Changes bring Growth

TRANSITIONS:

Whatever Happened to Mennonite Brethren Churches?

       

By: HERBERT J. BRANDT

Price: $10.00

International Standard Book Number:  1-895308-29-1

Publication Date: May 1, 2012

Size: 5½ by 8½, 81 pages

From the Introduction:

Founded in 1860, the Mennonite Brethren Church has experienced many changes in its 150 years. That it has been in transition throughout its life is borne out both in its conference yearbooks and in its compilations of resolutions and recommendations. My account of changes in the church as well as conference is based primarily on my experiences during my eighty-seven years including sixty years of ministry in the church. I realize that my experiences may not necessarily apply to every local congregation or to individuals in these congregations. My perspective and interpretation of events and situations may differ from those of the reader. Nonetheless, my thoughts and experiences in the MBC may be of interest and even benefit to the generations that will follow.

I may well be justified in asking the question: Whatever happened to Mennonite Brethren Churches?... I believe that without change there is no growth; growth is necessary for the well-being of a church as well as for the individual. However, have all the transitions in MB churches led to their well-being and growth?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Herbert J. Brandt has spent some fifty years in ministry within the Mennonite Brethren  Conference. Prior to his calling to the pastorate, he worked as an educator within the Vancouver, BC school system. Herb is the founding pastor of the Killarney Park MB Church, Vancouver and the Richmond Bethel Church, Richmond, BC. He also served as pastor of the Willow Park Church, Kelowna and the Fraserview MB Church, Richmond, BC.

Herb and Anne live in Ladner, BC. They are both retired but still are active in volunteer work within the church and the community. They have four grown children (Roger, Janet [deceased], Frances and David; and five grandchildren.

New Testament Studies

New Testament Theology

Extending the Table

By Jon Isaak

 ISBN 10: 1-55635-293-X
ISBN 13: 978-1-55635-293-5
Pages: 404
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: 01/01/2011

Cascade Books
Category: Biblical studies

Retail Price: $44.00  

  

 Jon M. Isaak has served the Mennonite Brethren Church as missionary and professor since 1987. In Fresno, California he has taught New Testament Studies at Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary and Fresno Pacific University.  Jon is the Director of the Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies, Winnipeg. He is author of God Is One and God Is Fair: Studies in Paul's Letter to the Romans (2006).

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 Book Description

New Testament theology ought to be both descriptive and constructive-this is the argument of New Testament Theology: Extending the Table. According to Isaak, New Testament theology is descriptive in that it deals with the accounts that people narrate of their experience with Yahweh, the God of Israel, in the light of Easter. It is constructive in that it joins the diverse testimonies of the New Testament writers into a textured and thick space within which contemporary followers of Jesus continue to be shaped by the ancient yet living Spirit of God. Isaak's approach is historical, thematic, and theological in orientation. It explores the conversation taking place "around the table," where the writers of the NT share their guiding vision of God's saving work among them, and their passion for the Christian church engaged in God's mission. The differing perspectives of the New Testament authors are held together without reduction, forming a deep and rich space within which ongoing community reflection and praxis can take place.

"Isaak's model is an invigorating invitation to an ongoing conversation about God's activity in the world. We sit at a table with the NT writers, figures throughout history, and our own contemporaries. This is an intense, rewarding, and necessary discussion. Isaak is an adept moderator as we join others at the table."
—Greg A. Camp
Director of Biblical and Religious Studies
Fresno Pacific University

"Isaak's approach of listening to a biblical conversation is particularly accessible and engaging and brings the NT writers' texts to life in a unique way. It addresses the realities of contemporary questions with a firm grip on the biblical text and orthodoxy. It also allows the text to function authoritatively while calling for the dynamics of the community hermeneutic valued in the Anabaptist movement."
—David Wiebe
Executive Director
Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches

"Jon Isaak's New Testament Theology is a fine introduction to the thought of the writings of the New Testament and to the larger themes that run through these writings. The book helpfully points out the diversity and unity of theology within the New Testament. Isaak offers a rich menu at the table. Some readers will be enriched by it, others may suffer indigestion."
—John Toews
Professor Emeritus of New Testament
Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary

"With scintillating style, Jon Isaak sets forth a rigorously descriptive and constructive New Testament Theology from an Anabaptist-evangelical Christian perspective. Using Caird's metaphor of a conference table, Isaak 'listens' sensitively to the various historical-theological witnesses represented in the writings of the NT. Insightful diagrams, tables, and exercises focus the issues engaging the participants in conference table talk. I heartily recommend this fresh approach for classroom, group study, and personal enrichment."
—V. George Shillington
Professor Emeritus of Biblical and Theological Studies
Canadian Mennonite University

"Finally, a robust New Testament theology that remains accessible to the non-specialist. Isaak offers a way forward in this sometimes-beleaguered discipline, eschewing narrow polemics and engaging polarizing topics both conversationally and respectfully. He remains self-aware of his theological and critical perspectives but acknowledges, 'there are other valid receptions and interpretive frameworks,' an approach welcome in the context of theologically diverse classrooms."
—Michael J. Gilmour
Associate Professor of New Testament
Providence College (Canada)

"Imagine a round-table discussion involving the writers of the New Testament. Each writer shares deeply held theological convictions. After each has spoken comes the convener's constructive task of discerning common viewpoints among the diverse voices around the table. Isaak creatively utilizes this conference table image to craft this stimulating book. His readers will find themselves drawn into this conversation, as it continues among participants in God's creative and redemptive work today."
—Jacob W. Elias
Professor Emeritus of New Testament
Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary

"Missionary-teacher Jon Isaak writes confidently from the perspective of his life of service to the church and academic research to introduce New Testament readers to God's mission to save humans from sin through the power of the Lord Jesus and to issues raised by scholars."
—Lynn Jost
Dean of the Seminary
Fresno Pacific University

"In his New Testament Theology: Extending the Table Jon Isaak has invented a new kind of text book. Too often the rather boring, sometimes prideful, but necessary old kind of academic introduction (who wrote this, when, where, why . . . ?) has been ruthlessly separated from any thought about how the early Christian texts might today inform living faith and vital theological debate in our day. Isaak builds especially on the work of George Caird and of Luke T. Johnson, yet he also draws on his own Anabaptist sense of faithful conversation and charitable conflict. The result is an accessible yet gently challenging book which systematically introduces the writings of the New Testament as diverse voices in a theological conversation in which readers are also active yet mutually and biblically accountable participants. Historically and theologically, Isaak is generally respectful of traditional positions, occasionally he over-simplifies, but unlike some 'conservative' authors, he does not pretend that the conversation of theologies in and around the New Testament is always an easy harmony of voices. Readers, teachers, and groups will particularly appreciate the creative exercises and discussion topics at the end of each chapter. Isaak consistently articulates problems and proposes possible solutions with a candor that invites readers to discern, to argue, and even to disagree among themselves in a spirit of generous friendship. Isaak approaches the challenges of biblical scholarship in a way that is pastoral and evangelical in spirit without being defensive or evasive."
—Ian H. Henderson
Associate Professor of New Testament Studies
McGill University

Jesus and Paul before Christianity

Their World and Work in Retrospect
V. George Shillington

Retail Price: $27.00
Web Price: $21.60

ISBN: 978-1-60899-694-0
Pages: 244
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: 10/14/2011
Division: Cascade Books
Category: Biblical studies

About the Author

George Shillington is Professor Emeritus, Canadian Mennonite University and has spent many years teaching New Testament studies. He taught at M.B. Bible College/Concord College prior to the formation of CMU.

George and his wife Grace make their home in St. Andrews, near Winnipeg, MB.

