Letters
The key component
Re “Unlicensed ministry declared unlawful in B.C.” (People & Events, March). While the article highlighting Arnold Community Church’s interaction (as well as the B.C. conference’s on our behalf) with the Fraser Health Authority was perhaps informative for our broader Canadian church family, it left out what I feel was the key component to the entire process: prayer. God has entrusted us at ACC with an amazing ministry and we believed that if he wanted it to continue, he would work to that end. Together and individually we continually brought this before him and he answered by confirming this ministry to us! As a church family we give God thanks and praise for the outcome we were granted.
TRISH WIENS
YARROW, B.C.
____________________________________________________________________
Where credit is due
Re “Songs have depth of hymns” (Crosscurrents, January). The review of Steve Bell’s latest album, Devotion, praises Steve Bell’s strong lyric writing. However, it is important to note that none of the songs on this album are written by Steve Bell. As the liner notes make clear, this album is made up almost entirely of songs written by his friend Gord Johnson for their church community. Part of reviewing an album is taking the time to read the liner notes, which usually point the listener in the direction the artist is headed, and in this case allows proper credit to be given to a mostly unknown songwriter whom Steve Bell greatly admires.
BEN HARAPIAK
WINNIPEG, MAN.
____________________________________________________________________
Memories of Aboriginal ministry
Re Mennonite Brethren work with Aboriginals (Features, March). At first it was our language problem, and many of us MBs supported other missions such as Northern Canada Evangelical Mission, America Baptist Native Mission, and MCC.
To my knowledge, the MB church in Kelowna, B.C. had a vibrant Sunday school going in the West Bank Indian Reserve and brought some adults to church.
Reuben Block was involved with Indian ministry for years as an MB. [My wife] Mary and I served two years with the Saskatchewan MB mission to Natives. One man I learned to know at The Indian Fellowship Center later had his own church. Reuben and I conducted a Native baptism in a swimming pool in Saskatoon. My wife’s sister Helen worked with Natives as a nurse and later she and her husband worked with Northern Canada Evangelical Mission.
What we never tried is to build a one-storey roundhouse for a Native church. I hope people will try this in some cities.
NORMAN FEHR
KELOWNA, B.C.
____________________________________________________________________
More complex than presented
Re “Do we love our Aboriginal neighbours” (Features, March). My best friend’s father built First Nations housing. I remember the dad saying one of the hardest parts of his job was letting go of his anger, driving past houses he had built a year or two previous with all or most of the windows broken and the door gone.
While visiting with our daughter-in-law and her mother, First Nations Cree, in Saskatchewan, my wife asked, “Why don’t you have gardens?” The two answers have disturbed me ever since. The first was, “Who would dig it for us?” The second was the explanation that they could not have their house looking better than the rest because of the family clan system on the reserve.
The article states, “First Nations are plagued with the highest rate of employment…” and then goes on to say 40 schools and 44 percent of houses require repair. Why not teach construction and repairs to provide employment? Much of the framing, insulation, and drywalling could be learned on the job, one project at a time. People could be sent to trade schools for the more complex skills needed.
There are several big generalizations in this article. Truly the problem is more complex
than presented.
BRUCE MACDONALD
WINNIPEG, MAN.
____________________________________________________________________
Children of peace
Thank you to James Toews for his excellent article, “Anabaptism 101: Walking in the ordinary way of peace” (Intersection, March). As an “adopted Mennonite,” many years ago being saved through a Mennonite family, I vigilantly read everything I can on Mennonite history. This article built me up and brought tears to my eyes.
VONNIE MOSTAT
LANGLEY, B.C.
____________________________________________________________________
Abuse of power
Thank you for “The sins of sex, money, and power” by David Wiebe (Outfront, March). I have wondered for some time if there is a forum to address these issues in our churches. With great sadness, my family (and a number of other families) left a Mennonite Brethren church because of the leadership’s destructive abuse of power. We have a deep love for the MB church but since we don’t live in a city with another MB church to attend, we have also left the denomination. That is an even greater pain.
Thanks for giving us words – “fear mongering” and “failure to love” – to understand what happened to us and continues to be practiced. It helps us understand it was not a failure to follow or defiance on our part. We are thankful God has seen us through this hard time. He has shown us his deep gentleness and love for us so that we are now beginning to be able to desire the same for the church we can no longer attend.
NAME WITHHELD
____________________________________________________________________
Why compare?
Re “New, but poor” by Bob Peters (Letters, March). My response to yet another letter discrediting contemporary worship music was grief. Is contemporary worship music unacceptable to our heavenly Father who welcomes “joyful sounds” made from grateful hearts? When we praise, is God comparing the musical structure of traditional hymns to that of a guitar-strumming, drum-beating worship band? I think not! God sees our hearts.
