From Cross to Cross-Stitch: The Ascendancy of the Quilt DANIEL BORN* Abstract: Perceptions of the quilt within the Mennonite community have changed over time. Arguably, the quilt has not only shaped what can be called the Mennonite imagination-that field of symbolic structures that helps to define the Mennonite community-but it…
"Molochna 2004: Mennonites and Their Neighbours (1804-2004)": An International Conference, Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, June 2-5, 2004 PETER LETKEMANN* The year 2004 marks the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Molochna Mennonite settlement in southern Russia (present-day Ukraine). To mark this historic anniversary, scholars…
Ritual as My Third Language: An Autobiographical Account JOHN REMPEL* Abstract: This article addresses the enduring ambivalence in believers churches concerning sacraments. Since their beginning, they have feared that outward forms substitute for inward experience. At the same time they possess a rich ritual life. After describing the nature of…
The Origins and Development of Anointing Among Nineteenth-Century Mennonites MARK R. WENGER* Abstract: The rite of anointing the sick with oil for healing, based on James 5:14-16, was generally not practiced among Mennonites until the late nineteenth century. Documentary evidence suggests that early Anabaptists joined other reformers in rejecting anointing…
"As You Go": John Howard Yoder as a Mission Theologian JOON-SIK PARK[?]  Abstract: In this essay, I intend to portray John Howard Yoder as a mission theologian who consistently turned to the Scriptures and to the Radical Reformation tradition for insight on…
BOOK REVIEWS Reading the Anabaptist Bible: Reflections for Every Day of the Year. Edited by C. Arnold Snyder and Galen A. Peters. Kitchener, Ont.: Pandora Press and Herald Press. 2002. Pp. 425. $29, U.S.; $38, Can. Even as a child, I recognized a canon within the canon, the…
A Neo-Anabaptist Approach to Missions: Ralph and Genevieve Buckwalter and the Hokkaido Mennonite Church, 1949-1980 EMILY HERSHBERGER* Abstract: Ralph and Genevieve Buckwalter’s approach to Mennonite missionary service in Hokkaido, Japan, embodied an emerging neo-Anabaptist vision of missions that stood in sharp contrast to the Mennonite mission movement of the nineteenth…
Review Essay: Christology in the Political Theology of Oliver O’Donovan PAUL DOERKSEN* Abstract: Jesus Christ plays a central role for Oliver O’Donovan’s Christian ethics generally, as he sees the resurrection as the basis for moral action and as the vindication of creation. This fundamental argument of Resurrection and Moral Order,…
A New Paradigm in Anabaptist/Mennonite Historiography’ JAMES M. STAYER* Eifriger als Zwingli. Die frhe Tuferbewegung in der Schweiz. By Andrea Strbind. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. 2003. Pp. 617. Andrea Strbind describes herself as a church historian and Baptist theologian linked to the historical Anabaptist tradition. She sees church history as…
Cultural Attitudes in Western Christianity Toward the Community of Goods in Acts 2 and 4 RETA HALTEMAN FINGER* Abstract: In Acts 2 and 4, the Lukan author summarizes the nature of the Jerusalem church by describing a community of shared material goods. Because the texts are descriptive, rather than…
