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Canadian Women’s Concerns

Peggy Unruh Regehr

The Conrad Grebel Review��23, no. 1 (Winter 2005)

I was asked to speak specifically about the difficulties of the beginning years of Women’s Concerns in MCC Canada. That is particularly difficult for me, even now after all these years. I would much rather have spoken about the good and satisfying things that happened – and there were many, many of those – especially in my interactions with women from Ontario to British Columbia. There really was a lot to celebrate in the responses I received from so many women, and even some men. Before I begin, I want to make it clear that my references to “MCC” are to MCC Canada.

It is exactly nineteen years ago, in May 1984, that the binational Women’s Concerns Committee met in Winnipeg, where they were also discussing the possibility of establishing a Women’s Concerns position within MCC. Esther Wiens from Winnipeg, who was on the committee, had invited me, together with several other Mennonite women from Winnipeg, to join in the discussion. It was an interesting discussion and I entered into it wholeheartedly. Towards the end of the meetings, one member informally suggested that I apply for the position.

I had never considered such a move, as I was happy with my life at that time. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew this was the opportunity of a lifetime to put my deep concerns about women’s lives into a context in which I might make a difference. So I applied and was given the task.

The work began very slowly. The Peace and Social Concerns Director, under whom I was to work, was in the process of leaving, and his replacement had not yet been appointed. I struggled to find out just what I was to be doing. I met with various program directors in the office to see where our efforts might intersect. But they were really not interested. I met with women’s organizations in the larger community who were addressing women’s needs, both within Winnipeg and overseas, to see what their experience was, and where and what I might do within MCC. The early going was extremely slow, and I often became discouraged since the Women’s Concerns position had been established without a clear definition of its purpose or task.

One difficulty I faced was that the board was made up of representatives of the various Canadian Mennonite conferences supporting it. But the conferences also felt they had their own theological stance on women, and they did not want MCC to be addressing any issues with theological or life style implications that went counter to that stance. While this was understandable, it also made it almost impossible to address women’s leadership roles in Mennonite churches and organizations. Yet that is where my greatest interests lay at the time.

It was not until later that I found the issue I would concentrate on, while not neglecting the others. I attended a one-week Marie Fortune workshop for pastors in Saskatoon and met the first Mennonite woman whom I knew had been abused. Then I found more abused women among MCC staff and everywhere I went. Abuse was not a popular issue within our Mennonite community. But it was one that became, and still is, a major focus for Women’s Concerns staff in Canada.

The work I began to do on this issue led me in many different directions. There were always those who either did not want to believe this [abuse] was happening in our circles or just wanted it to go away. But I worked hard, and spoke about it in my presentations wherever I went in the constituency. Very slowly some of the skepticism vanished. And every time I spoke about it, women let me know about their own experience or that of their daughters or mothers. It was heartbreaking to hear their stories. I also began working together with the newly formed Domestic Violence Task Force, with the preparation of the “Purple Packet,” the first information we put out.

I also found myself being a confidante to women working within MCC. Some of them also had stories of various types of abuse at home or in their workplaces. Even the MCC office was not always a safe place for them.

One of the most difficult things to deal with was the pressures and criticisms that were focused on me personally because of my position. It seemed easier to be critical of me than to address the real issues – whether from staff, Executive, or Board. Some people were supportive, but their voices were not always heard. Others would have preferred no women’s program and no staff person. So I never had a sense of security in what I was doing.

Early on, there was pressure from some board members who wished me out of the picture. I never knew the whole story, but either the Executive or Board passed a motion to put me on probation for a year. I was never told why, what I might have done wrong, or where I was to improve. It was a probation without any way of my being able to address the issues. As the year ended it was never mentioned, with neither a “yes” nor a “no” for the future. It just seemed like business as usual.

Periodically I also heard from female support staff within the office about their positions within MCC. They were often on Voluntary Service, and even when they had worked for a significant period, it was difficult for them to get on salary. When they did, their pay was low. As a result, when the Hayes Commission salary grid was presented to MCC for discussion, these women strongly opposed it, as it was a particularly male dominant structure with the supposed male dominant characteristics given higher value and higher salaries. But, as I heard recently, it was eventually implemented anyway – something we had hoped to deflect.

I tried to force the issue of women’s pay by asking for a salary for myself. I was the only program director in the Canadian Programs on Voluntary Service. Men at a lower level in the organization were receiving salary after two years, and I thought I should be treated equitably. I wanted mediation but got arbitration instead. The arbitration committee found in my favor and I was finally granted a salary. Then, after only a few months on salary and after a very faulty evaluation procedure, I was told I would be terminated. I suspected those two events were related, though I believe the domestic violence issue also played a major role in it.

At that point I felt I had nothing more to lose in the next months. My efforts with domestic violence issues continued, my support of the women working within MCC continued, and I had tremendous support from many women in the constituency.

Why did I stay as long as I did? First, I felt the work was important, even if it sometimes seemed only symbolic. Nor did I want to let down the women in the constituency who felt it was important for them. I knew I was addressing important issues for women whether at home, at the office, or in the work force; whether they were abused as children or as adult women; whether they were fearful or frustrated, younger or older. They all needed support in some way. Their lives and their concerns motivated me to stay.

Supportive people also helped me through difficult times. I mention them in no special order here. Emily Will in the office in Akron was a special support to me, as were the members of the Canadian Women’s Concerns Committee and the bi-national committee. They were wonderful to work with. Other women in the Winnipeg office supported me in many different ways. Leona and Peter Penner – new staff people in Peace and Social Concerns – were for some time the persons that Women’s Concerns was responsible to. Their support and encouragement was more than I could have hoped for. There were many others as well, too numerous to mention. Last, but never least, was my husband Walter, who stood by me through thick and thin, who encouraged me and let me know my work was important, and who allowed me to rant, rave, or cry as circumstances warranted. Each of these people deserves some credit for the continuation of the work during those four-and-a-half years.

It was a work that I cherished regardless of what I experienced. I do not ever regret having been involved with it. Personally, it sums up a great part of any legacy I may have left for the future. It may have been ever so small, but it was important to me. While I set the work in motion, it was Kathy Shantz, my successor, who toiled tirelessly on the abuse issue. Reading her summary of what she accomplished over her eight years with Women’s Concerns makes one wonder where she found the time and energy to do everything she did.

I also want to mention Esther Epp Thiessen, who took over during Kathy’s maternity leave, and those who followed her in the Women’s Concerns program – Eleanor Epp Stobbe and Kathryn Loewen Mitchell – who also had difficult times at MCC.

