Evangelical Mennonite Mission Conference withdraws from MCC Canada over change in hiring practices related to same-sex marriage

A decision by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada to no longer require all staff to be celibate outside of heterosexual marriage has prompted the Evangelical Mennonite Mission Conference to withdraw as an official supporting member of that organization. 

The conference made the decision because of the lack of congruence between MCC Canada’s new position on marriage and the denomination’s Confession of Faith, which defines marriage as being only between a man and a woman, said interim executive director Terry Hiebert. 

“It’s no secret the conference has had some disconnects with MCC over the years,” Hiebert said, noting the denomination has been able to live with those tensions in the past. But the change over its hiring practices related to marriage “shows them heading in a different direction,” than the conference, he added. 

The change only applies to MCC Canada, not to MCC U.S.

Read more about it in Anabaptist World. 

Why do LGBTQ+ people stay in churches that consider them to be sinful? A seminary student set out to find out why

Same-sex marriage and sexual and gender diversity is accepted as normal and celebrated in Canada today. But it is still seen as wrong by some conservative evangelical Christian denominations.

And yet, there are many LGBTTQ+ people who still attend evangelical churches where their sexual identity is considered sinful and their full participation is not welcome. Why do they stay?

That’s what Naomi Isaac, who graduated in April from the Master of Arts in counselling psychology at Providence Theological Seminary in Otterburne, sought to find out in her thesis titled “2SLGBTQ+ Christians’ Experience of Spirituality in Canadian Evangelical Churches.”

Read about it in my recent Free Press column.

 

Jewish Member of Parliament reaches out to Muslim colleagues, constituents to promote conversation

With relations between Jews and Muslims in Canada strained over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and pro-Palestinian encampments on university campuses, there’s an argument to be made that rather than risk igniting emotions, the less said the better.

Ben Carr doesn’t agree. The Liberal member of Parliament for Winnipeg South Centre and a member of the Jewish community believes it’s exactly the time to talk.

"In order to work through conflicts in a meaningful way, we have to understand where each other are coming from,” he said about his efforts to engage with Muslims in Parliament and in his riding. 

Read my article about Carr’s efforts to engage with Muslims in the Free Press.

 

"Money that is owing." Four Canadian Mennonite churches pay reparations to Indigenous people

In many Canadian churches today, it is common to hear a land acknowledgment at the start of a service. It’s a way to recognize the First Nations people who originally occupied the land. 

Now three Mennonite churches in Winnipeg, Man., and one in Kitchener, Ont., have taken that a step further by deciding to pay reparations to Indigenous people on whose land their buildings are located.

The way they are doing this is by annually donating 1% of their budgets, or of the value of their properties, to local Indigenous-led organizations. It is a way symbolically recognize what was lost by the original occupants of the land through broken treaties.

For Esther Epp-Tiessen (photo above) of Home St. Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, it “isn’t about a charitable donation from our benevolence. It’s a powerful symbol of a commitment to be treaty people. It is money that is owing.” 

Read my story about these churches and their reparations in Anabaptist World.

Church closings and Monty Python, or can churches in the U.K. avoid the fate of the dead parrot?

One thing I have never been able to do so far is mention Monty Python in my faith page columns—until now.

When doing a follow-up to my earlier column about church closings, I discovered that Michael Palin, formerly of Monty Python, is vice president of the National Churches Trust in the United Kingdom.

“Right now, many church buildings are in danger of closure,” he wrote on the Every Church Counts website, a new effort to save the U.K.’s historic churches.

“Churches are a vital part of the UK’s history and we need to act now to prevent the loss of tremendously important local heritage.”

I ended the column with a line from the famous dead parrot sketch, played by Palin and John Cleese, and then wondered if churches in the UK—unlike that dead bird—can avoid the fate of having “kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible.” (Another Python reference!)

Read the column about how people in the U.K. are trying to save that county’s churches. including a former member of Monty Python.

New book asks: Will unneeded churches be gone for good?

By 2030, it is estimated that as many as 9,000 Canadian churches and other places of worship, out of about 27,000, could be closed. In the U.S., that figure is 100,000 out of about 380,000 that could close in the next 20 years. If that happens, what’s going to happen to all those buildings, and the land they sit on?

That’s the question being asked in Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition (2024, Eerdmans).

