March 2000
vol. 55 no. 1
Welcome to the first issue of Mennonite Life to be produced solely on the World Wide Web. We had hoped to publish on March 1, but technical problems beyond our control made that impossible. We view this web site as an evolving project and welcome your feedback of suggestions and corrections.
In this issue, we begin with excerpts from a longer work by Duane Friesen on a theology of culture from an Anabaptist perspective. The selections published here are from Friesen's book of the same title scheduled to be published this year by Herald Press.
Responses to Duane Friesen come first from Scott Holland, who teaches peace, public and cross cultural theologies at Bethany Theological Seminary in partnership with Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana. He is also a contributing editor to Cross Currents: The Journal of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life.
A second response is from Thomas Heilke, associate professor of political science at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He has written various articles on Anabaptist political thought, and continues to work on a book on the same topic.
Artists, Citizens, Philosophers: Seeking the Shalom of the City:
An Anabaptist Theology of Culture
Duane K. Friesen
Harmony or Polyphony? An Essay in Response to Friesen's Anabaptist Aesthetics
Scott Holland
Response to Duane Friesen
Thomas Heilke
We are pleased to bring our readers some excerpts from the new centennial history of Bluffton College by Perry Bush. The article presented here focuses on Bluffton’s experience of World Wars I and II. The article is based on excerpts from Dancing with the Kobzar: Bluffton College and Mennonite Higher Education, 1899-1999, soon to be published by Pandora Press U. S.
The Solidification of Nonresistance: Bluffton and World War, 1917-1945
Perry Bush
Mennonite Life consulting editor Ami Regier, assistant professor of English at Bethel College, has created a "multimedia colloquy" with poet Keith Ratzlaff, including images of Paul Klee paintings which have inspired Ratzlaff's poetry and audio files of Ratzlaff reading several of his poems.
A Multimedia Colloquy with Keith Ratzlaff
Two articles in this issue survey the state of Mennonites studies in the online environment. Richard Thiessen, Director of Learning Resources at Concord College in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and also the webmaster for the Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society, gives us a perspective from Canada, where the crown jewels of the online world are the Canadian Mennonite Encyclopedia Online and the genealogical resources on the Manitoba Mennonite Historical Society web site.
Tim Janzen, a physician of Portland, Oregon, who is also an active genealogical researcher, gives a U. S. perspective. The fact that Janzen's focus is genealogical indicates the nature of online and digital activities in Mennonite studies in the United States, with much activity centered on the discovery, publication, and organization of family history sources, especially with the GRANDMA project of the California Mennonite Historical Society.
Mennonite Studies in Canada: The Digital Environment
Richard Thiessen
Researching Mennonite-Related Topics on the Internet: A Perspective from the United States
Tim Janzen
We have an unusually large set of book reviews in this issue, perhaps reflecting renewed enthusiasm for Mennonite Life in its new guise.
Book Reviews
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