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 of plain-garbed Amishmen enthusiastically greeting President Bush at an airport…
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 the underappreciated book of Leviticus, focusing on chapters 1-7 and…
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 throughout the latter half of the 1990s. Nearly all of…
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 group-identities, and brings divine reality near. After considering four…
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 different reasons. The spiritualist impulses evident in the Dutch Collegiant…