Read my Free Press column about the book, in which various authors highlight the challenges facing congregations in the years ahead as membership and attendance falls and interest in traditional forms of religion wane—and provide ideas for how they can re-purpose their buildings. (Including giving the land back to Indigenous groups.)

Manitobans weigh in on Premier's call for new prayer for Manitoba legislature

 

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew wants to create a new prayer to open sessions of the Manitoba legislature — one that reflects and includes the views of Manitobans of all faiths, as well as atheists.

To do that, he plans to set up a roundtable to consult Manitobans about what kind of prayer they’d like to see prayed before the province’s MLAs get down to business.

If a small online sample of 56 people last week is any indication, what most Manitobans want is no prayer at all. That was the feeling of 71 per cent of those who offered their opinion about the premier’s idea.

 

Meanwhile, faith leaders in the province think it might be best to either have a variety of different prayers—no one prayer could satisfy everyone—or just a moment of silence.

 

Read more about what people think in my April 20 Free Press column.

Photo above: John Woods, Canadian Press 

Why a Mennonite pastor stopped wearing a cross, replacing it with a Pride flag

For years, Jamie Arpin-Ricci, a Mennonite pastor in Winnipeg, wore a cross around his neck as a symbol of his faith. But then one morning last year he put it in a bedside drawer and decided never to wear it again. Instead, he replaced it with a Pride flag pin.

What caused him to stop wearing his cross for a Pride pin? “As a queer activist, I was also increasingly aware of how triggering Christian symbology and language could be to people traumatized by the church for their sexual orientation and/or gender identity,” he said.

 

But it wasn’t only his concern for queer people that caused him to remove it. Arpin-Ricci also thought about Indigenous people, many of whom suffered as children in church-run residential schools where crosses would often be found on the walls or worn around the necks of abusers.

“Now my daily ritual includes putting the pin onto my shirt or jacket with the same care and intentionality that I once reserved for the cross,” he said. “It was an important decision for me, one that I feel absolutely no regret over.”

Read about Arpin-Ricci’s thoughts on no longer wearing a cross, and how it has become a challenging symbol for others (especially some indigenous people), in my latest Free Press column.

 

You can also read his full essay on taking off his cross in favour of a Pride pin here.

Beyond heaven and Hell: Many Canadians believe in the afterlife, but what do they mean by that?

A growing number of Canadians are leaving religion behind. But when it comes to the afterlife, many continue to believe in it. But what do they mean by that? That’s the question scholars who study religion are asking after the release of an Angus Reid/Cardus poll showing that 60 percent of Canadians either believe there is an afterlife, or think it exists.

As one scholar put it: "When people say they believe in life after death, we need to know more than yes or no. They may mean that bodies decompose and become a different kind of energy. This too is life after death, in their view.”

Read about it in my latest column in the Free Press.

Image from Forbes Magazine.

In a post-Christian and secular Canada, is the Good Friday holiday discriminatory?

Is Good Friday a discriminatory holiday? That was the question raised by the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) last fall when it published a discussion paper on religious intolerance. 

In the paper, the Commissions suggested Good Friday and Christmas are not only “grounded in Canada’s history of colonialism” but are “an obvious example” of religious intolerance—being the “only Canadian statutory holidays linked to religious holy days.” 

The result, the paper went on to say, is that while Christians are privileged by getting days off for their religious observances, non-Christians may experience intolerance or discrimination since they need “to request special accommodations to observe their holy days and other times of the year where their religion requires them to abstain from work.” 

So why is Good Friday still a statutory holiday in our very secular and post-Christian country? And how could Canada make people from other religions feel more included? That’s the question I address in my most recent Free Press column.

 

Many church leaders in U.S. on wrong side of power, new book asserts

 

“There’s something desperately wrong with the church in America.” 

That’s what David Fitch, author of the new book Reckoning with Power: Why the Church Fails When It’s on the Wrong Side of Power, says about Christians in that country who support Trump and are part of what’s known as Christian Nationalism in the U.S. 

Fitch, who teaches at Northern Seminary near Chicago, made the comment about those Christian leaders, mostly evangelicals, who seek to use the power of the state to force their version of Christian faith on that country. 

“That is so different from when God’s power is at work,” he said. “But many seem willing to exchange God’s power for worldly power to make the state do what they think should be done.” 