I believe we can honour each other by finding creative ways to release all members of our communities into worship, be that with traditional hymns, contemporary music, country and western, jazz, or simple silence. Let’s bless God with our multifaceted musical genres and please stop this prideful debate of “my gift is better than yours.”
ROWAN REIMER
ST. CATHARINES, ONT.
____________________________________________________________________
Using Genesis
I strongly agree with Pierre Gilbert in “Genesis: A Window into Ultimate Reality” (MBBS In Touch, insert, March) that the church of Christ needs to rediscover the truth of the creation story.
I wonder if Gilbert meant to give evolution the power to incapacitate humans of all ultimate significance when he states, “The myth of evolution has literally robbed human existence of all ultimate significance.” Much as the concept of evolution has become entangled with ideas of lack of purpose, progress, and direction, the threat to significance comes more from the worship of the false god of materialism – the belief that effects can only be explained by causes we can
empirically observe.
As Christians, through the eyes of faith, we have another way of knowing that is not limited to our senses. Christian writers such as Francis Collins, Owen Gingerich, Karl Giberson, Darrell Falk, Michael Behe, and others make it clear that their significance rests in the power of a transcendent God and is not threatened by their acceptance of the science (not the myth) of evolution.
The past has shown that using Genesis as a guide to explain the physical world around us is a mistake. As followers of Christ today, can we allow the evidence of science to illuminate what the Holy Spirit wants us to understand in Genesis? Can we separate evolution from the materialistic religion of Darwinism?
We can transform culture not by fighting culture wars of our own making, but by pointing others to an immanent, creative, loving, empathetic, and transcendent God who offers hope and promise. As Gilbert rightly suggests, Genesis plays a key role in this story. Based on his comments in “On Darwin” (Viewpoint, April), I suspect his sentence in the March issue is simply too easy to misunderstand.
ARNIE BERG
SASKATOON, SASK.
____________________________________________________________________
Another option
Mark Baker’s article “Bounded or Centered” (MBBS In Touch, insert, March) hints at some larger issues for our communities. It seems as if we have a choice: to focus on “belonging” or “believing.” Do we build fences, or dig wells?
In the book Missional Church, the authors register an option – that a covenant community (bounded set) may reside at the heart of a centred set. This structure might preserve the best of both worlds, allowing us to grow authentic communities of disciples who are deepening their shared life even as they engage in God’s mission where they are planted.
Whatever shape that covenant takes, be it around Benedictine vows or a new missional order, we need a way to preserve our communities as an embodied alternative culture while genuinely embracing the lost and needy.
LEN HJALMARSON
KELOWNA, B.C.
____________________________________________________________________
Already lifting off
Re “Verticopter design is dream come true” (People & Events, February). As a commercial pilot and Transport Canada licensed aircraft maintenance engineer with 30 years in the aviation industry, I read this article with interest. Having personally built numerous high performance airplanes currently flying in Canada, the U.S., and Australia, I feel I must respond. Flight testing of aircraft that can take off and land vertically (VTOL) has been going on since the 1950s and many designs are in operation today, not only large transport VTOL aircraft (Osprey) but also military VTOL fighter jets capable of speeds beyond the sound barrier (Harrier). A quick Google search will verify this.
Regarding weapons, the article states that Mr. Klaue’s concept would be unable to carry weapons because his design requires the aircraft to maintain the same centre of gravity. This is a characteristic in all aircraft. Anything capable of flying over your head can drop a bomb. Even pigeons.
RICHARD KORNELSON
STEINBACH, MAN.
____________________________________________________________________
Words won’t wash
David Wiebe’s “The sins of sex, money, and power” (Outfront, March) touched a horrific nerve for me.
I began attending an MB church when I was a young boy. When I was 12, one of the most openly pious, fervent, evangelical leaders in the church sexually molested me. I felt such horror and shame I could never – until recently – acknowledge to anyone what had happened.
Only after some 30 years of marriage was I able to finally tell my wife what had happened in my youth. Why didn’t I acknowledge it sooner? Who would have believed that one of the top spiritual leaders of the church could have done this? The result has been hell in my private life.
I went through university and seminary seeking God to heal me. Now in my latter years I have given up. Quite frankly, God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit combined are powerless to heal the wounds and the demons that sometimes surround sexual abuse. Every time I hear an evangelical phrase, sermon, or prayer the horror of a pious evangelical man violating my young body crowds out the entire Trinity. Forgiveness is trite when it comes to such an experience.
How does the church help? I think David Wiebe wishes to help, but our congregations are full of people who use pornography, abuse young boys and girls, rape women, and still boldly proclaim Jesus as Lord. It simply doesn’t wash. When Wiebe notes that sexual sin is the “big sin,” I’m not sure he knows how completely correct he is.
Abusers must be detected as early as possible and forgiveness only carefully extended with life-long vigilance surrounding that individual.
