Mennonite Quarterly Review

Jun 11 2007

The Dichotomy Between Faithfulness and Effectiveness in the Peace Theology of John Howard Yoder TOM HARDER* Abstract: In his groundbreaking essays and books, John Howard Yoder consistently argued for the primacy of faithfulness over effectiveness in a theology and ethics...

Jun 11 2007

BOOK REVIEWS History & Ideology. American Mennonite Identity Definition through History. By Rodney James Sawatsky. Kitchener, Ont.: Pandora Press. 2005. Pp. 216. $21, U.S.; $24.50, Can. The story around this publication is almost as interesting as the story inside. Three...

Jun 11 2007

IN THIS ISSUE If it is true, in a phrase adapted from William Shakespeare, that ?politics makes strange bedfellows,? then perhaps no one should have been surprised by a wire-service photograph from the 2004 presidential election that depicted a group...

Jun 11 2007

BOOK REVIEWS Reading Ritual: Leviticus in Postmodern Culture. By Wesley J. Bergen. J.S.O.T. Supplement 417. Playing the Texts 9. London: T&T Clark. 2005. Pp. 140. $120. In the seven chapters of his book, Wesley Bergen, an ordained Mennonite minister, discusses...

Jun 11 2007

Teaching Position or Conversation Starter’ The Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective and the New Mennonites of Southern California JEFF WRIGHT* Abstract: The Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference expanded rapidly through a strategy of leadership-based church planting in Southern California...

Jun 11 2007

The Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective as a Living Letter THOMAS FINGER* Abstract: A confession of faith is not a static collection of statements, but an instrument for “confessing,” a dynamic activity that expresses commitments, actualizes self- and...

Jun 11 2007

IN THIS ISSUE Confessions of faith have played an ambiguous, often-contested role throughout the sweep of Anabaptist-Mennonite history. On the one hand, strong voices within the tradition have consistently raised doubts about the value of confessional statements, albeit for very...

Dec 11 2006

Contents of Volume LXXX October 2006 Number Four In This Issue The Birth and Evolution of Swiss Anabaptism, 1520-1530 C. Arnold Snyder Responses to Snyder’s “The Birth and Evolution of Swiss Anabaptism” Michael Baylor Gerald Biesecker-Mast Geoffrey Dipple Thomas Finger...

Dec 01 2006

Contents of Volume LXXVIII July 2004 Number Three In This Issue Anabaptist Faith and American Democracy Ted Grimsrud “As You Go”: John Howard Yoder as a Mission Theologian Joon-Sik Park A Neo-Anabaptist Approach to Missions: Ralph and Genevieve Buckwalter and...

Dec 01 2006

Contents of Volume LXXX April 2006 Number Two In This Issue Printing “Not So Necessary”: Dutch Anabaptists and the Telling of Martyr Stories Keith L. Sprunger Destination Amish Quilt Country: The Consumption of Quilts in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Janneken Smucker...

Dec 01 2006

A Prescription for the Ills of Modernity? Understanding A. James Reimer’s Approach to Theology PAUL C. HEIDEBRECHT* Abstract: This essay seeks to engage Mennonite theologian A. James Reimer on his own terms, interpreting his theology as a response to his...

Dec 01 2006

Destination Amish Quilt Country: The Consumption of Quilts in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania JANNEKEN SMUCKER* Abstract: During the late twentieth century, visitors flocked to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, often with the goal of purchasing an Amish quilt. As fine art, souvenir, commodity...

Dec 01 2006

BOOK REVIEWS Building on the Gospel Foundation: The Mennonites of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and Washington County, Maryland, 1730-1970. By Edsel Burdge Jr. and Samuel L. Horst. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press. 2004. Pp. 928. $49.99, U.S.; $69.99, Can. Even in the...

Dec 01 2006

IN THIS ISSUE In a short novella titled Cecelia’s Sin, the Southern Baptist minister and peace activist William Campbell tells the story of a young Anabaptist woman in the Netherlands who is determined to document the martyrdoms of her fellow...

Dec 01 2006

Contents of Volume LXXX July 2006 Number Three In This Issue Guy F. Hershberger’s War, Peace, and Nonresistance (1944): Background,Genesis, Message Theron F. Schlabach Mennonites, African-Americans, the U.S. Constitution and the Problem of Assimilation Lee Roy Berry Jr. Anabaptism for...

Dec 01 2006

Guy F. Hershberger’s War, Peace, and Nonresistance (1944): Background, Genesis, Message THERON F. SCHLABACH* Abstract: War, Peace, and Nonresistance, written by Mennonite social scientist and ethicist Guy F. Hershberger and published in 1944, was an uncommonly important work. In it,...

Dec 01 2006

IN THIS ISSUE Now that memories of the polarized rhetoric of the 2004 presidential campaign are receding, it may be a good time to revisit a longstanding theme in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition: the nature of the church’s witness to the...

Dec 01 2006

BOOK REVIEWS Dialogue and Drama: Elements of Greek Tragedy in the Fourth Gospel. By Jo-Ann A. Brant. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers. 2004. Pp. xvi + 304. $19.95. John’s Gospel has been analyzed historically, theologically, structurally and narratively, yielding rich insights....

Dec 01 2006

Contemporary Counsel on Mennonite Engagement with the State Anabaptist Advocacy J. DARYL BYLER* For a variety of reasons, some Mennonites choose not to vote or to engage in the political process. Others believe this is an important part of our...

Dec 01 2006

Mennonites, African-Americans, the U.S. Constitution and the Problem of Assimilation LEE ROY BERRY JR.* Abstract: European-American Mennonites and African-Americans are quite different from one another even though both are minority groups. These differences become especially evident in the issue of...

Dec 01 2006

Responses to Snyder MICHAEL G. BAYLOR[1] Confessionally and theologically based arguments have recently challenged the dominant historiography of Anabaptism. Since the 1970s, the prevailing interpretation of Anabaptist beginnings has emphasized, in a word, its “polygenesis.” On this view, Anabaptism arose...

Dec 01 2006

IN THIS ISSUE It is one of the great ironies of church history that the Christian tradition most closely linked today to the principle of nonresistance had an acrimonious birth and has been the source of contentious debate for nearly...

Dec 01 2006

BOOK REVIEWS Hutterische Konfession und Tradition (1578-1619). Etabliertes Lebens zwischen Ordnung und Ambivalenz. By Astrid von Schlachta. Verffentlichungen des Instituts fr Europische Geschichte 198. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern. 2003. Pp. 459. 51 Euros. In this historical dissertation completed at...

Jun 16 2006

Contents of Volume LXXX January 2006 Number One In This Issue Solae (Quae’) Scripturae: Anabaptists and the Apocrypha Jonathan Seiling Ludwig Hätzer’s “Preface” to Baruch, Susanna and Bel and the Dragon: Introduction and Translation Jonathan Seiling, trans. Toward a Theology...