What we need to hear when we look down from the tower, says Frye, “is that we are not getting any nearer to heaven, and that it is time to return to earth.”

—Margaret Loewen Reimer

 

Arts notes

Mennonite writers
to gather in Goshen

Someone at the “Mennonite/s Writing: An International Conference” will win 16 first editions of Rudy Wiebe’s books. Another raffle prize consists of nine new releases by Mennonite authors, including Canadians Patrick Friesen, David Bergen, Carla Funk and Maurice Mierau.

Mennonite/s Writing, held at Goshen College in Indiana on October 24-27, is the third conference on Mennonite literature since the first event at Conrad Grebel College in Ontario in 1990. This conference is at once a writers’ festival and an academic conference. It will feature readings by many Canadian and American writers, as well as Japanese poet Yorifumi Yaguchi. Scholars from Canada and the USA, as well as Britain and Finland, will present papers on subjects ranging from themes and trends in Mennonite literature to literary analyses of individual works.

The conference will celebrate Rudy Wiebe’s seminal role in the development of a Mennonite literature by marking the fortieth anniversary of his first (and controversial) novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many. Proceedings from the conference will be published in the Mennonite Quarterly Review and The Conrad Grebel Review.

Chairing the conference are scholars from the two sponsoring colleges: Ervin Beck of Goshen College and Hildi Froese Tiessen of Conrad Grebel University College. For further information, visit the conference website at: http://www.goshen.edu/english/.

—From conference release

Dirks at mission centre

Ray Dirks, curator of the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery in Winnipeg, is artist-in-residence at the Overseas Ministries Study Centre in New Haven, Connecticut, from September to December. The centre was founded in 1922 as a learning and renewal centre for missionaries on furlough. Through the centre’s close connection with Yale University, Dirks will also be a research fellow at Yale. He will contribute to seminars and workshops and will also be expected to pursue his own artistic endeavours. One of Dirks’ current projects is putting together an exhibit called “Our Family,” featuring artists around the world, for the Mennonite World Conference assembly in Zimbabwe. During Dirks’ absence, Ruth Maendel will serve as curator and artist-in-residence at the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery (she was featured in the Feb. 11 Canadian Mennonite).

—From MC Canada release


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