Jeffrey C. Long

The Kitchenhood of all believers: A Journey into the discourse of Mennonite Cookbooks.

“Within the expanding discipline of Mennonite studies, few scholars have paid any attention to the cultural and religious importance of Mennonite cookbooks. Yet when we consider how central food has been for Mennonites[2] over the years, we might expect to see a burgeoning literature pertaining to the ways in which such things as cookbook publication, food preparation, potlucking, food folklore and food relief efforts relate to the historical construction of Mennonite identity and theology. In the absence of any systematic attempt to grapple with the significance of Mennonite cookbooks, Katie Funk Wiebe finally threw down the gauntlet in 1999 when she declared,

“I believe one of the future records of the Mennonite history will be our cookbooks. . . . ”

Read the rest here

Taking Jesus Seriously

“Surely all Christians take Jesus seriously? To question this seems unnecessary, even offensive. But for many centuries the church has struggled with the radical teaching and example of Jesus.

The fourth-century shift of the church from the social margins to the centre made it increasingly difficult to hear and obey what he had taught. Christians had so much invested in the new status quo (which was supposedly Christian) that it was often easier to marginalise his teaching or to interpret it in ways that were quite bland and did not threaten those in authority or their own new status.

The Sermon on the Mount was especially problematic and various devices were used to evade its disruptive and costly teaching. Through the centuries, it was marginalised groups like the Anabaptists, with far less invested in the status quo, which provoked the church to look again at this passage and many others, to take Jesus seriously.

As Christendom comes to an end and churches in western culture become accustomed to being once more on the margins, there is a fresh opportunity to rediscover the radical teaching of Jesus and to explore ways of taking him seriously in many aspects of Christian discipleship.

This study course wrestles with many practical issues and focuses on the Sermon on the Mount.”

Available in PDF at the anabaptist network.

Leaving Munster: anabaptist resources for a post-Christendom world

also

Leaving Munster’s Anabaptist blog aggregator

Technorati Tags: Anabaptist, Mennonite