Book Description

Who was the real founder of Christianity as it is known today—Jesus or Paul? What, if any, was the connection between them? These and other questions about the two historical figures have occupied biblical scholars and the Christian church for many years up to the present time. This book proposes new ways of framing the questions as well as new approaches to answering them.

Neither Jesus nor Paul spoke of a new world religion, separate from Judaism, that would envelop the planet and last for millennia. This study seeks to locate both figures in their respective places in the first century, in Jewish contexts and within the larger Greco-Roman society. The aim is to transcend the language and thought patterns of later generations of theologians in order to hear more clearly the prophetic voices of Jesus and Paul on their terms and in their social locations. By so doing, Shillington lays the groundwork for a more authentic translation of their vision and mission into modern alternatives, including better Jewish-Christian relations.

Comments about the Book

"Shillington has succeeded brilliantly in capturing both the uniqueness and commonality of Jesus and Paul. By respecting the integrity of the two figures, working with their terms in their time frames and historical contexts, he has enabled their respective witness and vision to emerge with vivid clarity and freshness of perspective. This is a book for the reasonable and responsible reader that addresses the best of recent scholarship. It will prove invaluable to students of Christian origins."
-William S. Campbell
University of Wales, Trinity Saint David

"George Shillington provides a map for those on the quest to understand Jesus and Paul, as well as the continuities and discontinuities between these two seminal figures, particularly in terms of Judaism. Perspectives old and new as well as his own suggestions are provided all along the way in this well-written, easy-to-follow guide."
-Mark D. Nanos
Rockhurst University

Wiebe, Collected Stories

"Best known as one of the province's pioneering authors, Rudy Wiebe's new release has the celebrated writer revisiting more than 50 years of writing fiction, from the story he wrote as a high school student to pieces he wrote this year.... Wiebe was born in Saskatchewan, where he spent his early childhood in a remote Mennonite village raised by parents who had escaped Stalinist Russia. But Wiebe moved to Alberta with his family when he was 12 years old. So he is best known as a pioneering Alberta author, a chronicler of Prairie life who often explores religion, community, nature and native stories in his writing. He has twice won the Governor General's Award for literature (for The Temptations of Big Bear, A Discovery of Strangers) and, as a creative writing teacher at the University of Alberta, helped groom Alberta literary stars such as Aritha van Herk, Myrna Kostash and Tom Wharton, who pens the introduction for this collection. But while Wiebe has traditionally shied away from discussing his legacy as a bedrock for Alberta literature, revisiting half a century of his short stories makes a self-examination inevitable.

From the Cover

For more than fifty years, Canadian literary legend Rudy Wiebe has been defining and refining prairie literature through his oeuvre of world-renowned novels, histories, essays, and short stories. He has introduced generations of readers far and wide to western Canadian Mennonite, aboriginal, and settler culture. Some say he “wrote the book” on historical prairie fiction. In fact, he’s written quite a few. This volume contains the fifty short stories that Wiebe completed between 1955 and 2010, including four previously unpublished stories. This is an essential book for aficionados of great world literature, fans of prairie fiction, and Wiebe’s faithful readers.

Rudy Wiebe was born in the Mennonite homestead community of Speedwell, east of Turtle Lake, Saskatchewan. Since the 1950s, he has been inspiring readers with over twenty-five books, including nine novels, four collections of stories, and ten creative nonfiction volumes of essays, biography, and autobiography. Wiebe received the Governor General’s Award for Fiction in 1973 for The Temptations of Big Bear and again in 1994 for A Discovery of Strangers. In 2004 he won the Charles Taylor Prize for his memoir, Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest. Wiebe is an Officer of the Order of Canada. He lives with his wife Tena in Edmonton, Alberta.

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Product Details Paperback: 552 pages Publisher: University of Alberta Press (October 31, 2006) Language: English ISBN-10: 0888645406 ISBN-13: 978-0888645401 Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.7 inches