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Reviews-sermons

Experiments in Love An Anabaptist Theology of Risk-Taking in Mission

April 13, 2023

Experiments in Love An Anabaptist Theology of Risk-Taking in Mission. By Emily Ralph Servant. Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications. American Society of Missiology Monograph Series 49. 2021 This book was reviewed for the Mennonite Quarterly Review, July 2022, pp. 468-70. Originally written for a doctoral dissertation, Experiments in Love by Emily Ralph Servant expresses concern that […]

Looking Again at Epiphany

February 18, 2022

I gave this sermon/meditation at City Church of the Brethren in Goshen on January 2, 2022   Thanks for inviting me to join you today. I value and depend on both ecumenical and interfaith links. I have received your Women’s Caucus “Femailings” newsletter for years. Yvonne Riege joined me to carry out a Worship Renewal […]

How Learning from and Respect for People of Other Faiths Enhances Mine

November 13, 2020

As Teaching Elder at Campus Cluster of Assembly Mennonite Church, Goshen, I gave this sermon on Jan. 23, 1994. What a tame title! How about: “For God’s sake,” =Trust the Truth of other Faiths Too.” That phrase does not express swearing. It comes from the depths of my regret for how often Christians fail God […]

Two Reviews about Mennonite Women

November 12, 2020

Mennonite Women: A Story of God’s Faithfulness 1683-1983 by Elaine Summers Rich, 1983 and Women in Search of Mission by Gladys V. Goering, 1980. These reviews appeared in Mennonite Quarterly Review, Rich’s in vol. 60/2 April 1986, 207-09, and Goering’s in 57/1 January 1983, 74-75 and appear here with permission. Three threads recur in Gladys […]

Review of Meeting Our Multifaith Neighbors by Brice H. Balmer

This appeared in Mennonite Quarterly Review July 2007, 474-76. and appears here with permission.  Published by Herald Pr., Scottdale, PA, 2006. Brice Balmer’s book title anticipates content. To meet distinguishes the approach from academic study or lecture alone. People gather for exchange of distinct or similar experience—religious practice and thought—that matter to each participant. Multifaith […]

“Dying We Live and Living We Die”

October 29, 2020

Sermon given at both Clusters of Assembly Mennonite, Oct. 21 & Nov. 25, 1990. Adapted later for Aunt Nellie Zook King’s Memorial Service. This sermon appeared in Decades of Feminist Writing self-published by DYN, 2020, 288-92 What age will you be when you die? (Repeat) You might think how foolish to be asked such a […]

Meaningful Ministry

October 25, 2020

Luke 8:1-3; Acts 6:1-6 Gurukul Lutheran Theological College, Worship, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, July 26, 1998 Mennonite Brethren Bible College, Chapel, Shamshabad, Hyderabad, India, February 2012 Our title applies to each of us. Not a role limited to a few in robes, all Christian believers are ministers, I believe. We have the task of sharing […]

Saints within Diverse Religions

October 23, 2020

Goshen College Chapel, All Saints Day – October 29, 2001 Student Readers: Dykshya, Kashif, Tsigi, Tobias, Charletta Prayer – # 672 Hymnal A Worship Book – read by Sylvia Shirk Charles, Campus Minister With all your saints across the generations we gather, Holy God, To approach your mystery and hear your judgment. We come seeking […]

Missionary Ziegenbalg, from 1706

Mission Sunday Sermon given in two churches in Chennai, India, 1998 The reason for Gurukul Theological School to be focused in several Chennai, India churches during the month of July is because Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg, the first Protestant missionary to India, first arrived on July 9, 1706. A convinced Lutheran from Germany, he arrived with Heinrich […]

Promise and Peril: The Paradox of Religion as Resource and Threat, Anna Lannstrom, ed.

October 21, 2020

University of Notre Dame Pr., 2003 This review was originally published in The Conrad Grebel Review, 22/1 (Winter, 2004) 109-11 and appears here with the publisher’s permission. Promise and Peril: The Paradox of Religion as Resource and Threat, edited and introduced by Anna Lannstrom, is an eclectic collection of seven essays. These lectures were initially […]