A response to Peter Dula’s critique of Unlearning Protestantism in “For and Against Hauerwas Against Mennonites” (Mennonite Quarterly Review, July 2010) ACRS Reading Group, Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA, 27 September 2010. On behalf of the ACRS Reading Group in Harrisonburg, Ray Gingerich has asked me to respond to Peter Dula’s “trenchant” and “poignant” critique…
Category: Commentary
Meeting in exile
Historic peace churches and the emerging peace church catholic Journal of Religion, Conflict and Peace Volume 1. Issue 1, Fall 2007. First presented as a lecture for Presentation Sisters’ Peace Studies Forum, 23 January 2004, Fargo ND. For the three “historic peace church” colleges of Indiana to join together in the Plowshares Peace Studies Collaborative and its…
For Joetta
Prose Haiku July 2007 We walk the labyrinth, my love and I. Curving around each other, almost crossing, turning away, back, parallel, apart, one mysterious destination. Labyrinthian ways run through the bed where we touch tenderly and weep bitterly. They take us to the table at the center of the maze – extend? defend? bend…
You converted to what?
One Mennonite’s journey Commonweal, June 1, 2007 At Pentecost 2004, I made a small yet formidable step in my life of Christian discipleship. Having considered myself a “Catholic Mennonite” for years, I entered into full communion with the Roman Church and became what I think of as a “Mennonite Catholic.” Catholic friends were gratified but puzzled. After all, this might not have seemed an…
Benedictine values and the need for bridging
Monastic Institute, Saint John’s Abbey, 6 July 2006 Bridgefolk is about, well, bridging — transcending old polarities, exchanging and integrating the gifts of mutually “separated brethren” and sisters too. It is about imagining Christ’s Church without the divisions that long seemed to be givens, and doing the next thing God gives us to do in order that…
Journeying together toward Jesus Christ
from Faith Connection, newsletter of Faith Mennonite Church, Minneapolis June 2004 On Sunday, May 16, I shared with the congregation my plans to be received into the Catholic Church at the Pentecost Vigil, on May 29, at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church here in St. Paul, even while maintaining associate membership at Faith Mennonite. I look forward…
Just policing:
how war could cease to be a church-dividing issue
Abstract: Might Christians who have long been divided along just-war and pacifist lines agree some day that just policing—and only just policing—is legitimate? In an essay first written as a resource for the first international dialogue between Mennonites and Roman Catholics, the author offers a thought experiment on what would be necessary for war eventually to cease to be…
Statement upon confirmation in the Catholic Church
St. Peter Claver Catholic Church, St. Paul, MN Pentecost Vigil 29 May 2004 Today, at this vigil, we begin to mark the fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, when God launched the Church out of a dazed and fearful band of disciples — promising with the gift of diverse tongues to create a…
Personal letter to Bridgefolk
From: Schlabach, Gerald W. Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 7:25 AM To: BRIDGEFOLK@LS.CSBSJU.EDU Subject: [BRIDGEFOLK] Personal letter from Gerald Schlabach May 20, 2004 Dear friends: On May 29, at the Pentecost Vigil service at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church here in St. Paul, I plan to be received into the Catholic Church. This moment has…
Just policing, not war
America magazine July 7, 2003 Virtually every Christian tradition is trying to have it both ways on war. Twenty years ago the U.S. bishops published The Challenge of Peace, which explicitly paired just war and pacifism as legitimate Christian responses to war. Three years later, Methodist bishops in the United States made a similar affirmation. And…
The Christian witness in the earthly city
John H. Yoder as Augustinian Interlocutor Presented at conference on “Assessing the Theological Legacy of John Howard Yoder,” University of Notre Dame, 7-9 March 2002 For final published version see chapter 11 in Ollenburger and Gerber Koontz, eds., A Mind Patient and Untamed: Assessing John Howard Yoder’s Contributions to Theology Ethics and Peacemaking, Cascadia Publishing, 2004….
In the belly of a paradox
Reflections on the Dubious Service of Reflecting on Service The Conrad Grebel Review 19, no. 4 (Fall 2001). First published in the Journal of Peace and Justice Studies 10:2 (2000) 65-78. Mennonites have had perhaps the most substantial experience of any Protestant tradition in the deployment of people for service – over against more conventional missionary work. Yet…
Continence, consumption and other abuses
Or Why an Augustinian Ethic is Worth the Bother Presented at the Society of Christian Ethics annual meeting, January 8, 2000, Washington D.C. Abstract: “Love is the problem in ethics, not the solution,” notes Christian ethicist Margaret A. Farley. St. Augustine has probably done more to shape Christian teachings on love than any other theologian, yet he…
Stability in the world: an oblate’s reflections
Benedictine oblates are people who are not monks but who dedicate themselves, in communion with a particular monastic community, to the service of God and neighbor according to the Rule of St. Benedict, insofar as their state in life permits.[1] Specific commitments include the practice of lectio divina, praying the Psalms through some portion of…
“Love is the hand of the soul”
The grammar of continence in Augustine’s doctrine of Christian love First presented at the North American Patristics Society. June 1, 1996. The full version is available in the Journal of Early Christian Studies 6:1 (Spring 1998): 59-92. The Grammar of Grasping The Grammar of Clinging Having by Not Having Conclusion Notes In recent years scholars have…
Faithfulness, temptation and the Deuteronomic juncture
Is Constantinianism the most basic problem for Christian social ethics? Marpeck Lecture, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, 5 March 1998 For a fuller development of this lecture, see “Deuteronomic or Constantinian: What is the Most Basic Problem for Christian Social Ethics?” in The Wisdom of the Cross: Essays in Honor of John Howard Yoder, eds Stanley Hauerwas, et al. (Grand…
An Abrahamic community of respect
Bluffton College Faculty/Staff Retreat morning meditation, 28 August 1997 Texts: Deuteronomy 10:12-22 Romans 12:1-21 For background reading on the problems of community and respect today, see Benjamin R. Barber, “Jihad Vs. McWorld,” originally in the March 1992 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, or Barber’s 1996 book of the same name. A community of respect…. A…
Guy F. Hershberger and Reinhold Niebuhr on Christian love
Will the Real Augustinian Please Stand Up? Conference on “Anabaptists in Conversation: Mennonite and Brethren Interactions with Twentieth-Century Theologies,” 19-21 June 1997. Young Center for the Study of Anabaptist and Pietist Groups, Elizabethtown (Pa.) College. Agapeism and Hershberger Niebuhr and Augustine Sacrificial and Mutual Love Could Mennonite Theology Be Augustinian? Notes Agapeism and Hershberger In…
Dissertation
For the Joy Set Before Us: Ethics of Self-Denying Love in Augustinian Perspective Jean Porter, Director Department of Theology University of Notre Dame April 1996 Abstract Table of contents Defense presentation Appendix on Anders Nygren Order dissertation, # 96-21773 from UMI Published by U of Notre Dame Press Dissertation copyright © 1996 by Gerald W….
Beyond two- versus one-kingdom theology
Abrahamic community as a Mennonite paradigm for Christian engagement in society by Gerald W. Schlabach Conrad Grebel Review 11 (Fall 1993): 187-210. The Need for a Paradigm Paradigm Shift? Or Paradigm Breakdown? Sifting Through Two- and One-Kingdom Theologies Two-Kingdom Theology: Strengths and Limitations One-Kingdom Theology: Strengths and Limitations A Partial Integration Beyond Two- Versus One-Kingdom…