Canadian Mennonite
Volume 12, No. 7
March 31, 2008
Readers Write
We welcome your comments and publish most letters sent by subscribers intended for publication. Respecting our theology of the priesthood of all believers and of the importance of the faith community discernment process, this section is a largely open forum for the sharing of views. Letters are the opinion of the writer only—publication does not mean endorsement by the magazine or the church. Letters should be brief and address issues rather than individuals.
Please send letters to be considered for publication to letters@canadianmennonite.org or by postal mail or fax, marked “Attn: Readers Write” (our address is on page 3). Letters should include the author’s contact information and mailing address. Letters are edited for length, style and adherence to editorial guidelines.
Forbidding children to play sports may drive them away from church later
Thank you for the sports and religion feature in the Feb. 4 issue (“Sainthood & sports,” page 4). Beggars can’t be choosers, but let me say I would prefer to read a regular sports section in Canadian Mennonite, to stay in touch with the accomplishments of our many fine Mennonite athletes, teams and coaches.
Your page 2 editorial, “What’s a parent to do?” suggests that Floyd Landis’ parents made church attendance mandatory when Floyd was young, and once he was able to decide for himself he left the church to pursue an athletic dream that had been forbidden to him.
You ask whether Floyd Landis’ devout Mennonite parents should have skipped church to watch their son win the Tour de France. The answer is yes. This story portrays parents completely out of touch with their son’s God-given abilities and talents, and who refuse to become part of his life. How sad to see such lack of communication and acceptance.
It is also a lost opportunity. Parents of aspiring young athletes who get involved with their children’s community teams play a hugely influential role in the physical and psychological development of their child, and in the sports program in which they are involved. High ethical and moral standards, quality of coach-athlete relationships, scheduling of practices to avoid conflicts, equality of play time, healthy eating habits, safety—these are all areas in which Christian parents can exert pressure and voice.
Should that child develop into a successful elite athlete, they will exhibit traits such as self-confidence, determination, discipline and commitment. They will understand the meaning of sacrifice, dedication, teamwork and leadership. We need people with these attributes in our church. If the church supports these athletes while they are training and competing, perhaps they won’t leave the church in pursuit of dreams forbidden to them.
Dissenting churches should be sent off with a blessing
I agree with Jake Rempel, who wrote in his Feb. 4, page 14 letter that dissenting churches should be released to go their own way, albeit with a different spirit than he suggested. I thought that compromise and accommodation were virtues valued in MC Canada to find consensus. So if harmony is not reached, why not send the B.C. churches off with a blessing in the Spirit of Christ.
Having been a pastor for more than two decades in two MC Canada congregations—both of which left after my time—I understand some of the complicated dynamics leading to such decisions. Churches do not leave a denomination easily without a great deal of soul-searching. There may be decades of misunderstanding before such hard decisions are made.
I know most of the seven congregations in Saskatchewan and four in British Columbia that have left in the past few years. If Rempel knew these people personally, I expect he would be more charitable than to identify them as being on a “power trip.”
The vitriol expressed in the letter is wasted, for it seems these churches have arrived at the difficult decision that they do not need MC Canada either.
True hope lies in God,not in human action
Re: “Awake to despair, I discover hope” column by Aiden Enns, Feb. 18, page 8. I am thankful to the Lord for making Enns realize that it is not through his action, but rather in God, that true hope lies. I am also grateful for both the ways in which he calls the church to greater faithfulness and how his writings show the dangers and pitfalls of modern arrogant humanism. If the Lord can speak to Enns, then there is hope for us all. I will remember him in my prayers as I hope he will remember me.
From Our Leaders
Basking in the season of Easter
In my childhood congregation in the 1950s we celebrated on Easter Sunday, and it was glorious. As we arrived at church, we greeted one another with the words, “The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed.” We sang six Easter carols, much more music than usual. Each year we revelled in the tempo changes and sheer energy of “Low in the grave he lay.”
Joy overtook the usual sombre tone of our worship. And then, abruptly, Easter was over for another year.
Easter taken straight is like looking directly at the sun
In the late 1980s, I applauded when some folks suggested that we serious Mennonites need more than one Sunday to celebrate Easter. I’m grateful for Mennonite worship resources for the season of Easter, now available each year in the spring issue of Leader magazine. I’m grateful to the writing team from Mennonite Church Alberta that prepared this year’s materials, guided by Dave Bergen and Elsie Rempel of Mennonite Church Canada.
Why do we need a whole season to absorb Easter? Because Easter taken straight is like looking directly at the sun. Easter blinds us and burns us with life, and we can hardly stand it. We need an ozone layer and sunglasses and sunscreen and time to slowly absorb its rays.
That’s what Jesus’ first disciples are doing in the post-Easter narratives in Luke and John. In these familiar stories, the gospel writers struggle to express the reality that Jesus is alive and present with his disciples. The disciples catch on slowly and gradually.
In one of my favourite gospel passages, Easter sneaks up on those two unnamed disciples on the road to Emmaus. They had thought Jesus was the One to redeem Israel, they really did. But now the dispirited disciples sadly conclude it’s over—until they meet a stranger on the road. He talks with them, lingers to eat with them, and only then do they recognize him. Afterwards they recall, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?” (Luke 24:32).
Later, in the upper room in Jerusalem, Jesus’ living presence is too much for the disciples to take in all at once; in their joy we find them “disbelieving and still wondering” (Luke 24:41).
More than 2,000 years later, Easter still sneaks up on us. The living Christ continues to present himself to us, in whatever doses we can handle. It takes time for us to trust the warm rays of Easter, and to bask in them.