But these women did more than just continue what I had begun. They developed a network of women from across Canada who would carry the agenda forward in the various provinces. Now, nineteen years after the program began in Canada, it is again in jeopardy. No staff person is in place, and with the significant budget cuts coming to MCC, there is again talk of cutting the program, especially since people are still unsure what it should look like. This is unfortunate.

Somehow, the circle always seems to come back to the beginning, and it is necessary for us as women to work again for what we feel is important. Whether that is in a different form from the past or a revamping of the old, there continue to be issues around women’s lives that must be addressed. We need to be constantly moving into the future and its new demands. That is the challenge before all of us, not just the staff people on the front lines. Without your support, the work is just too difficult.

Peggy Unruh Regehr lives in Winnipeg, MB, and was Director of Women’s Concerns for MCC Canada (1984-89).

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My Impressions of the Early Years of the Women’s Task Force

Katie Funk Wiebe

The Conrad Grebel Review��23, no. 1 (Winter 2005)

How can I sum up, in fifteen minutes, thirty years of reaching for the freedom of a bluebird flying high in the sky? How can we as a group of Mennonite women bring together the bewilderments, the feelings of being pushed aside or ridiculed, with the joy of sensing slow movement forward on this incredible journey we have made together? My personal voyage to self-discovery as a Mennonite churchwoman has been a never-ending roller coaster ride, yet here I am, not where I began, but on a higher, surer level. Let me mention a few highlights of this journey and the way it connected with the broader efforts of the Women’s Task Force.

I have been involved with women’s concerns for more than thirty years, writing, speaking, acting on committees, and just being. At first it was a lonely journey, because I thought I was walking alone and therefore there must be something wrong with me. I was a misfit. I felt God’s call to ministry, but the doors always swung shut when I tried to walk through them. Why was I misinterpreting God’s voice so consistently?

Then, in 1974, I attended the Evangelical Women’s Caucus held in Washington, DC. I came apprehensively, wondering whether I would find a group of raging women libbers with swinging breasts and hostility toward men etched all over their faces. I found a large group of mostly gentle but bruised women, many of whom wept to be among people who did not judge them. I had entered a huge red tent. The gathering, a first for the evangelical Christian community, was a time of finding one another as sisters in Christ because of our common cause. Of the 300 women present, about 30 were from Mennonite denominations. The late Herta Funk, a vigorous Mennonite women’s leader, called us together for a breakfast. I wish she could be here this evening to see what has happened since then. But at that conference and later ones, I found myself bonding with a community that did not see me as a nut case.

I became a member of the MCC Women’s Task Force as the Mennonite Brethren (MB) representative and helped with a few issues of the Women’s Task Force Report. I was not appointed by the MBs and had no one to report to. I had no sending body. Yet I was worried how I would be perceived by my church constituency, which as a body had not yet found the need to travel the journey towards gender equality. And I did want to be accepted by them as a normal person.

I was never quite sure what I was doing on the Task Force, for my experience and preparation was haphazard. I realize now that as a Task Force we weren’t always quite sure what direction to head toward. We had no precedents. But I couldn’t silence the voice that told me it was wrong to describe women’s role only in terms of limitations rather than opportunities. If something is evil and sinful, it should be spoken against. I couldn’t understand how conference resolutions could confirm women with words yet leave them powerless in practice.

By then, the women’s movement in society generally was in full swing, with those who spoke up openly receiving a full dose of ridicule and trivialization. Writing about the issue was often a monologue, not a discussion. I eagerly read publications like��Daughters of Sarah, the��Priscilla Papers, and others. I lined my shelves with all the new books being published about women’s roles. I carefully watched what was going on in the broader Mennonite constituency and elsewhere. I clung to these contacts like a rope flung to someone who is drowning. I welcomed every opportunity for ministry that came from them. In addition to my concerns for women in ministry, I was struggling to work my way through issues related to widowhood, being manless in a coupled world, and bringing up four children alone. This added another kind of discrimination – and still does.

It took me a while to accept that decisions regarding women’s ministry were actually a political issue related to power rather than theology. In 1982, after a disappointing MB conference discussion of the matter, I wrote to our publications: “I never planned my life this way [referring to being a woman in ministry]. All I promised the Lord at difficult junctures was to enter doors God opened and not break my head and spirit pounding against those closed to me. Yet I’ll admit to yearning for the moral and spiritual support of my conference in my service.” It was slow coming.

I continued to write and travel. One MB pastor asked me, “Does your concern for women’s lib obsess you?” I sensed I was being perceived as a one-issue person. The daughter of a troubled woman was sent to get a good look at me at a women’s conference in British Columbia. She was convinced I would look like a German Gestapo woman with severely cut dark hair, wearing a dark suit, and exhibiting a harsh, curt manner. The daughter was surprised to find me fairly gentle-looking and moderate in my approach.

I sensed more and more that we who were speaking out for women’s ministries in the church were threatening the well-being of women who preferred things the way they were. Some were certain that if we spoke up for women, we must hate men. My article, “Color me a person,” was clipped and sent to me with little negative comments written all over it to highlight this hatred in the sender’s between-the-lines reading. If only she know how much I yearned for male companionship in my solo journey!

Another highlight of my journey was the first Women in Ministry conference in Elkhart, followed several years later by the first Women Doing Theology conference in Kitchener. These conferences were overtly political acts, as they brought women of the Anabaptist community together. They were necessary to give the women identity and support, and to make this conference today possible.

At the Kitchener conference in 1992, I gave an address on “What? Me a Theologian?” I noticed two things at this event: (1) the women present were younger. A newer group was stepping into place, an encouraging sign; (2) however, many were still angry, openly threatening to leave the church. Already some did not understand the pain some of us older ones had gone through in breaking new theological ground in the church.

I told them the story of my husband’s ordination in 1953. At the end of a daylong celebration, I collected my children and headed home. As I took off my new black velvet hat late that afternoon, I noticed that the sweaty fingerprints of the visiting minister, who had laid his hands on my head in prayer, had left permanent indentations. And it was such a lovely hat. Thereafter I wore the mark of ordination on my head, although I had made no public promises and received no formal instructions or blessing for my role as a minister’s wife. The women at the conference laughed. And it came to me that it was actually funny, not something to cry over. This painful journey needed more humor.

At the Millersville women’s history conference, I experienced another highlight. I found women who once felt exiled from the Mennonite community circling back. I also found those who had decided to stick with the church despite hindrances to their service. They saw light ahead. What a joy to hear from women who had deliberately chosen membership in the Anabaptist community because of its spiritual strengths! Another name for the Millersville conference might have been “Coming Home.”

