Category: Resources for study

Joint statement by Mennonites and Catholics to WCC Decade to Overcome Violence now available

Following up on their 1998-2003 dialogue and ground-breaking document, Called Together to Be Peacemakers Mennonite and Catholic leaders met together for a brief conference October 23-25, 2007 in order to offer joint suggestions for the World Council of Churches’ Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV). The DOV will culminate in an International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) in 2011. In preparation, representatives from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Mennonite World Conference met at the Centro Pro Unione in Rome with the goal of submitting theological reflections that Mennonites and Catholics, committed to overcoming violence, might affirm together as a witness to peace in the ecumenical context. Continue reading “Joint statement by Mennonites and Catholics to WCC Decade to Overcome Violence now available” →

New publication on martyrdom

Martyrdom in an Ecumenical Perspective: A Mennonite-Catholic Dialogue, edited by Peter Erb, is the most recent publication in the Bridgefolk Series by Pandora Press. Acknowledging the martyrdom of Anabaptists, the 1998-2003 bilateral discussions between the Catholic Church and Mennonite World Conference resulted in a call for further reflection on the experience of martyrdom. In 2003 and 2004, Saint John’s Abby of Collegeville, Minnesota hosted two conferences in which Catholics and Mennonites discussed this subject. Martyrdom in an Ecumenical Perspective is a collection of perspectives presented at these meetings.

Contributors:

  • Brad S. Gregory
  • Neal Blough
  • Helmut Harder
  • Margaret O’Gara
  • C. Arnold Snyder
  • John D. Roth
  • Drew Christianson, S.J.
  • Chris K. Huebner
  • Jeremy M. Bergen

Books may be ordered from: www.pandorapress.com

New Monasticism in the news

Recent stories

Two recent stories in national newspapers offer different perspectives on what’s happening in new monastic communities. For a description of the movement by a scholar of American religion, see Molly Worthen’s piece from the Boston Globe:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/02/03/the_unexpected_monks

For an up close look at the day-to-day challenges of a community in its first year, see Stephanie Simon’s piece from the L.A. Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-monk26jan26,1,7718645.story?track=crosspromo

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove has written an introduction to new monasticism, especially paying attention to what new monasticism means for the church–and why new communities need the church. You can help get the word out about the book by pre-ordering a copy now:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Monasticism-What-Todays-Church/dp/1587432242

School for Conversion: Updated Calendar for 2008

If you’d like to be part of a School for Conversion event in 2008, a fresh list of locations and dates is now online at:
http://newmonasticism.org

As a matter of fact, the whole www.newmonasticism.org site has been overhauled. Check out new descriptions of SFC Latin America, new courses, links to community of communities and forthcoming books. Let us know what you think–and what else you’d like to see.

New Monastic Library Series

In partnership with Wipf and Stock Publishers, School for Conversion announces its New Monastic Library Series. For over a millennium, if a Christian wanted to read theology, practice Christian spirituality, or study the Bible, she went to the monastery to do so. There people who inhabited the tradition and prayed the prayers of the church also copied manuscripts and offered fresh reflections about living the gospel in a new time. Two thousand years after the birth of the church, there is a new monastic movement stirring in North America. In keeping with ancient tradition, new monastics study the classics of Christian reflection and are beginning to offer some reflections for a new time. The New Monastic Library Series exists to share reflections from new ! monastics and to print classic monastic resources unavailable elsewhere. To see books in the series, visit:
http://wipfandstock.com/browse/series/New%20Monastic%20Library:%20Resources%20for%20Radical%20Discipleship

About Paul Dekar’s new book, Community of the Transfiguration: The Journey of a New Monastic Community, Phyllis Tickle writes in her foreword: “What Dekar has managed to do here is tell his own story, a monastery’s story, and a movement’s story in such a way as to make them all of one piece. Like layers of a well-rendered landscape, each gives depth and texture to the other, each lends grace to the other… the news is of other Christians and their ways of devotion, of other winds of the Spirit blowing across our times, and of other witnesses for whose encouragement we can pray. May each of us find in all those things reason to rejoice as well as a passion and devotion by which to measure and amend our own.”
To read more or order a copy of Dekar’s Community of the Transfiguration, visit:
http://wipfandstock.com/store/Community_of_the_Transfiguration_The_Journey_of_a_New_Monastic_Community

Building Bridges of Reconciliation in Latin America

A recent publication from the Mennonite Central Committee — the cooperative agency of Mennonite denominations in North America for relief, development and peacebuilding — surveys bridge-building efforts between Roman Catholics and Evangelicals in Latin America. The April-June issue of the Peace Office Newsletter is available online at http://mcc.org/peace/pon/PON_2007-02.pdf. Introducing the newsletter is the following article: Continue reading “Building Bridges of Reconciliation in Latin America” →

Two new books by Bridgefolk (good conference prep!)

Earlier this year Herald Press published two books written or edited by Bridgefolk board members Marlene Kropf and Gerald Schlabach.  The themes of peacemaking and worship at God’s table coincide with the theme of our upcoming conference: Making Peace: At Table, in the World.   Dip into one or both of these books as you prepare to attend the conference or join us in prayer.   Continue reading “Two new books by Bridgefolk (good conference prep!)” →

Commentary on “Called Together” now available online

As enthusiastic supporters of the international dialogue between Mennonite World Conference (MWC) and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), Bridgefolk has made a number of resources available for the study of Called Together to be Peacemakers, the final report from its first round.  New on our website is a commentary that appeared with the document upon its initial release by the PCPCU.

Written by Professor Emeritus Jos. E. Vercruysse S.J., the commentary can provide a useful summary of the Called Together for those who have not yet had an opportunity to read it in full, along with certain points of critique that will interest those who are studying it closely.

You will find Called Together to be Peacemakers in various languages, along with information about an abridged study version with discussion questions, and commentaries by Prof. Vercruysse as well as others at http://www.bridgefolk.net/theology/dialogue.

Thanks to Gerald Stover of Bethelehem PA for helping to make Prof. Vercruysse’s commentary available.

Gerald Schlabach
Bridgefolk Executive Director
info@bridgefolk.net
www.bridgefolk.net

 

Presentations to Mennonite Catholic Theological Colloquium now available

All of the presenters at the July meeting of the Mennonite Catholic Theological Colloquium have now provided text versions of their presentations.  You can find them by going to the newly re-designed section of our website for Theological Dialogue and Reflection:  http://www.bridgefolk.net/theology/colloquia/2005theology.

The topic of the colloquium was “How Are We ‘Called Together?'”  A Mennonite and a Catholic panel was asked to comment on the final report of the international dialogue between Mennonite World Conference and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity by answering the question, “What have we learned and what’s next?”  Mennonite panelists were Nancy Heisey and Earl Zimmerman; Catholic panelists were Margaret Pfeil and Drew Christiansen SJ.

The event began with a keynote address by John A. Lapp, church historian and former Executive Secretary of Mennonite Central Committee on “Ecumenical Dialogue as a Ministry of Reconciliation.”