NAME WITHHELD
Re “Unlicensed ministry declared unlawful in B.C.” (People & Events, March). While the article highlighting Arnold Community Church’s interaction (as well as the B.C. conference’s on our behalf) with the Fraser Health Authority was perhaps informative for our broader Canadian church family, it left out what I feel was the key component to the entire process: prayer. God has entrusted us at ACC with an amazing ministry and we believed that if he wanted it to continue, he would work to that end. Together and individually we continually brought this before him and he answered by confirming this ministry to us! As a church family we give God thanks and praise for the outcome we were granted.
TRISH WIENS
YARROW, B.C.
____________________________________________________________________
Where credit is due
Re “Songs have depth of hymns” (Crosscurrents, January). The review of Steve Bell’s latest album, Devotion, praises Steve Bell’s strong lyric writing. However, it is important to note that none of the songs on this album are written by Steve Bell. As the liner notes make clear, this album is made up almost entirely of songs written by his friend Gord Johnson for their church community. Part of reviewing an album is taking the time to read the liner notes, which usually point the listener in the direction the artist is headed, and in this case allows proper credit to be given to a mostly unknown songwriter whom Steve Bell greatly admires.
BEN HARAPIAK
WINNIPEG, MAN.
____________________________________________________________________
Memories of Aboriginal ministry
Re Mennonite Brethren work with Aboriginals (Features, March). At first it was our language problem, and many of us MBs supported other missions such as Northern Canada Evangelical Mission, America Baptist Native Mission, and MCC.
To my knowledge, the MB church in Kelowna, B.C. had a vibrant Sunday school going in the West Bank Indian Reserve and brought some adults to church.
Reuben Block was involved with Indian ministry for years as an MB. [My wife] Mary and I served two years with the Saskatchewan MB mission to Natives. One man I learned to know at The Indian Fellowship Center later had his own church. Reuben and I conducted a Native baptism in a swimming pool in Saskatoon. My wife’s sister Helen worked with Natives as a nurse and later she and her husband worked with Northern Canada Evangelical Mission.
What we never tried is to build a one-storey roundhouse for a Native church. I hope people will try this in some cities.
NORMAN FEHR
KELOWNA, B.C.
____________________________________________________________________
More complex than presented
Re “Do we love our Aboriginal neighbours” (Features, March). My best friend’s father built First Nations housing. I remember the dad saying one of the hardest parts of his job was letting go of his anger, driving past houses he had built a year or two previous with all or most of the windows broken and the door gone.
While visiting with our daughter-in-law and her mother, First Nations Cree, in Saskatchewan, my wife asked, “Why don’t you have gardens?” The two answers have disturbed me ever since. The first was, “Who would dig it for us?” The second was the explanation that they could not have their house looking better than the rest because of the family clan system on the reserve.
The article states, “First Nations are plagued with the highest rate of employment…” and then goes on to say 40 schools and 44 percent of houses require repair. Why not teach construction and repairs to provide employment? Much of the framing, insulation, and drywalling could be learned on the job, one project at a time. People could be sent to trade schools for the more complex skills needed.
There are several big generalizations in this article. Truly the problem is more complex
than presented.
BRUCE MACDONALD
WINNIPEG, MAN.
____________________________________________________________________
Children of peace
Thank you to James Toews for his excellent article, “Anabaptism 101: Walking in the ordinary way of peace” (Intersection, March). As an “adopted Mennonite,” many years ago being saved through a Mennonite family, I vigilantly read everything I can on Mennonite history. This article built me up and brought tears to my eyes.
VONNIE MOSTAT
LANGLEY, B.C.
____________________________________________________________________
Abuse of power
Thank you for “The sins of sex, money, and power” by David Wiebe (Outfront, March). I have wondered for some time if there is a forum to address these issues in our churches. With great sadness, my family (and a number of other families) left a Mennonite Brethren church because of the leadership’s destructive abuse of power. We have a deep love for the MB church but since we don’t live in a city with another MB church to attend, we have also left the denomination. That is an even greater pain.
Thanks for giving us words – “fear mongering” and “failure to love” – to understand what happened to us and continues to be practiced. It helps us understand it was not a failure to follow or defiance on our part. We are thankful God has seen us through this hard time. He has shown us his deep gentleness and love for us so that we are now beginning to be able to desire the same for the church we can no longer attend.
NAME WITHHELD
____________________________________________________________________
Why compare?
Re “New, but poor” by Bob Peters (Letters, March). My response to yet another letter discrediting contemporary worship music was grief. Is contemporary worship music unacceptable to our heavenly Father who welcomes “joyful sounds” made from grateful hearts? When we praise, is God comparing the musical structure of traditional hymns to that of a guitar-strumming, drum-beating worship band? I think not! God sees our hearts.