Read about Fitch’s new book, and the way some Christian leaders are trying to shape America according to their Christian beliefs—and what Canadian Christians can learn from the mistakes of their American neighbours—in my recent column in the Free Press.

 

 

 

 

"The fact is that I am a Christian." Alexei Navalny's faith underreported by media following his death

Accolades and tributes have been pouring in for Alexei Navalny, who died Feb. 16 in a Russian penal colony at the age of 47. 

The many media reports about his death mentioned his years of criticism of the authoritarian rule of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the widespread corruption and lack of freedom in that country, and how he spoke against Putin’s war against Ukraine. 

One thing that did not get much mention was Navalny’s Christian faith. By leaving that out, media coverage summing up his life’s work missed “a key part of what made his opposition to Vladimir Putin so powerful.” 

Read more in my Free Press column.

New documentary shows how a mistranslation by the RSV Bible committee shifted a culture and caused harm to LGBTQ+ people

No Bible translation is perfect, but the scholars who created the Revised Standard Version in 1946 got something terribly wrong when—for the first time ever in a Bible translation—they used the word “homosexual” in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, verses that identify those who “will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”

It was the wrong word. It would have gone unnoticed except for a 1959 letter from a young Canadian seminary student to the head of the translation committee, who acknowledged the error and promised to make a correction.

Due to an agreement with the publisher, a new version could not come out until 1971. By then, tens of millions of the uncorrected version of the RSV were published and sold and the damage to LGBTQ+ people was done—as 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture, a new documentary film, shows.

Read about it in my Free Press column, including a link to watch the documentary.

Your invitation to fund Canada's only faith beat at the Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg is known for many great things: The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the Folk Festival, Folklorama, the Leaf, the art gallery, the Blue Bombers — even for being the Slurpee capital of Canada. 

Add one more thing to that list: Winnipeg is the only city in the country that has a newspaper that covers religion on a regular basis. 

That’s right; no other daily media outlet in Canada dedicates resources to covering religion. CBC Radio used to do it through Tapestry, a program about religion and spirituality. But the broadcaster cancelled it in December when host Mary Hynes retired. 

So that leaves the Winnipeg Free Press, which has been covering faith since 2019 when the Religion in the News project was created. 

Since that time, over 1,100 stories and columns about faith in the province and beyond have been published — not only on the Saturday faith page, but every day through the whole newspaper and online. 

And it’s all thanks to the financial support from 25 faith groups and organizations, together with the hundreds of people like you who contribute annually to the Crowdfunder campaign. 

As we kick off the 2024 Crowdfunder campaign (see giving info below), here are some endorsements to remind you of how unique and special this is. 

“Sharing positive and engaging stories about how people of faith contribute to the larger Winnipeg story helps build community pride and encourages others to get involved,” said Jeff Lieberman, Chief Executive Officer, Jewish Federation of Winnipeg. 

“We appreciate the awareness that it raises about news, events, and initiatives taking place in our community, allowing us to reach Winnipeggers of all backgrounds and beliefs.” 

“Faith coverage in the Winnipeg Free Press offers us all an opportunity to counter prejudice and hate with factual reporting in a compassionate and empathetic format,” said Tasneem Vali of the Manitoba Islamic Association. 

“The stories shared are personal, real, and impressionable, encouraging all communities to collaborate to benefit our neighbourhoods and all Winnipeggers . . . Faith reporting is crucial for our communities to connect with each other creating a safe space for us to ask questions that may not be otherwise addressed.” 

“I strongly support the Winnipeg Free Press and its brilliant initiative to provide faith reporting since it provides a space where people of diverse faiths can share their histories, ideas, and initiatives to positively promote what we have in common,” said Payam Towfigh, President of Manitoba Multifaith Council and Public affairs representative of the Winnipeg Baha’i Community. “This discourse can unite us and create a sense of harmony within our communities.” 

Added Christine Baronins, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “Faith stories in the Free Press provide a counterbalance to the often negative portrayal of the world by the media. Hearing positive and inspiring stories of individuals from different backgrounds striving to make a difference gives me hope, even in these challenging times . . . I commend the Winnipeg Free Press for their innovative approach to faith reporting.” 

“At the Manitoba Buddhist Temple, we support and are grateful for the Free Press coverage of religious news,” said sensei Tanis Moore. 