As we bask in Easter in this season that stretches to Pentecost, may God give us the deep assurance that death in all its forms does not have the last word. God does. May we trust that our future lies in the hands of a God who loves, forgives and empowers us beyond our imagining.
Family Ties
I hope you dance
A few years ago country singer Lee Ann Womack had a big hit with “I Hope You Dance.” The local radio station played the song nearly every morning around 8 a.m., just as my son and I were driving to school. Probably each day I said to him, “I really like that song.” It’s the kind of song that sentimental adults might warm to and wish for a child in their lives. In fact, it’s still hard for me to hear the song without a few tears prickling my eyes.
The song is laced with hopes and advice about taking risks and living fully. “Never lose your sense of wonder,” the singer croons, and “lovin’ might be a mistake but it’s worth makin’. ” There are even a few brief nods to God and faith in the song. The chorus, though, is what pushes it over the warm, mushy top. “When you get the chance to sit it out or dance,” the song continues, “I hope you dance,” repeated over and over again.
Given my reaction to the song, I wasn’t surprised to open a gift from my son that Christmas of a CD with the song and the singer’s comments on what the song meant to her. I wasn’t surprised, but I was very pleased, reading into it a sense that maybe he hoped this same message would be true for me—that when given the chance to sit it out or dance, he hoped I would dance.
The song is laced with hopes and advice about taking risks and living fully
It’s a sentiment I return to often, particularly when thinking about one of my loved ones doing something that has them separating from me, going down a path I wouldn’t choose, dancing away from me. Our children do this, hearing some music that bids them follow. Sometimes that means we find ourselves in places we never imagined we might be—at ballet classes, judo competitions or police school graduations.
Some parents put their teenagers on airplanes to pursue adventures in far away countries—cross-cultural ex-
changes in Germany; Serving and Learning Together assignments in Africa or Jamaica; teaching English in China; or even joining Christian Peacemaker Teams in Palestine. Caring adults do this because they see something of how the adventure shapes the child into the person God made them to be, the adult they are becoming.
Sometimes such a response is called for in other close relationships, like marriage. Recently my husband elected to go to Uganda for a few months, a journey I was unable to make with him. It’s clear to me that he’s “dancing” in this place, as he tells of his experiences with joy and awe. He followed God’s call to take on this particular short-term Mennonite Central Committee assignment, listening to and recording the stories of parents and church workers who are bringing justice, peace and healing into their wartorn communities.
Another song runs through my mind as I write, the folksy “Lord of the Dance” that found its way into Mennonite churches in the 1970s and still shows up occasionally, sometimes at Easter. “Dance, then, wherever you may be,” goes the chorus, as a dancing Jesus promises to “lead us all in the dance.” It’s a good way to celebrate the new life we know in Easter, and the promise of spring.
God, Money and Me
Driven by fear and greed
Someone once said the investment world is driven by fear and greed. Recent events have shown that to be true. Big losses in world stock markets can be traced back to ill-considered, repeated behaviour rooted in greed.
The seeds of the “sub-prime mortgage crisis” were sowed by people getting fat commissions giving mortgages to borrowers who never should have been approved. Families with no income, job or assets were told, “No problem. Just sign here and you can have a large, variable rate loan.” These junk loans were repackaged, given exotic names like asset- backed commercial paper, and resold to the largest financial institutions in North America. When interest rates rose, home values decreased and borrowers walked away from their properties. The smart money didn’t look so clever.
Cue the multi-billion-dollar write-downs, firings and layoffs. The average Joe and Jane saw their past couple of years’ worth of retirement savings gains vaporize in a matter of weeks.
It’s depressing to sift through these complex stories and realize just how large—and foolish—were the gambles taken by highly-paid, supposedly brilliant people. Finance books explain the relationship between risk and reward. Generally, that’s true. What is stunning in this case is just how much imprudent risk was taken for relatively little promised reward.
Sadly, this riverboat gambler mentality has infected the charitable world as well
One Canadian bank blew up a lot of its profits, not to mention credibility, for the prospect of one-tenth of a percent higher earnings than it would have earned in a more stable investment. In another case, a decision that put millions of dollars at risk was based on the possibility of earning three-hundredths of a percent extra.
Sadly, this riverboat gambler mentality has infected the charitable world as well. In recent years, a sizable industry has sprung up: promoters promising people that they could give to “charity” and get back tax savings equalling or even exceeding their original investment. These complex, leveraged products—also called tax shelter gifting arrangements—appeared to work for a while. I’ve met people who say they’ve used these products for several years without problems, so why should anyone be concerned?
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), our federal tax collector, is generally three years behind in auditing questionable situations. Sadly, promoters seem to be able to dream up new schemes, and find lawyers willing to attest to their validity, faster than the federal government can act in closing loopholes. CRA has investigated 100,000 people in connection with these shelters, denying more than $1.4 billion in claimed donations. Decisions are pending on hundreds of millions more. CRA says it will flag and audit each one of these cases.
An accountant I spoke with last fall told of a client who was re-assessed and penalized for claiming donations to one of these schemes on her 2004 income tax return. She was quite upset with her advisor’s insistence that she not submit similar receipts for subsequent tax years.
In Luke 12:15, Jesus warns us to be on guard against all kinds of greed. It’s as true now as when he spoke those words 2,000 years ago. More than ever, we need wise and objective counsel to help make financial decisions. Ask people how they get paid. Think it over, and if it seems too good to be true, get a second opinion, or maybe even a third.