I believe we can honour each other by finding creative ways to release all members of our communities into worship, be that with traditional hymns, contemporary music, country and western, jazz, or simple silence. Let’s bless God with our multifaceted musical genres and please stop this prideful debate of “my gift is better than yours.”
ROWAN REIMER
ST. CATHARINES, ONT.
____________________________________________________________________
Using Genesis
I strongly agree with Pierre Gilbert in “Genesis: A Window into Ultimate Reality” (MBBS In Touch, insert, March) that the church of Christ needs to rediscover the truth of the creation story.
I wonder if Gilbert meant to give evolution the power to incapacitate humans of all ultimate significance when he states, “The myth of evolution has literally robbed human existence of all ultimate significance.” Much as the concept of evolution has become entangled with ideas of lack of purpose, progress, and direction, the threat to significance comes more from the worship of the false god of materialism – the belief that effects can only be explained by causes we can
empirically observe.
As Christians, through the eyes of faith, we have another way of knowing that is not limited to our senses. Christian writers such as Francis Collins, Owen Gingerich, Karl Giberson, Darrell Falk, Michael Behe, and others make it clear that their significance rests in the power of a transcendent God and is not threatened by their acceptance of the science (not the myth) of evolution.
The past has shown that using Genesis as a guide to explain the physical world around us is a mistake. As followers of Christ today, can we allow the evidence of science to illuminate what the Holy Spirit wants us to understand in Genesis? Can we separate evolution from the materialistic religion of Darwinism?
We can transform culture not by fighting culture wars of our own making, but by pointing others to an immanent, creative, loving, empathetic, and transcendent God who offers hope and promise. As Gilbert rightly suggests, Genesis plays a key role in this story. Based on his comments in “On Darwin” (Viewpoint, April), I suspect his sentence in the March issue is simply too easy to misunderstand.
ARNIE BERG
SASKATOON, SASK.
____________________________________________________________________
Another option
Mark Baker’s article “Bounded or Centered” (MBBS In Touch, insert, March) hints at some larger issues for our communities. It seems as if we have a choice: to focus on “belonging” or “believing.” Do we build fences, or dig wells?
In the book Missional Church, the authors register an option – that a covenant community (bounded set) may reside at the heart of a centred set. This structure might preserve the best of both worlds, allowing us to grow authentic communities of disciples who are deepening their shared life even as they engage in God’s mission where they are planted.
Whatever shape that covenant takes, be it around Benedictine vows or a new missional order, we need a way to preserve our communities as an embodied alternative culture while genuinely embracing the lost and needy.
LEN HJALMARSON
KELOWNA, B.C.
____________________________________________________________________
Already lifting off
Re “Verticopter design is dream come true” (People & Events, February). As a commercial pilot and Transport Canada licensed aircraft maintenance engineer with 30 years in the aviation industry, I read this article with interest. Having personally built numerous high performance airplanes currently flying in Canada, the U.S., and Australia, I feel I must respond. Flight testing of aircraft that can take off and land vertically (VTOL) has been going on since the 1950s and many designs are in operation today, not only large transport VTOL aircraft (Osprey) but also military VTOL fighter jets capable of speeds beyond the sound barrier (Harrier). A quick Google search will verify this.
Regarding weapons, the article states that Mr. Klaue’s concept would be unable to carry weapons because his design requires the aircraft to maintain the same centre of gravity. This is a characteristic in all aircraft. Anything capable of flying over your head can drop a bomb. Even pigeons.
RICHARD KORNELSON
STEINBACH, MAN.
____________________________________________________________________
Words won’t wash
David Wiebe’s “The sins of sex, money, and power” (Outfront, March) touched a horrific nerve for me.
I began attending an MB church when I was a young boy. When I was 12, one of the most openly pious, fervent, evangelical leaders in the church sexually molested me. I felt such horror and shame I could never – until recently – acknowledge to anyone what had happened.
Only after some 30 years of marriage was I able to finally tell my wife what had happened in my youth. Why didn’t I acknowledge it sooner? Who would have believed that one of the top spiritual leaders of the church could have done this? The result has been hell in my private life.
I went through university and seminary seeking God to heal me. Now in my latter years I have given up. Quite frankly, God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit combined are powerless to heal the wounds and the demons that sometimes surround sexual abuse. Every time I hear an evangelical phrase, sermon, or prayer the horror of a pious evangelical man violating my young body crowds out the entire Trinity. Forgiveness is trite when it comes to such an experience.
How does the church help? I think David Wiebe wishes to help, but our congregations are full of people who use pornography, abuse young boys and girls, rape women, and still boldly proclaim Jesus as Lord. It simply doesn’t wash. When Wiebe notes that sexual sin is the “big sin,” I’m not sure he knows how completely correct he is.
Abusers must be detected as early as possible and forgiveness only carefully extended with life-long vigilance surrounding that individual.
NAME WITHHELD