“We feel it is most important for the general reader to understand the viewpoints of various spiritual and religious temples, churches, and mosques in our city. It reflects the diversity of our population and helps to foster understanding between these groups as well as those who do not follow any form of organized and traditional religions.” 

“Reporting on religion in an ongoing way allows people to come to know their fellow citizens better, to understand the deeper motivations of others’ public words and actions, to grasp the complexity of the interface of differing values, and to grow in a desire for a fruitful public discourse and dialogue,” said Albert LeGatt, archbishop of St. Boniface. 

“Hopefully then reconciliation is fostered, hate is countered, complex poverty is addressed, and civic engagement and peace is advanced. For these reasons, I have a deep appreciation for the robust faith reporting of the Winnipeg Free Press.”

Today we are launching our 2024 Crowdfunder to raise funds to keep the project going. Your contribution of $20, $25, $50 or more will help us keep producing stories about faith in Manitoba. With your support, we will be able to continue reporting about the important role religion plays in the province — in politics, culture, education, health and other ways, and also in the lives of people in Winnipeg and beyond. 

To make a contribution, go to https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/support-faith or mail a cheque to Religion in the News project, c/o Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB R2X 3B6. And thanks!

At play(ground) in the buildings of the Lord

Last month, a mother in Chicago sparked a firestorm on X (formerly Twitter) when she asked city officials to create indoor playgrounds at public libraries. 

“My child needs somewhere to burn off energy without getting frostbite and all the private indoor trampoline parks and such are SO expensive,” she wrote. 

Parents from all over echoed her plea. But most people said having noisy kids in a library was the worst idea they had ever heard. 

As one person put it, “I can’t believe how noisy libraries are these days. Drives me nuts! Can’t even imagine how much worse it would be with a playground in it!” 

Reading the responses, I had to wonder: What about churches and other places of worship? Many have gyms or fellowship halls that sit mostly empty during the week. What if they offered them indoor play spaces, especially in winter? 

A bit of research showed there are churches in Canada doing just that. 

Read my column in the Free Press. 

Photo above: The playground at Creekside Church in Waterloo, Ont.

“It feels like 9/11 all over again.” Manitoba Muslims share how they are coping with the war in Gaza

 

“It feels like 9/11 all over again.” That’s what Natasha Ali, the Muslim spiritual care provider at the University of Manitoba, said about the effect of the war in Gaza on Muslims in the province. 

“Many Muslims feel the underlying message in the media is that we are all terrorists, a danger to society,” she said. 

I reached out to members of the Winnipeg Muslim community to ask how they and others are coping with the war in Gaza emotionally, psychologically and spiritually — and how the community is helping them deal with the situation. 

Read their responses in my Free Press article.

Photo by Mikaela MacKenzie, WFP.

Manitoba Muslim magazine marks 25 years; a forum for the community

 

In 1999, during a casual conversation after dinner, Ismael Mukhtar agreed to assist with the founding of a new publication for the Manitoba Muslim community.

 

“I was just going to help get it started, then leave,” he said of how the editor enlisted his support.

 

But in less than a year, the editor was unable to continue; Mukhtar took it over.

 

“The choice was to either assume the role of editor or let it end,” he said.

 

The publication, called Manitoba Muslim, celebrated its 25th year Jan. 20, and Mukhtar has been at the helm the whole time.

 

“I call myself an ‘accidental editor,’” he said, noting the magazine is “a forum for the community,” tackling issues such as raising children, mental health, Islamophobia, struggles with faith, the role of women in the community and dealing with conflict.

 

Read more about Manitoba Muslim magazine in the Winnipeg Free Press.

Roman Catholic Church Synod on Synodality “most ambitious expression to date of Francis’s pastoral outreach.”

 

“A radical departure from the traditional ecclesiology of the church.” That’s what Michael Higgins, an expert on the Roman Catholic Church and Pope Francis, called the Synod on Synodality, “a church-shaping event, the most ambitious expression to date of Francis’s pastoral outreach.”

 

What makes it different from past gatherings, he said, is how the pope has structured it: as an exercise in listening. This is a change from how the church has operated in the past, Higgins said, noting the Roman Catholic Church is not generally seen as a body that is open to dialogue.

Francis’s goal is to change the way information flows, Higgins said. “He sees it as an inverted pyramid, with the pope at the bottom, not the top, as a servant of the church.” (As in the photo above, with him sitting with the delegates.)