My personal journey continued. I was often pushed to the brink when I received phone calls, some in anguish, as for example, one from a young professional woman who felt perplexed by her findings about what the Bible actually taught about women as opposed to what she had been taught. Other calls encouraged me. One morning the phone rang. I had been debating whether to get out of my bed early or to enjoy its comfort for another fifteen minutes. The voice on the line was Ruth Brunk Stolzfus, a pioneer in women’s ministry from Virginia. She gave me a word of affirmation for what I was doing. And the day began – joyously. Thanks to her, I could go to my teaching duties, not feeling like a mashed banana but like the flag bearer at the front of the parade. God loved me. Ruth loved me.

I found I had to give myself permission to speak in public, a scary thing in the early years. I could write a book about what it is like to be a woman speaker in a constituency that finds this entity something akin to a dog walking on its hind legs. At one of the first times I spoke, I prepared zealously. At the end of the women’s rally, I noticed a woman barreling her way down the center aisle at full speed. I was certain she was going to laud me for the pearls of wisdom that had fallen from my lips. Her first words were, “Katie, where did you get your dress? Did you make it? Where did you buy the pattern?” After I have finished speaking, it is not a surprise to have someone ask me if I am a visitor that day and what my name is. This has occurred even while I was wearing a corsage, once the requisite item for a guest woman speaker. So much for trying to make an impression!

Pulpits were usually too tall, intended for tall men. With my trifocals I was sometimes unable to read my notes. Once the metal buttons on my jacket rattled every time I moved my arms. Often there was no microphone. My voice didn’t carry like that of a basso profundo. I remember one pulpit built like an airplane, with inward sloping wings. My notes and Bible slid into the trough in the middle. Often I pondered what I should try to sound like. Should I thunder like Tony Campolo and strike the pulpit, or speak in more modulated tones? Or should I sit with head bowed in prayer, as I had seen many male preachers do?

Once I was sure I was lost in the funhouse. I was staying in a very large home with several other guests. The upper floor had at least eight to ten doors, all the same. I got up at night to go to the bathroom and couldn’t remember which door it was. No door had a half-moon on it. I cautiously opened one door to find a man sleeping. I retreated even more cautiously.

Once I arrived at an airport, about fifty miles from my destination, to find no one to meet me. Everyone had assumed someone else would do so. I had no personal phone number, only an institutional number. After waiting many hours into the night, I finally hitched a ride with strangers to my destination, where I phoned relatives and asked for a bed. I’ve been in an airport and had my host say, “I didn’t expect you to look like this.” On several occasions after finishing my assignment, I found those in charge didn’t have money to pay my expenses. I’ll admit I’ve asked myself as I made my way to the airport at five in the morning, “Why am I doing this?” There were times I arrived home late Sunday night to a snow-covered parking lot at the airport, wearing dress shoes and unable to distinguish my car from the others.

Well, I could go on and on. If there was criticism from some people, there was always encouragement from others. When I was approached a number of years ago to become editor of��Rejoice!, the inter-Mennonite devotional magazine, one man of the asking group said quite openly, “I don’t think it will matter that you are a woman.” A brighter moment occurred when I heard recently from an MB scholar working on a thesis on the role of women in the MB Church. He sent me drafts of his paper and quite surprised me by the way he traced my writing about women’s issues in MB periodicals.

The journey is never over. The goal is never accomplished. You younger women will have different obstacles to overcome. But some will be the same as those we had. I noticed a recent letter from a woman in��Mennonite Weekly Review, asking “How can women have a call from God when God doesn’t call women?” I have found it is important to hang onto a central core of identity as someone God loves and has called to serve, regardless of gender, race, class, or age. My hope is that you will study women’s history so that you will never forget the road that others traveled for you.

Katie Funk Wiebe is professor emerita of Tabor College in Hillsboro, KS, where she taught English for twenty-four years.

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Comments from Two MCC US Women’s Concerns Advisory Committee Members

Moniqua Acosta, Maribel Ramirez Hinojosa

The Conrad Grebel Review��23, no. 1 (Winter 2005)

1. Moniqua Acosta

My relationship with MCC US Women’s Concerns started in May 2001, with the domestic violence conference for the Latino Churches, when I was so moved by the wonderful progressive work Women’s Concerns was facilitating for my people.

I later found myself working for Women’s Concerns for almost a year, filling in as staff associate while the director was on sabbatical. I was blessed and nourished spiritually and mentally by the time I spent at the desk. I was able to connect with many women on a number of levels – from the Network of Survivors of Abuse to our Canadian counterparts.

The fruits of my time with Women’s Concerns are evident in my home congregation and in my personal life. I am able to share with my home church, especially the women. At times it is challenging to work with those who accept all they are told and never question a thing. But I am sure it is equally challenging to them to have a young woman like me asking too many questions and stirring up their comfort zones. We are all growing together.

In my home life I catch myself changing the words of the children’s books I read to my daughters in order to make the depiction of women not so meek.

I am very excited and determined to see the work of Women’s Concerns become a reality for more women everywhere. As our mission statement says, we “work for the dignity and development of women, and [seek] to encourage mutuality and empowerment in our relationships with other women and with men.”

This is important work, educating my church and myself.

2. Maribel Ramirez Hinojosa

It is an honor to be in the midst of such matriarchs. And I feel honored to be part of MCC, specifically with Women’s Concerns. My involvement with MCC US Women’s Concerns began while I was in graduate school and was asked to write an article for the newsletter,��Women’s Concerns Report. I later served as a compiler for a bilingual issue on domestic violence, and now am an advisory board member for the Women’s Concerns Desk. I have seen the growth it has had in the short time I have been involved with the committee. Particularly, Latinos and Latinas in our Spanish-speaking congregations have come to learn more about Women’s Concerns, mostly through the bilingual periodicals and through the domestic violence workshop held in Pennsylvania, which sparked several local workshops throughout the United States, including California, Texas, and Florida.

What future do I see for Women’s Concerns? I see it as a platform for women to continue to share their voices, women from different racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds. I see it as being more inclusive of the wider constituency in order to give everyone an equal opportunity to share their story. For it is through this process of sharing our stories that we will learn from each other, and draw closer to each other and to God. I also envision Women’s Concerns continuing to strengthen the resources it currently offers and creatively exploring other areas of growth. I particularly visualize an anti-sexism training that can be offered to the broader constituency, in which women can begin to experience true freedom in our Creator, a workshop in which God’s justice can prevail and hope and equality can be spread.

