LAWRENCE JENNINGS of Infinity Mennonite Church in New York City has been involved in community and economic development for more than three decades. Since 2013, he has been affiliated with GreenFaith, first as a Fellow, and currently as a lead organizer of the new Restoration Nation faith communities/green jobs initiative. A member of the Thomas Berry Forum for Ecological Dialogue at Iona College, he was one of the key organizers of the People’s Climate March faith contingent, and has ongoing involvement with the People’s Climate Movement, the organizing body that took shape after the March. In these involvements, as well as his work with The Groundswell Group and Moral Mondays, he works closely with faith communities and inner city and “frontline” groups that often are overlooked or excluded. He authored the Open Letter from African American clergy on Climate Change as part of the “Our Voices” campaign, and is on the Steering Committee of Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, both of which aim to encourage people of to speak out about the moral and scientific urgency of the environmental crisis. Lawrence was asked by GreenFaith to write a response to the Pope’s newly released environmental teachings from the Anabaptist/Mennonite perspective. His article originally appeared in two parts on the Mennonite Church USA website (here and here). Continue reading “A papal encyclical, a Mennonite resolution, and the relevance of Anablacktivism”
Tag: Ecumenical news
Ecumenical relations mark MWC meetings
7.24. 2015 Written By: Gordon Houser, editor of The Mennonite, for Meetinghouse
Photo: Elizabeth Miller of the Moravian Church brings greetings. Photo by Dale Gehman.
During both morning and evening worship sessions on July 22 and 23 at the MWC Assembly in Harrisburg, Pa., representatives from various Christian communions brought greetings to MWC participants. Nearly all praised Mennonites for their long-standing peace witness.
In the morning worship on July 22, Gretchen Castle of the Friends World Committee for Consultation brought greetings. That evening, Larry Miller, former MWC General Secretary, brought greetings from the Global Christian Forum, followed by Monsignor Gregory Fairbanks of the Roman Catholic Church.
On July 23, greetings came from Elizabeth Miller of the Moravian Church and William Wilson of the Pentecostal World Fellowship in the morning, followed by Isabel Phiri of the World Council of Churches, Martin Junge of the Lutheran World Federation and Diop Ganoune of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in the evening. Junge received sustained applause as he expressed gratitude for MWC extending forgiveness to Lutherans in 2010 for their treatment of Anabaptists in the past.
Several workshops also addressed ecumenical concerns. Jonathan Seiling and Fernando Enns led a July 22 workshop, “Introduction to Mennonites and Ecumenism,” which introduced the reasons and contexts in which Mennonites have entered into official dialogue with other Christian denominations.
That same day, Valerie Rempel led the workshop “The MWC-Seventh-day Adventist Dialogue,” which highlighted the outcomes of a dialogue that happened in 2011-12.
On July 23, Alfred Neufeld, John Rempel and Seiling led the workshop “Trilateral Dialogue: Catholics, Lutherans and Mennonite Conversations on Baptism,” which reported on dialogues between MWC and the Lutheran and Catholic churches, a five-year process that has dealt with the healing of memories, theologies and practices that separate us, the meaning and function of a sacrament and the problem of Christian initiation.
Francis commemorates the reformer Jan Hus on the 600th anniversary of his death
Vatican City, 15 June 2015 (VIS) – This morning Pope Francis received in audience the representatives of the Czech Hussite Church and the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, in Rome to celebrate a liturgy of reconciliation on the occasion of the 600 th anniversary of the reformer Jan Hus, distinguished preacher and rector of the University of Prague, whose execution was lamented by St. John Paul II in 1999, who included him among the reformers of the Church. Continue reading “Francis commemorates the reformer Jan Hus on the 600th anniversary of his death”
Beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero hailed by ecumenical leaders
World Council of Churches, 28 May 2015
Leaders of churches and ecumenical organizations have expressed respect and appreciation following the beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero on Sunday 24 May. In the Roman Catholic Church, beatification is a significant step in the process leading to canonization as a saint. Romero was murdered while presiding at Mass in San Salvador on 24 March 1980. He had been archbishop of the capital of El Salvador for three years.
Cardinal Angelo Amato, Roman Catholic prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, has been widely quoted as saying, “Romero, from heaven, wants every Salvadoran to walk the path of peace and justice.”
Continue reading “Beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero hailed by ecumenical leaders”
Mennonite Daniel Hostetler becomes executive director of Parliament of the World’s Religions
4.14. 2015 Written By: Parliament of the World’s Religions
Daniel Hostetler, a member of Christ Community Mennonite Church in Schaumburg, Ill., is the new executive director of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. He begins this role on April 20.
He is the first Anabaptist to hold this position and will be based in Chicago, Ill.
Since their first worldwide gathering, or “Parliament,” in the year 1893, the Parliament of the World’s Religions has sought to bring followers together in peace so that knowledge and acceptance of attendee’s diverse religious and cultural beliefs could reduce the ignorance and confusion that creates conflict.