 

Read more about this gathering, which some say is as important as the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, in my most recent Free Press column.

Photo above from EWTN Norway. 

 

 

Listen in on a conversation between Margaret Atwood and Rudy Wiebe

The following doesn’t really fit on this blog, but I wanted to share it.

Wouldn’t it be great to listen in as Margaret Atwood and Rudy Wiebe—two icons of the Canadian literary world—had a conversation together? 

That’s what happened January 25 when CommonWord bookstore in Winnipeg hosted a launch of a new book about Wiebe titled Rudy Wiebe: Essays On His Works. (By Bianca Lakoseljac, who also facilitated the conversation.) 

For me, the highlight of the launch, which was live on YouTube, was the conversation between Atwood and Wiebe. 

It was as if they completely forgot hundreds of people were listening in as two old friends, who had not seen each other in many years, reminisced about the past. 

Atwood began the conversation by recalling the time in the 1970s when she and Wiebe participated in a fundraising event for the Writer’s Union, which was founded in 1973. 

Called “The All-Star Eclectic Typewriter Revue,” it was an evening of satire and humour. Atwood remembered that Wiebe had brought a serious note to it by singing, in German, with Andreas Schroeder. 

“You sang beautiful Mennonite hymns,” she told Wiebe. 

“We sang Gott is de Liebe,” he said. 

“It was one of the hits of the show,” she replied. “Everyone loved hearing those hymns.” 

Atwood remembered when she came to Edmonton to live in 1968. “You told me to get a haircut,” she said, as they both laughed at the memory. 

“We had wonderful friendship all our lives,” she added. “I can’t believe how long our lives have gone on.” 

Atwood went on to recall a time when Wiebe and his wife, Tena, came to visit them on Pelee Island. Miriam Toews, another Canadian author, was there, too. 

Wiebe and Toews immediately “went into genealogy, “as Mennonites do,” she said, adding “the Mennonite gene pool in Canada is quite shallow.”\

They also recalled the start of the League of Canadian Poets, in the mid-1960s, and how they had got a head start on the authors. 

Atwood noted they were ahead of authors on things like how to know what should be in a book contract, and then joked that she didn’t understand why they needed to know that since poets “weren’t going to make any money, anyway.” 

Wiebe went on to say that they were “very fortunate” to be at the start of when people in Canada began to get “excited about Canadian writing.” 

Added Atwood: “When the 60s began, we were told you can’t be a writer in Canada, you have to go to the States, to England, to France.” But after the Centennial Year, 1967, it became possible to publish novels in Canada. 

Before that, she said, there was “no audience.” 

Wiebe added he was told he “had to go to Toronto to be a writer. I refused to go.” 

Said Atwood: “You were first off the mark when it came to exploring Indigenous history. You were an inspiration to the wave of indigenous writing in the late 1980s.” 

Indigenous people, and the experience of immigrants, were “two subjects I couldn’t ever write enough about,” Wiebe replied. 

They then talked about the impact of artificial intelligence on Canadian writing. 

“At this moment, we’re not in any danger,” Atwood said. “AI is a terrible writer.” 

She went on to say that she had given ChatGPT a prompt to write a story set in Winnipeg written in her voice. 

“It turned out this horrible thing about the weeping willows of Winnipeg,” she said, adding it “scraped my children’s books, put it in with other things.” 

The result was a “dystopia,” with “all these extremely sad people in Winnipeg.” 

She also asked it to write a poem in her voice. “That was even worse,” she said. 

“At my age, I’m not worried about that,” said Wiebe, who is 89. 

“C’mon Rudy, hang in there,” Atwood replied. 

She then asked him what he is writing now. 

“I’m staggered by Parkinson’s,” he replied. “I can’t write very well.” 

Atwood suggested he try a voice writing app. 

“I don’t like machinery,” Wiebe replied. 

“Get someone to dress it up like a tree, won’t even know it’s machinery,” she said with a smile. 

Atwood concluded by saying the chance to talk to Wiebe “was a pleasure for me. “You are actually looking very well.” 

“You are looking very well, too,” Wiebe said. “Blessings to you.” 

You can watch and hear the conversation, and other presentations at the launch, here. (The conversation between Wiebe and Atwood starts about about the 31-minute mark.) 

You can also purchase or borrow the book from CommonWord.