I commend Women’s Concerns for assertively addressing issues specifically related to women. To all those who have come before me, I say, Thank you, and to all those who are yet to come, I say, Take on the challenge, there is much work to be done.

I would like to end by reading a portion of Victor Villasenor’s��Thirteen Senses: A Memoir. He is writing about his family. This book contains strong women’s voices and illustrates the power of women sharing their stories with each other and the impact those stories make on women’s lives. I think that no matter what point we are at in our lives, we all have something to share as women of God.

Work,��mi hijita, is a woman’s power. Her relaxation and sanity. Her way of coming to terms with life’s twists and turns, and not lose her way. After all, remember that it is written in that stars that men came from the rock, the wind, and the fire! And we women came from the flower, the tree, the soil, the water, and hence, any healthy woman can consume a man’s fire as easy as water can consume any little flame.

Why do you think men are so weak and chase the wind? Because down deep they know that the time of their molten fire is shortlived. Whereas women are strong, knowing deep inside of themselves that all life comes from them, and they are the eternal soil for planting and the rain comes from the Heavens and replenishes the rivers and lakes and even the very sea.

So always know,��mi hijita, [and I would add, all of you women who are present] that you are��una lluvia de oro, a rain of gold, sent by God to do your work for the survival of all humankind. We are the power, we women are��el eje, the center, the hub de��nuestras familias, and in this knowledge, then our hearts are INDESTRUCTIBLE!

– Victor Villasenor,��Thirteen Senses: A Memoir��(Harper Collins, 2001), 142.

Thank you and may God bless you.

Moniqua Acosta is a bilingual caseworker with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lancaster County in Lancaster, PA.

Maribel Ramirez Hinojosa, a psychotherapist working towards a PhD in Clinical Psychology, lives in Edinburg, TX.

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Afterword

Lydia Harder

The Conrad Grebel Review��23, no.1 (Winter 2005)

Gifts��of��the��Red��Tent:��Women��Creating

I enter the Red Tent eagerly as one who has followed the “Doing Theology” conferences with great interest and personal investment. I bring with me memories of the first conference in 1992, which I helped to plan. What we were envisioning at that point in history was no less than a transformation of Anabaptist Mennonite theology to include women’s voices and women’s concerns. The active verb “doing” was important, because it highlighted our conviction that theology was a practice rather than merely a theoretical idea. In contrast to an Anabaptist “vision” or ideal, these conferences would consciously stress women’s agency and women’s active involvement in the reflections and conversations that help us make theological sense of our lives. Thus there was a political undercurrent associated with this title, suggesting the anger, pain, and struggle that accompanied women as they entered the public domain of Mennonite theology, long dominated by male voices.

By including the stories and reflections on thirty years of work by MCC Women’s Concerns, the 2003 conference planners ensured that this political agenda was not ignored. Theology is always done in the context of institutions and structures that tend to force it into static statements limiting the participation of all people. It was therefore important to rehearse this recent history through various voices to see how women’s theological work is impacting institutions as well as personal journeys. However, far more than we understood it a dozen years ago, the conference planners realized that sexism and racism sometimes enter the Red Tent itself. Thus questions of systemic exclusion and just dialogue remain as primary ethical questions judging our theological endeavors, even when we attempt to create places of safety and shelter for a particular group of people.

The term “Women Creating” can, therefore, refer first of all to the creation of a place, a gathering, a community that in its interactions embodies characteristics of the coming of God’s reign on earth as it is in heaven. How to create conversation inviting each person into the circle continues to be a key issue in doing theology. This may be as simple as choosing a particular format for a conference or a particular language that does not exclude others. But it also probes the broader conversation carried on by those who formally articulate the theology of any community. Who are our scholars talking to, as they do theology? What choices do they make in their daily work as theologians of the church?

Because women are entering into the “middle” of a formal theological conversation that has gone on without them for a long time, they cannot ignore the history and tradition that has developed. However, they can decide to use what has been handed down to them in new and creative ways. They can incorporate present experiences of women that challenge unarticulated assumptions. They can use language that is inclusive. Thus their experience can bring a new critical and constructive voice to the conversation.

Clearly, the women who gave the scholarly papers at the 2003 event were not all taking the same approach to doing theology. Yet it is interesting to see that each of the papers returned to the biblical heritage in order to provide an alternative to the approach that has long dominated theological conversations. For example, Malinda Berry moves from the philosophical to the biblical to regain a sense of wonder at God’s active disclosure of another world where peace, justice, and freedom reign. This sense of awe and wonder allows her to claim the empowerment of the Spirit as she incorporates some elements of the past, revises other aspects, and contributes with joy to the creative process of knowing, loving, and enjoying God with her whole being. Her anticipation that God will bring about God’s will allows her to actively participate in the creative work of justice making. Her paper makes most sense in the context of the variety of artistic expressions of wonder that the printed page does not include but that have been crucial parts of these conferences from the beginning.

Rita Finger’s paper is more traditional in its format, with biblical interpretation followed by a suggested application. However, in her imaginative reconstruction of the story beneath the texts, she attempts to create analogies to the struggle we have today in becoming a hospitable community. Her format also invited the women present to make theological observations and to ask new questions, thus attempting to build bridges between scholarly theology and the “everyday” practical theology that all women do. She points out how food preparation and serving create not only welcome but also controversies among those doing that work. Can the Lord’s Supper be integrated with such material concerns, so that every meal becomes sacramental in embodying the welcome Jesus gave everyone he encountered?

Iris de León-Hartshorn begins with learnings from her own Mexican history, which includes courageous and loving women who sought to bring creation back into balance by engaging the Creator, even as they were forced to wander due to domination and violence by the church. Her search for harmony continues with reflection on biblical texts in which the violence of Sarah and Abraham toward Hagar is lifted out for our appraisal and judgment. For her, it is the intervention of God that redeems those stories and allows us to seek God’s intervention in our own lives of wandering. It is the creation of resting places along the way, where we can be liberated to see new possibilities and to be transformed into persons of courage, that is crucial. She sees the time in the Red Tent as one of those resting places.

For each of these women, doing theology includes creating places of wonder and welcome where God’s Spirit can actively intervene to transform structures and people. So it was interesting for me to read about the birthing of an organization, MCC Women’s Concerns, to see whether some of the wonder, welcome, and wandering was also represented in these more concrete stories and recollections.