See the full news story at The Mennonite and an introductory biography on the Parliament Blog.
Praying with Jesus for unity
1.30. 2015 Written By: Alan Kreider and Eleanor Kreider
The difference praying for unity can make in our lives and congregations
Silence, prayer, work, worship. Mennonites living like this? We tried it. Thirty years ago we were guests for 11 weeks of the Community of Grandchamp near Neuchâtel, Switzerland, whose sisters live by the Taizé rule of life as a part of the Swiss Reformed Church.
The sisters’ noon prayer, centered on the Beatitudes, always concluded with Jesus’ own prayer for his followers: “May they all be one” (John 17.21). They want Jesus’ prayer to shape their day and change their world—that there may be unity among Christians.
We were astonished by this daily repetition. After all, we were Mennonites. We thought, Weren’t we the ones committed to do what Jesus taught and did? Unlike other Christians who paid too little attention to the Sermon on the Mount, who fought their enemies and swore oaths, we Mennonites were faithful to Jesus. Yet the Grandchamp sisters also listened to Jesus. Further, they prayed with him, using his very words, that his followers may all be one, as the Father and the Son are one …
To read the full article by Bridgefolk participants Alan and Eleanor Kreider, visit The Mennonite.
Liturgical Press and Augsburg Fortress co-publish extraordinary new resource to celebrate Christian unity
MINNEAPOLIS AND COLLEGEVILLE, MINNESOTA (January 2015)—Liturgical Press, the Roman Catholic publishing house of Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, and Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis, the publishing ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), are pleased to announce the co-publication of One Hope: Re-Membering the Body of Christ, a resource to help Catholic and Lutheran communities walk together, recognizing and nourishing unity at a grassroots level.
In August 2014, six gifted pastoral leaders and scholars—three Lutheran and three Catholic—gathered for six days at a retreat center in the central Minnesota farmlands. Through intense prayer, discussion, debate, laughter, and work, they created a resource to help Catholics, Lutherans, and all Christians prepare for and mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017. The result is One Hope: Re-Membering the Body of Christ.
The essays in One Hope explore experiences and activities that Catholics and Lutherans share and that connect to the living of their faith in embodied ways: breathing, eating, singing, forgiving, serving, and dying. One Hope will serve as a welcome resource for adult faith formation and parish discussion groups made up of Catholics, Lutherans, or members of other denominations.
The Ecumenical Review marks 50th anniversary of Second Vatican Council
22 January 2015 – World Council of Churches Press Centre
The current issue of The Ecumenical Review, a quarterly journal of the World Council of Churches (WCC), takes as its theme “Vatican II in Retrospect.” Celebrating a half-century of dialogue emanating from the Second Vatican Council’s decree on ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, central topics and operating methods of the council’s sessions are recalled by Martin E. Marty of the University of Chicago, John Gibaut of the WCC commission on Faith and Order, and Oxford-based researcher Donald W. Norwood.
Additional features in The Ecumenical Review suggest further steps toward unity. In an appeal for continued inter-confessional commitment, Ernst M. Conradie advances an overture toward development of a truly ecumenical theology of creation. Member associations of the German East Asia Mission offer an open letter to Christians in Japan and South Korea, “Together on the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace,” arising from the Just Peace in East Asia conference at Wittenberg, Germany in the autumn of 2014.
The “ecumenical chronicle” section of the journal reproduces a study document on inter-religious dialogue and cooperation that was accepted by the WCC central committee in July 2014: “Who Do We Say That We Are? Christian Identity in a Multi-religious World.” Following a series of consultations exploring Christian self-identity in relation to interactions with a series of other world religions, this major text “seeks to draw together the reflections and work of the last decade.”
For additional resources, visit the World Council of Churches.
Reform, Revival or Reversal: The Reformation 500 Years On
From Toronto School of Theology.
With the 500th anniversary of the Reformation at hand in 2017, the question of how to commemorate it is upon us.
Do we celebrate the Reformers’ renewal of the church in light of the gospel? Do we mourn the division of the one, catholic church? Or have events like the globalization of Christianity and the rise of Pentecostalism made the 16th-century debates irrelevant?
Join us as Professor Ephraim Radner and a panel of theologians representing a variety of Christian traditions wrestle through these important questions and more.
Lecture
Dr. Ephraim Radner, Professor of Historical Theology, Wycliffe College. Toronto
Respondents:
Dr. Gill Goulding, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Director, Advanced Degree Programs, Regis College, Toronto
Rev Michael Stahl, head of communications for the Evangelical Church of North Germany, Hamburg
Dr. John Vissers, Director of Academic Programs and Professor of Historical Theology, Knox College. Toronto
Dr. John Rempel, Director of Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre and previous Professor of Historical Theology and Anabaptist Studies at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), Indiana
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Sheraton Hall, Wycliffe College (5 Hoskin Avenue, Toronto)
Reception to follow.
Please let us know you are coming by emailing us at events@wycliffe.utoronto.ca.