Issues, ethics, memory
I traveled in Germany recently searching for information on my Catholic ancestors. While there, I found that members of my wife's Anabaptist antecedents had rebelled against religious and civic authorities in Münster, Germany in 1534-35. Leaders of the rebellion were apprehended, tortured to death, and had their bodies placed in cages suspended from a church tower. The cages are still there.
We traveled recently in Germany, where I sought out ancestral roots. Our guide, a family friend, has located us in church records going back to the fifteenth century. And he was able to document a murder that has long been family lore.
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) was working in Germany before and after the Second World War. The organization arranged emigration for thousands of Mennonites who had escaped to Germany from Ukraine. Many of those Mennonites had welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Soviet communism, and some were collaborators. In Germany, some MCC advocates were also sympathetic to the Nazis as well. MCC is now coming to terms with a difficult and troubling past.
My Facebook site has been inundated recently by people sickened by the latest mass shootings in the US and outraged that an American president is acting as an enabler to fellow white supremacists. When we Canadians look at the racism and misogyny being perpetrated by people like Donald Trump, Juan Bolsinaro in Brazil, Rodrigo Dueterte... Continue Reading →
In February I posted to this blog about the United We Roll Convoy which was on its way from Alberta to Ottawa. Those involved said their concerns were primarily about the oil and gas industry. However, it soon became clear that the tour was about more than that. At every convoy stop there was also... Continue Reading →
Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have spent years scapegoating refugees and it is coming back to haunt them in the 2015 election campaign. The Conservatives' messaging has been derailed by the sight of hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into Europe, and by the images of the lifeless body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi being carried... Continue Reading →
The Parti Quebecois government has created controversy by proposing the Charter of Quebec Values aimed at restricting public sector employees from wearing religious symbols — turbans, head scarves, skullcaps and presumably crosses — in their workplaces. The PQ claims that this would unify Quebecers behind the idea of a secular state, but Charles Taylor, the... Continue Reading →
My wife Martha has been involved for many years in church groups sponsoring refugees and assisting them to settle into new lives in Canada. I have acted as an occasional helper, enough for me to hear some of the heart rending stories about the wars, famines and oppression that have driven people from countries such as... Continue Reading →
The editor of Canadian Mennonite magazine says that he was puzzled, saddened and disheartened to get a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency warning that his publication was being too political and could lose its charitable status as a result. “I took it personally,” writes editor Richard Benner in the magazine's November 12 edition. The letter... Continue Reading →
I spent four weeks recently in Central Europe and while in Hungary I spoke to a university audience about how Canadians view immigrants, refugees and multiculturalism. One is always on thin ice, to use a Canadian metaphor, when speaking in a country where you are a tourist and may offend sensibilities. But I believe that... Continue Reading →
Pulpit and Politics 