Clearly, it is a theology of welcome and hospitality that created the unrest within women who had become convinced radical welcome is integral to the gospel message. However, it seems that the wandering theme ran deepest through the memories. Though deliberately anchored in peace and justice theology, the women activists felt lonely, and frequently dominated by male agenda, as they attempted to seek justice within established church structures. The reason for wandering was often not their own choice but the abuse of power by others. They often experienced having to go back to places where they felt oppressed and dominated, because they felt the call of God to do just that. Yet crucial to the wandering were the times of refreshment when small groups of women formed networks to empower each other anew for the task ahead. Those were the moments of wonder, of self-discovery, of freedom and joy in becoming the persons God had called them to be. As we follow those memories we sense a growing sensitivity to the various groupings that had not been part of past theological discussions, beginning with themselves but growing to include women of color, lesbian women, women of all ages, women of the global community, and finally extending to all peoples who feel excluded.

This brings me to a crucial question: How exactly is the symbol of the Red Tent understood? I discovered a variety of interpretations, each raising questions for the future. First of all, the Tent represents the women-centered nature of theology that could be done in that place, a place set aside for women to reflect on their needs and experiences. Thus the Tent is crucial and necessary. But how is this theology related to the theology done in other places? Where are the places in which women-centered theology and male- centered theology interact, so that each can more fully focus on God who created males and females in God’s image? Where are the places for nurturing wholeness and relationships between males and females? It seems the answer given is that the church, in all its structures, must become a primary place of conversation and dialogue so that it can truly be a sign of the coming “kin- ship” of God. Thus the Red Tent can only be a resting place as we work toward mutual conversation in the church and society.

However, as a resting place, the Red Tent serves to liberate voices that have been silenced. In the intimacy of that place, sharing happens that is not yet ready to be proclaimed publicly but given a chance to mature and grow through more personal and private conversations. The��Women’s Concerns Report��has been a vehicle for voices lacking confidence and needing empowerment. The bonding of women with similar concerns is needed to break the cycles and patterns of abuse still tolerated in our churches and our society. However, the Red Tent may not always be welcoming, even to all women. Multicultural tokenism and subtle forms of prejudice enter it even as justice and peace are proclaimed. The subtle class systems women have internalized are also part of those gathered under the Tent. In the reports of the 2003 conference, I sensed women were more ready to come to terms with their own inner demons and to hold each other accountable in the comparative safety of the Red Tent. For that safety is assured not only by other women but by the God who is the ultimate shelter and protection of those under the Tent.

Yet, the conference theme deliberately spoke of the��gifts��of the Red Tent. Gifts are there to be given and then received. The ultimate question I wrestle with is how to create a public place where these gifts can be freely given and received by men and women alike. I am presently teaching a pastors seminar, “Women’s Voices in Mennonite Theology.” (I cannot imagine a course entitled “Men’s Voices in Mennonite Theology,” can you?) Although the vast majority of pastors are male, only two men are represented in the class of seventeen students. As I look over the footnotes of many recent books by Mennonite theologians, I realize that their serious conversation partners do not yet include women. Thus the challenge of the Red Tent continues to be how to give the gifts nurtured within its safety, so that others can also gain a glimpse of the wonder that women have seen of God’s intervention in their wanderings.

So I leave the Red Tent in order to enter again the conversation of the church and society. I leave with renewed confidence that God the Creator has called us to be co-creators of language that can communicate God’s welcome to all people. I am newly empowered to again “do theology” by opening myself to transformation, by challenging structures that are exclusive, and by proclaiming anew the wonder of God’s welcome.

Table of Contents | Foreword | Articles | Book Reviews

Book Review

Spiritual Exercises: Based on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.

Reta Halteman Finger

The Conrad Grebel Review��23, no. 1 (Winter 2005)

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S. J. Spiritual Exercises: Based on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Eerdmans, 2004.

If Joseph Fitzmyer set out to cook up “chicken soup for the soul,” the result is a hearty stew indeed, complete with big chunks of meat and vegetables – though a tad short on the spices. Fitzmyer, who wrote the detailed commentary on Romans for the Anchor Bible series, here uses his vast knowledge of this letter to provide a series of exercises that can be used for devotional purposes. The title,��Spiritual Exercises, refers to the method developed by the sixteenthcentury monk Ignatius of Loyola as a way of “preparing . . . our soul to rid itself of all disordered affection and . . . of seeking and finding God’s will in the ordering of our life for the salvation of our soul” (quoted, 9). Fitzmyer structures his 24 exercises using this method. Each chapter is only 7-8 pages long and includes the Romans text, discussion of its main ideas, questions for spiritual reflection, and a psalm with some relation to the Romans text.

This book was first published in 1995 and was reissued last year by Eerdmans with a new preface. As a professor at a Christian college, I am only too aware of the yawning chasm between lay Christians and biblical scholars, so Fitzmyer is to be commended for working to bridge this gap. Nevertheless, though less technical than his commentary, this book will call forth commitment and determined effort by laypersons to plumb its depths. While the author writes in clear and accessible language and omits footnotes, he does not water down Paul’s theology and extensive interaction with the Hebrew�� Bible.

However, although studying Romans has been a deeply spiritual experience for me, Fitzmyer’s approach is not mine. Over the past generation or more, a new paradigm for interpreting Romans has emerged which seeks to understand the social situation of the Jews and Gentiles in the Roman house churches. (John Toews’s recent commentary on Romans in the Believers Church series exemplifies this approach.) Fitzmyer is certainly familiar with these new insights and interacts with some of them, but they do not frame his entire discussion. Rather, he extracts a more abstract theology from Romans and seeks immediately to apply it to the individual reader’s spiritual life. For example, concepts like “sin” and “faith” are seen as personal rather than communal; often readers must supply their own assumptions of what is considered sinful or righteous.

Further, Fitzmyer limits the purpose of Romans to Paul’s introduction of himself and his gospel to a church he has never visited but hopes to visit in the future (2-3). By stressing personal salvation, Fitzmyer follows a traditional interpretive paradigm, whereas other scholars have recently framed their interpretation around the conflict between Jews and Gentiles in Rome caused in part by the political marginalization of Jews under the Emperor Claudius.

Though using the social sciences to understand the Romans letter may seem a devious way to obtain personal meaning from it, I believe it is the particularities [of the social setting] that can better address current issues like racism, church conflict between conservatives and liberals, reconciliation among believers, or the role of women in church leadership. Much can be learned about the socio-political situation in Rome from the names in Romans 16:1-16, including Phoebe’s role as Paul’s patron in traveling to Rome and interpreting his letter to the believers there. Yet Fitzmyer dispatches this section at the end of the book in one paragraph (216-17).

Fitzmyer also suggests in his preface that Romans 1-8 is more important than the rest of the letter (4), even though the section comprising chapters 9- 11 is the theological climax of the letter, and chapters 12-15 are the ethical demands that flow from the theology of chapters 1-11. In this sense, his approach seems more Lutheran than Roman Catholic (his religious background) or Anabaptist.

Nevertheless,��Spiritual Exercises��may be congenial to Christians familiar with a traditional interpretation. It is definitely congruent with traditional assumptions about interior spirituality, especially as articulated by Ignatius of Loyola. For readers aware of how easily distracted one can become in our complicated and commercialized society, this book provides a focus and plenty of nourishment on the journey toward spiritual maturity.

Reta Halteman Finger, Messiah College, Grantham, PA

Table of Contents | Foreword | Articles | Book Reviews

Shepherds, Servants and Prophets: Leadership among the Russian Mennonites (ca. 1880-1960)

Gary Harder

The Conrad Grebel Review��23, no. 1 (Winter 2005)

Harry Loewen.��Shepherds, Servants and Prophets: Leadership among the Russian Mennonites (ca. 1880-1960). Pandora Press/Herald Press, 2003.

I first became aware of a few of the significant Russian Mennonite leaders in my small orb during my formative years at Canadian Mennonite Bible College (CMBC). I met J.J. Thiessen, then chair of the board of CMBC, and marveled at his recall of student names. Through family lore I heard about David Toews, friend to my grandfather Cornelius Harder, an “aeltester” in Alberta. Toews officiated at my grandfather’s second marriage, leaving a hilarious story in our memory bank.

At CMBC I also became aware of the ending of that era of strong church leaders. There was a strong critique, not only of some of the individual leaders but of the entire “bishop” system where too much power and authority, it was said, rested in these Mennonite “popes”. We have gone through a long period of pendulum swings between giving too much power to leaders and taking away their power and authority, between putting too much emphasis on office and then too much on function.

It is good to read these leadership stories in our context of struggling rather continuously with power and authority, especially in terms of pastoral leadership. We probably will never recover the era of strong Mennonite leaders profiled so well in this book. And probably we shouldn’t. But did they, in their era, faithfully lead the Mennonite people? The answer to that, of course, is varied.

Harry Loewen describes three types of leadership which emerged in Russia, and profiles each of them in this book. (1) “The primary form of leadership was at the congregational level and might be considered as ‘spiritual’ or ‘pastoral’ leadership” (elders, ministers and deacons). (2) “In the Russian context another kind of ‘practical’ leadership emerged, more secular in form, and often concerned with economic affairs and government-Mennonite linkages” (administrators and politicians). (3) “Finally there was intellectual leadership which developed in connection with schooling and higher forms of education” (educators, writers, preacher-teachers) [pp. 12-13]. I appreciated this broad sweep and the inclusion of leaders from each area.

I also appreciated reading about many Mennonite Brethren leaders whom I in the General Conference had heard about only generally if at all. That gave a much broader and complete scope to my sense of the Russian Mennonite story. I was also intrigued by the inclusion of the stories of some leaders on the fringe of Mennonite respectability: people like David Penner who condemned Mennonites in his 1930 book, Anti-Menno; David Schellenberg, who became a communist writer and ridiculed his people; and Walter Quiring, who was anti-Semitic and a Nazi sympathizer, and who rejected Mennonite non-resistance as a “bankrupt” doctrine.

The exclusion of any women leaders from a volume such as this is glaringly obvious. Loewen acknowledges that “None of the individuals dealt with are women. There were few women who would have fitted the chronological or thematic parameters of this collection. The historical circumstances of the period restricted the role of women from gaining positions of power and influence in the community, even though many women received a higher education in the late Mennonite Commonwealth” (9). He also admits that “had it not been for the courage and strength of the mothers and grandmothers in the years of the Stalinist terror and especially during the ‘Great Trek’ in 1943, little of the Mennonite faith-heritage would have survived” (10). Do we simply recognize – and bemoan – the reality of leadership roles that excluded women during that time, or do we need to redefine our parameters so that significant women’s stories can also be recorded and celebrated?

Loewen wanted the writers of these profiles to include their subjects’ personal foibles and failings, to be critical and objective enough so that we don’t have only “perfect” leaders portrayed. Some writers did better at this than did others. Overall I found the stories quite fascinating. But I did miss reading about J.J. Thiessen and David Toews, the first two significant Mennonite leaders in my memory. While book-length biographies have recently been published on both men, I still wanted to see them acknowledged and profiled here.

Gary Harder, Toronto United Mennonite Church, Toronto, ON

Table of Contents | Foreword | Articles | Book Reviews

"Credo" & "William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: A Holy Impatience"

Kyle Childress

The Conrad Grebel Review��23, no. 1 (Winter 2005)

William Sloane Coffin.��Credo. Westminster John Knox Press, 2004; Warren Goldstein.��William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: A Holy Impatience. Yale University Press, 2004.

“True, we have to hate evil; else we’re sentimental. But if we hate evil more than we love the good, we become damn good haters, and of those the world already has too many. However deep, our anger, like that of Christ, must always and only measure our love” (Credo, 20). Not many are masters of the turn of the phrase, the one-liner, the memorable quote, like William Sloane Coffin. Coffin’s newest book,��Credo, is a compilation of many of his most memorable lines from fifty years of ministry. Arranged topically, his quotes remind us that more is going on here than simply a quick wit; his wit is used in the service of something larger, the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a wit that challenges and inspires us toward a more courageous witness.

Warren Goldstein’s biography of Coffin comes along at just the right time to be paired with��Credo. Goldstein traces Coffin’s life from privileged birth in New York City to his retirement in Vermont in 1990 where he lives today at age 81. It includes his Yale education (like that of most of his ancestors), and his training to become an accomplished musician, his fluency in several languages, his years as a CIA case officer and then as a motorcycle riding seminarian back at Yale. Coffin became famous during his seventeen years as college chaplain at Yale for his activist ministry in the civil rights and anti-war movements from the late 1950s until the mid-’70s. In 1977 he became pastor of the most influential church in American Protestant liberalism, Riverside Church in New York City, and after ten years moved on to become president of SANE/Freeze, the largest disarmament organization in the US.

As a young minister, Coffin quickly learned the importance of being able to think on his feet and say something memorable. During Coffin’s years of riding buses during the Freedom Rides or going to jail for opposing the Vietnam War, Goldstein says that the press was attracted to him because of his energy, charm, and blue-blooded background. “You become quickly aware of the fact that the press and the country generally tend to value the sensational over the valuable,” Coffin remembered, “so you better cooperate gracefully with this and try to sensationalize what is valuable. And you better have that message ready. You better have done your homework.” He learned that “when they stick that mike in your face you better know what it is you want to say” (127).

His approach in using language and the memorable phrase to get his message across is an indicator of his approach to ministry and the mission of the church in proclaiming the gospel in today’s world. For Coffin, whether it was the given question of a reporter or the social issue of the day, he saw it as an opportunity to show the relevance of Christianity in engaging the world. And given his personality he did it with courage, elan, passion, and wit.

Goldstein reports that early in his ministry at Yale, Coffin said, “There is a big need to present the relevance of Christianity to all major areas of life [and] to the campus as a whole.” But Goldstein points out that “he made no effort to hide Christian messages under secular rubrics, to sneak in discussion of ‘values’ or ‘meaning’ without identifying their religious source. A biblically grounded, liberal Protestant minister, Coffin enjoyed the role of evangelist and wanted the entire Yale chaplaincy to reflect that unapologetic thrust and engagement with the world” (105).

Looking back, we now know that in seeking to be relevant to the world, liberal Protestantism often became so relevant there was little of the gospel left. But Goldstein’s Coffin is a reminder that it was not always quite so. Coffin’s relevancy was salted with the Bible and the love of Jesus Christ. Even though he was often impatient with the church, throughout his ministry the church remained central and the pulpit was always where he was at his best.

In both Goldstein’s enjoyable biography and in his own��Credo, Coffin challenges the church of today to out love the haters and to be bold in its witness of Jesus Christ. As he puts it, “Most of all, in these times that are neither safe nor sane, I love to see Christians risk maximum fidelity to Jesus Christ when they can expect minimal support from the prevailing culture. I have in mind what the prophet Nathan did to King David – he spoke truth to power” (Credo, 148). Perhaps for such a time as this have these two books come along.

Kyle Childress, Austin Heights Baptist Church, Nacogdoches, Texas

A Mind Patient and Untamed: Assessing John Howard Yoder’s Contributions to Theology, Ethics, and Peacemaking

Malinda Elizabeth Berry

The Conrad Grebel Review��23 no. 1 (Winter 2005)

Ben C. Ollenburger and Gayle Gerber Koontz, eds.��A Mind Patient and Untamed: Assessing John Howard Yoder’s Contributions to Theology, Ethics, and Peacemaking. Telford, PA: Cascadia Press, 2004.

In March 2002, a group of scholars, church folk, and the curious gathered, under the auspices of the Believers Church Conference series, to assess John Howard Yoder’s theological, ethical, and peacemaking legacy. As one of the participants, I was glad for the opportunity to re-visit some of the papers presented there. Considering these essays now in book form, I was struck by the fluidity of who this legacy is for and how it ought to be regarded. There is no clear consensus about the legacy we have inherited from Yoder.

One has only to look at this volume’s table of contents to see that among Yoder’s most immediate constituency (the Believers Church) there is a pleasing diversity of approaches to both affirmation and critique of his work. Something uniting the chapters is how they all seem to “take it to the next level”: each writer wants to take Yoder along with them as they pursue their own intellectual and spiritual questions, believing they are indeed asking the right questions. Lest this comment be taken as an attempt to harmonize the diversity in this volume, let me quickly reassert that there is no lack of scholarly debate among Yoder’s current interpreters, especially those included here.

For us Mennonites, academic conferences and gatherings are simply another way of doing and being church – a dynamic to which Stanley Hauerwas’s caution in the introduction speaks, at least in part. Hauerwas writes, “the Mennonite character of this book could give the impression that Mennonites are more likely to understand Yoder than those outside that community. . . . Because Yoder is equally challenging to everyone, non- Mennonites should not let the Mennonite ‘ownership’ of Yoder deter them from reading this book” (12).

What this means is that we have a sense that our academic work is part of our corporate Christian witness as a church. The reverse is also true: for many of us in the academy, our scholarly work is as a noisy cymbal if it is disconnected from congregational life. This is why I find the essay by Gerald Biesecker-Mast, “The Radical Christological Rhetoric of Yoder,” particularly helpful. He uses Yoder’s own rhetoric and what we might call “method” to ask about the rhetorical force we employ in our own speech, and urges us to take seriously Yoder’s conviction that “the church . . . must in its very social and institutional character make visible the patience and nonviolence intrinsic to the witness given in Christ” (48). “God’s speech performance in . . . Jesus Christ” has everything to do with the character of Christian witness (47).

Harry Huebner’s essay, “The Christian Life as Gift and Patience,” reminds us that Yoder’s critique and ultimate rejection of liberation theology was based on its methodological and, I would add, rhetorical choice to “ignore nonviolence and divine agency “(36). This emphasizes the need for continuity in how we speak about God and practice the rituals and ordinances of Christ’s church.

Biesecker-Mast’s essay also creates space to voice a couple of persistent questions: (1) Why are so few women writing about Yoder from a feminist perspective? (Rachel Ressor-Taylor’s “Yoder’s Mischievous Contribution to Mennonite Views on Anselmian Atonement” is the sole representative of women’s work with Yoder; however, she does not find much value in feministoriented readings and critiques of Anselm’s theory.) (2) Why are so few men bringing feminist perspectives into conversation with Yoder in their own work?

The event occasioning these thoughtful essays took place ten years after a conference at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries concerning Mennonite peace theology and violence against women. At that time another collection of thoughtful essays wrestled with another persistent question: If we as pacifist Christians cannot make peace and live nonviolently in our own homes, what integrity does our peace witness have in the wider world? This question was raised again this past summer as part of the Mennonite Central Committee-sponsored Peace Theology Research Project. As a church, we continue struggling to offer an answer that has the theological weight Yoder taught us to demand of ourselves.

Surely, Yoder’s legacy does not lead us to turn away from immediate and pressing questions of justice, a point made by Alain Epp-Weaver’s piece comparing the work of Yoder and Edward Said, titled “On Exile,” and Willard Swartley’s examination of jubilee, titled “Smelting for Gold.”

As we continue reflecting on who Yoder is for us as (a) church, should we consider how impatient he could be with those who had allowed their minds to become tamed by asking easy questions?

Malinda Elizabeth Berry, Union Theological Seminary, New York

Anabaptist Preaching: A Conversation Between Pulpit, Pew and Bible

Allan Rudy-Froese

The Conrad Grebel Review��23, no. 1 (Winter 2005)

David B. Greiser and Michael King, eds.,��Anabaptist Preaching: A Conversation Between Pulpit, Pew and Bible. Telford, PA: Cascadia Publishing House, 2003.

Anabaptist Preaching��may signal an era when children of the Radical Reformation are willing to engage in conversation and considered reflection on homiletics, the art and theology of preaching. David Greiser and Michael King, with sponsorship from the Institute for Preaching at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, offer here a collection of fourteen essays by North Americans from the Anabaptist tradition who preach and dare to write about it.

One theme running through their work is the Anabaptist sermon as a “conversation” between pulpit, pew, and Bible. Greiser introduces this threeway conversation with a thumbnail historical sketch of Anabaptist preaching. Key for him is the early practice of��Zeugnis, or testimony. The preacher’s interpretation of the Bible was commented on immediately by the testimonies of fellow believers, thus creating conversation. Nancy R. Heisey continues this discussion. The metaphor of hermeneutic is often that of a bridge: we simply need to bring the freight of the gospel to our own era over the bridge that spans history and culture. Heisey suggests that reading the Bible looks less like a bridge and more like a dance where the Bible, the pew, and the pulpit, together with the Holy Spirit, join one another for the sake of the gospel. June Alliman Yoder gives practical advice on including the communal voice in the process of sermon preparation. Dennis Hollinger gets to the heart of this issue by looking at integrity on the part of the preacher and the congregation.

Another theme is the nature of the “postmodern” world. The complexities of preaching in a time when the authoritative place of the Bible, the church, the preacher, and faith itself appears undermined raises crucial questions. Michael King encourages the “weaving of enchantment” – an imaginative but truthful reading of the Bible – as a way to connect with postmodern hearers. With respect to the erosion of biblical authority and the increase in biblical illiteracy, Mary Shertz gives encouragement and strategies for reading the Bible. Nathan Showalter treats preaching in the context of the multicultural church, offering insights into how the gospel can be shared in it.

While the remaining essays treat the above issues in various ways, new topics and themes also emerge. Some attempt to push the Anabaptist preacher into territory where he or she does not often venture. Dawn Ottoni Wilhelm encourages prophetic preaching, wisely differentiating between social justice preaching and Biblical prophetic preaching. David Stevens writes about the use of analogy when reading and preaching from the Old Testament. Mark Wenger offers practical suggestions for making theology and doctrine come alive in preaching. The theme of God’s grace often gets missed in light of the strong Anabaptist belief in discipleship, an issue Ervin Stutzman explores historically and theologically. Rebecca Slough places the sermon in the context of worship, encouraging a stronger unity between worship and preaching.

Greiser and King bring up new, tantalizing questions. North American Anabaptists may indeed shy away from, for instance, preaching prophetically or doctrinally, or without proper emphasis on God’s grace. But how do we know how contemporary Anabaptists preach, apart from local or anecdotal sources? Further study on the actual “state of the sermon” is needed. Is the often practiced “sermon discussion” in our churches a retrieval of the romanticized Anabaptist practice of��Zeugnis, a child of postmodern egalitarian notions, or a bit of both?

The chapters in this volume range in style and tone, from Renee Sauder’s autobiographical-reflective essay on narrative preaching to Lynn Jost’s academic treatise on David Buttrick’s method, but they all take the pulpit, the church, the Bible, and theological reflection seriously. These theological and very practical chapters and the study-guide at the back of the book make this a collection that begs to be read.

Reading lists for preaching classes in Anabaptist seminaries suggest we have been drawing our theologies and preaching methods from other traditions. However,��Anabaptist Preaching��bids to mark the beginning of an era when a distinctly Anabaptist voice might be heard. So, place this volume next to Craddock, Buttrick, Achtemeier or whatever other popular preaching manuals are on your bookshelf, and listen to the new conversation that develops.

Allan Rudy-Froese, Th.D. student, Toronto School of Theology

The Earliest Hymns of the Ausbund: Some Beautiful Christian Songs Composed and Sung in the Prison at Passau

Ken Nafziger

The Conrad Grebel Review��23, no. 1 (Winter 2005)

Robert A. Riall (trans.), Galen A. Peters (ed.). The Earliest Hymns of the Ausbund: Some Beautiful Christian Songs Composed and Sung in the Prison at Passau. Published in 1564. Pandora Press, 2003.

In his preface to this book, C. Arnold Snyder writes, “There is no reason why the hymn texts should not be considered primary sources on a par with Anabaptist pamphlets, letters, and prison confessions, and studied in that light.” He laments a historical lack of interest in the study of this sixteenth-century Anabaptist hymnal, and then points out that “Riall’s translation of the Passau hymns goes a good distance in remedying this situation” (10-11). This volume in the Anabaptist Texts in Translation series offers a great service in making this important material so attractively available.

Anabaptists and Mennonites have had a long history with singing. It is entirely appropriate that the contents and history of the Ausbund be more fully known, for both a knowledge of what our forebears sang and a wider understanding of the significance of song in the spread of a radical religious movement.

In his introduction to the translations, Robert Riall describes the colorful and long history of the Ausbund from its roots through its evolution. Of particular value is his articulation of what he calls the “Message” of the book (30-39). There are four points of certainty he explores as the editorial standard by which hymns were included there: Christ’s External and Internal Word, Holiness, Suffering, and Joy and Resignation. This is useful information applicable, I suspect, well beyond studies in hymnology.

The book is a compendium of translations, remarkably and clearly documented with footnotes, endnotes, Scriptural citations/allusions, and all manner of useful details. The cross-references are helpful to the reader who takes the time to pursue them. Riall, his editor, and the publisher have treated a hymnal that has been used continuously for nearly 450 years with the respect appropriate to an important historical document.

Holding this volume in my hands, perusing it to see what it contained, and imagining how it might be used, it seemed to me that it calls for a companion piece, requiring comparable time and attention to other aspects of the Ausbund. Apparently Riall has done some work with meters and rhyme schemes, but it is omitted here. It ought to be made accessible. Such a companion piece should also explore the musical aspects of the hymnal with the same careful research. Some of this work has been done (cited in the endnote on p.12), but it may well be time for a new look at the hymnal’s musical dimension.

Finally, I found myself wondering if it’s time – perhaps already overdue – that someone (a poet/theologian) re-visit some of these texts and adapt them for modern usage. Our congregational song would be enriched by having available some of these themes that are as unique in modern Christianity as they were when the book first appeared. Perhaps in the garb of music from the time of the Ausbund or in newer musical attire, we could continue to give voice to those life-giving “beautiful Christian songs” that sustained prisoners and set them free. This is certainly no new idea, but one might hope that new energy turned loose by the appearance of Riall’s volume will catch the imagination of those who make songs for us to sing.

Ken Nafziger, Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA