“Transformation in the Bible is always communal, not individual,” said César García at Renewal 2024* in Curitiba, Brazil. It requires dialogue in the community, where diversity of position enables us to correct mistakes of the past to deepen our relationship with God in the years to come.”
In this spirit of dialogue and unity, members of three Anabaptist-Mennonite national churches worshipped together with international guests at Igreja Evangélica Irmãos Menonitas do Boqueirão – Cruz Verde in Curitiba, Brazil, 6 April 2024 for Mennonite World Conference’s Renewal event.
It occurred at the end of two days of workshops for church leaders and pastors of Mennonite churches in Brazil, where they discerned together how to continue working closer together in the future.
“MWC’s Renewal 2024in Curitiba is timely: Renewal is always timely,” said Paul Dück, representative of MWC member church COBIM (Convenção Brasileira das Igrejas Evangélicas Irmãos Menonitas).
“Most of us think about our local church. Then we think regionally: our national church. Only after that do we think of an international communion. The Renewal 2024 evening showed us different realities of being followers of Jesus: the suffering, the joy, the growth and opened our eyes that God’s work knows no barriers. As our churches become more diverse, we need to work more on jointly discerning God’s will. We are God’s work in progress.”
Inspiring speakers
Throughout the evening, MWC representatives from around the world shared how God is bringing people into communion with each other and with God.
Valentina Kunze (YABs Committee chair) from Uruguay shared that despite secularism in her country, God continues to show how God is real. At a beach summer camp, “I had the privilege of helping one girl say the repentance prayer and came to her baptism several months later.”
Southeast Asia regional representative Agus Mayanto from Indonesia shared a testimony of fostering 120 underprivileged and abused children. “Since we are saved by grace, we have this passion to have others experience this grace,” he said.
From Zimbabwe, regional representative Danisa Ndlovu, shared how a funeral service became a revival meeting when many shared how the deceased woman touched lives. She embodied Romans 14:8 “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.”
Executive Committee member Amos Chin shared about the civil war in Myanmar. “Yet, in the midst of extreme hardship, our members lived the Anabaptist teaching not to engage in armed violence. And God is at work – there’s no slowdown in church growth.”
“MWC brings people into one communion,” said Henk Stenvers, MWC president. “This communion is a gift from our God who wants to bring people together.”
Igreja Evangélica Irmãos Menonitas do Boqueirão – Cruz Verde in Curitiba, Brazil. Photo: Irma Sulistyorini
“My father and grandfather were involved in building this church,” said Karin Pankratz, who came with her mother that evening. “To see people from all over the world coming together and sharing stories in this church is remarkable.”
“Hearing directly the testimonies from around the world breaks down walls and gives us the opportunity to look beyond our borders. We can read these testimonies in MWC Info and Courier, but when the people are here, connecting directly with us, we remember and we learn more,” said Paul Dück.
* Renewal 2028 is a series of events commemorating the 500th anniversary of the beginnings of the Anabaptist movement. Each year, local churches host the event in a different region of the world.
Church visits allowed for more intimate conversations
Following Saturday’s event, 52 MWC guests attended 12 local Mennonite congregations in and around Curitiba. They preached, shared testimonies from their home countries, and responded to questions about MWC or about faith and life in another country.
“Everyone, especially our younger members, were touched by the visit and their testimonies. The vast majority of us did not have an idea of what MWC is, but after the visit everyone felt like they belonged in this global family.” —Marcos Assis, pastor of Igreja Evangélica Menonita Porto Amazonas
After the service at Igreja Evangélica Menonita Porto Amazonas, many young people spontaneously asked to join the MWC guests for lunch at the pastor’s house. “Meeting people from another place and hearing about their country, their family, their church and how they live their faith caught everyone’s attention.” —Dietmar Kliewer, AIMB vice-president; interpreter at Igreja Evangélica Menonita de Imbituva
“We really enjoyed hearing what God has done in Mennonite churches around the world. I’d mentioned it other times, but with someone from the outside speaking it, church members are awakened to learn about how MWC works. They want to learn more about Mennonites at global level. The message shared was profound and brings us hope.” —André Mendes, pastor, Igreja Evangélica Menonita de Imbituva
Some MWC staff and Regional representative visited AEM Conference, Brazil, in April 2024.
Continues shaping networks, adding membership and supporting learning and action in member churches
Funding for theological education and carbon tax small grants was passed at the annual meeting of Mennonite World Conference’s Executive Committee meeting, 8-11 April 2024 in Curitiba, Brazil.
Two new funds
For many years, MWC member churches have called for more opportunities for Anabaptist-rooted theological training. “Now that the majority of our Anabaptist membership is in the Global South, we have a huge need to do theology, forming an Anabaptist identity in each context. We need to develop strong Anabaptist identities, focused on the centrality of Christ,” said César García, MWC general secretary.
The Theological Education Fund will offer scholarships for theological training for pastors and other church leaders in places where Anabaptist theological education is difficult to find, specifically in the Global South. “We hope this will help leadership in our global communion more closely reflect the vision of Revelation 7 of a great multitude from every nation and people and language,” said César García.
The Executive Committee also approved the creation of Carbon Tax Small Grant Fund. Since 2010, MWC has set aside a carbon tax surcharge on all organizational air travel. The funds collected over the years will now be available to national member churches in the Global South to implement creation care projects with direct relevance to reducing carbon emissions.
“The intent of the surcharge is to 1) acknowledge the impact of air travel in a concrete way, 2) publicly demonstrate MWC’s commitment to taking care of God’s creation,” says Doug Graber Neufeld, Creation Care Task Force chair, who joined the meetings in Brazil via Zoom. “We’re pleased to offer a way to use the funds for an activity that in some way offsets the impact of flying.”
Strengthening networks, expanding membership
Over the last decade, MWC Executive Committee approved the placement of several emerging networks in MWC: Global Anabaptist Education Networks (GAEN), Global Anabaptist Health Network (GAHN), and Global Anabaptist Peace Network (GAPN). At these meetings, they approved a revised Terms of Reference (TOR) that explains how the networks interact with Commissions. The new TOR includes a different fee structure and provides greater clarity on the composition and organizational structure of the Networks.
The Executive Committee also affirmed a proposal for constitutional change that will make room for Young Anabaptist (YABs) delegates to become members of the General Council, which will be tabled at next year’s General Council meeting. Saskia Horsch of Germany was confirmed as YABs representative for Europe as Gaëlle Oesch stepped down in 2023.
Two new membership applications were also accepted: the Association of Christian Mennonite Brethren Churches of Ukraine (AMBCU) and Kanisa La Mennonite La Kiinjili Tanzania (KMKT – Evangelical Church of Tanzania). This brings MWC’s worldwide membership to 110 member churches in more than 10,000 congregations in 60 countries, with over 1.5 million baptized members.
Ecumenical relations
In preparation for the 500th anniversary commemoration events, the Executive Committee approved a joint statement with the World Communion of Reformed Churches. An international team of five theologians from each communion drafted “a common statement of confession, gratitude and commitment” to be presented at the event 29 May 2025.
The Executive Committee approved the 2023 financial report and 2024 budget. It also considered proposals with the potential to redefine aspects of membership in MWC.
In addition to decision-making sessions, the Executive Committee also had equipping sessions. Faith and Life Commission chair Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld gave three sessions on the new tagline: following Jesus, living out unity, building peace. Conflict, change and leadership consultant Betty Pries of Canada facilitated strategic planning for 2025-2031.
Jeremiah Choi, MWC regional representative for North Asia, retired as lead pastor of Agape Mennonite Church in Hong Kong in November 2023. Elina Ciptadi (MWC Interim Chief Communications Officer) sat down with him at the Executive Committee meetings in Curitiba, Brazil, in April 2024, to gather his reflections on this transition period.
“The calling has to come first. One shouldn’t be a pastor if not called and passionate about it,” says Jeremiah Choi.
Being a pastor is more a calling than a profession. So how does one retire?
“Pastors need to look at our limitations as we get older. We need to evaluate our health, cognitive ability, physical strength. I have to admit that I don’t remember as many details as I was able to in the past. I don’t want the church to be disadvantaged because of that,” he says.
“This is why a succession plan is important and should be included in the church regulation.”
“Even if the church feels they still need you and want to keep you longer, it should be reviewed on a yearly basis. It should not be a given that one person will stay as lead pastor for life. Every church must plan for succession,” he says.
What Jeremiah Choi found gratifying in preparing for retirement was the ability to mentor his successor.
“We still meet regularly in a mentor-mentee relationship. He is the lead pastor as well as the youth pastor. (The church is small and can only afford one pastor.) It’s time for him to lead.”
Although no longer senior pastor at Agape Mennonite, Jeremiah Choi continues to serve as consultant pastor on a voluntary basis. He also represents the congregation to the other two Mennonite churches in Hong Kong.
Jeremiah Choi, Jeremiah’s daughter Esther Choi and Elina Ciptadi.
“This is probably one day a week of my time. What’s different is that I no longer have responsibility to care for all church members, being in charge of everything. As one of two voluntary pastors in the church, I now focus on the senior citizen ministry of the church while the other volunteer works more on women’s ministry,” he says.
Within his capacity as representative to the three Mennonite churches in Hong Kong, Jeremiah Choi hopes to grow the Mennonite church as a denomination in Hong Kong. “Every lead pastor of the three churches is focused on the work of their local church, and I’m happy to be able to help on how the three churches can collaborate on growing the denomination.”
Besides his roles in his local and national church, Jeremiah Choi serves as the MWC North Asia regional representative, covering Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
“Being connected to MWC makes us realize that we are not alone. We have brothers and sisters around the world who pray for us, stand with us in solidarity, and also support us in practical ways when we are in need,” he says.
“Our church remembers this visit very fondly,” says Jeremiah Choi.
“MWC’s work in promoting connection between churches and shaping our Anabaptist identity have greatly benefited our church. Many small churches like ours don’t have the resources for this, but we know we can rely on MWC or other churches to use existing materials. I look forward to continuing to serve with MWC.”
Jeremiah Choi (far left) and Siaka Traoré (fourth from the right) with the group at the Solo satellite location for Assembly 17. Photo: Esterningsih Djihartono
When we are in need: Burkina Faso’s gift to Hong Kong
Those connections between churches produced a gift that touches his heart still.
Among the first to introduce measures against infections from COVID-19, Hong Kong had a shortage of masks in early 2020. Jeremiah Choi put out a call for masks to the global church.
West Africa regional representative Siaka Traoré was the first to respond.
“Siaka had to walk far to the city to buy those masks and send them to us. Then brothers and sisters in India also sent us masks.
“The care extended to us really touched the church members,” he said.
About MWC national member church: the Conference of Mennonite Churches in Hong Kong
The Conference of Mennonite Churches in Hong Kong consists of three Mennonite congregations in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China that is home to 7 million people. Following Mennonite Central Committee relief work with mainland Chinese refugees in the 1950s and North America mission workers starting in the 1960s, the church was officially established in 1985.
The MWC Assembly in Ethiopia in 2028 takes its first steps toward celebration with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) and appointment of a national advisory council.
From 11-17 January 2024, MWC leaders Liesa Unger (Chief International Events Officer), Sunoko Lin (treasurer), Lisa Carr-Pries (vice president) and Henk Stenvers (president) visited Ethiopia. They met with local leaders from MWC member Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) and viewed potential venues in Addis Ababa and Bishoftu.
Four representatives were appointed to the national advisory council (NAC) with one appointment pending.
Tewodros Beyene, chair
Tewodros Moges, vice chair
Tigist Tesfaye, recording secretary
Aboma Tefera, communications representative
[pending], youth representative
The national advisory council is composed of representatives of the member conference to whom it is responsible. Its role is to provide counsel to MWC on planning the Assembly, to assure participation from the host conference, to assess the gifts MKC can contribute, to initiate local fundraising, and to communicate about the event with local congregations.
An MKC congregation in Ethiopia. Photo: Henk Stenvers
“It is an honour to host the 2028 MWC that coincides with the 500th anniversary of the Mennonite movement,” says Desalegn Abebe. Mennonite World Conference commemorates 500 years since the first Anabaptist baptisms in Zurich, Switzerland, with a 10-year series of Renewal events from 2017-2028). “MKC will do everything at its capacity to make the conference memorable and inspirational,” he says.
“We are pleased to celebrate this historic event in Ethiopia, home to the largest single MWC national member church,” says Henk Stenvers. “Expressions of Anabaptism today are vibrant and growing around the world, particularly in Africa.”
MWC global Assemblies often take place in July. However, Ethiopia’s rainy season makes that an unsuitable time. January (coinciding with the holiday season for Coptic Christmas in Ethiopia) April (Easter) and (August) are potential times for the global gathering.
“We look forward to welcoming thousands of Anabaptist-Mennonites from around the world for five days of worship, learning, experiences and building relationship across cultures in Ethiopia in 2028,” says Liesa Unger.
“…Making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).
A global fellowship, 109 national churches, 58 countries, some 10 000 congregations, 1.4 million members, 45 languages: can that ever be unified?
The church is often called the body of Christ. A physical body needs different organs to function. And so it is with the church: you need diversity to function, to be a whole entity.
So it is also in the world communion. Depending on their place in the world, depending on their context, MWC member churches are different. So they can support each other and learn from each other.
Being a faith community in the Netherlands is very different from being in Indonesia or in Myanmar. Living as a very small minority in a country where another religion is by far the majority or in a country torn by violence of civil war is different from living in a country where there has been no war for more than 70 years and where there is freedom of religion.
Old communities have different challenges than new ones, and in that too we can learn from each other and encourage each other.
This unity in diversity is very vulnerable. Too easily we protest that the other does not belong to us because they do not live the faith exactly as we do or because they read the Bible differently than we do.
But Scripture says that unity is given by the Spirit: who are we to break it?
So you have to make an effort, to look for connection rather than separation. And we must have courage to endure one another even when we disagree. For it is the “mortar” of one God and one Spirit that binds together our disparate pieces into a picture of beautiful diversity.
This is how we came to set out the 7 shared convictions of Mennonite World Conference. It took 13 years to get those formulated and approved by consensus in the General Council. Among other things, we wrote down the values we share about God, the Bible, Jesus, peace witness and about worship.
If that sense of connection based on convictions is our basis, then we can talk about the differences. We can approach each other without judging, but instead with interest in what concerns the other.
And if we are brave enough to hold that, we can make a beautiful mosaic, showing the world that we can reach across human borders of nationality, colour, language and more to live in peace with each other.
—Henk Stenvers is president of Mennonite World conference (2022-2028). He delivered this address on Anabaptist World Fellowship Sunday to his local congregation of Doopsgezinde Gemeente Bussum-Naarden, in the Netherlands.
It was 7 October 2023. Husband and wife Simon Setiawan and Sarah Yetty, members of Jemaat Kristen Indonesia (JKI) church from Indonesia, were in Egypt, leading a tour group of more than 40 people from Indonesia and the United States intending to enter Israel-Palestine. They heard about the Hamas attacks on Israel in the early morning. They were concerned about the safety of their tour participants. The Indonesian embassies in Egypt and Jordan were on the phone with them, telling them not to go into Israel.
“After speaking with embassy officers and getting an update from our local partners, we explained the situation to the group. We said we would follow whatever the participants thought was best,” says Simon Setiawan. “The vast majority wanted to continue, upon getting assurances from our local partners that our adjusted routes were in the safe zones.”
So that day, they entered Israel through the Taba Border, crossing into the resort town of Eilat. The wait to cross the border was long. There were more soldiers than usual at the checkpoint. The officers were friendly albeit tense. One officer asked, “You know what’s happening in Israel, right?” and was surprised when the group said they still wanted to enter. The streets were quiet, with only two other tour groups to be seen.
From there, they went north, adjusting their plans according to the latest security updates. On one occasion, they stayed in their hotel because they heard there was a disturbance locally. In another occasion, their plan to stay overnight in Bethlehem was diverted to Jerusalem for security reasons. But they managed to visit Jericho, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, meeting a few other tour groups.
They are making plans to go again this year, subject to the security situation on the ground. “Because we love the Holy Land,” Simon says.
Longing to visit the Holy Land
In 2009, for the first time, Simon Setiawan and Sarah Yetty signed up to go to the Holy Land with their church.
“We’d been wanting to go to the Holy Land for a long time, but we knew it was way beyond our means,” says Yetty, “I was a kindergarten teacher and Simon was helping out with the church’s mission program. We didn’t have much.”
They renewed their expired passports and prayed daily for a miracle.
“Three months before the tour departed, a woman from a Presbyterian church that we never met before paid for our tour in full. She said she had a dream a month earlier whereby she saw someone in a shiny white robe coming to her and telling her to bless a couple to visit the Holy Land,” Sarah Yetty says.
“And then Simon says that because someone paid our way, we have to serve.”
God will be with you
When they relayed this to their pastor, he said they could be tour leaders. “Even though we said we had absolutely no experience, he said we’ll be alright and God would be with us.
“That was our first time, and we absolutely loved it,” Simon Setiawan says.
On that first trip, they led a tour with 11 buses, about 500 people. They had to split the group and go in different directions, with Sarah Yetty leading one team and Simon Setiawan taking the rest.
“We departed with only USD$20 in our pocket. But God kept blessing us, like everyday manna,” Sarah Yetty says.
“After that first trip, the senior pastor asked us to calculate the expenses to visit the Holy Land and set up a business specializing in Holy Land tours. We were also told to study more about the Holy Land and took training about how to run Holy Land tours. Since then, we committed ourselves to offering affordable tours of the Holy Land, so that pastors and church workers, especially those from small towns and villages, could get a chance to go there,” Simon Setiawan says.
“I love taking groups there, being on the land where Jesus was and seeing the Bible come to life. But more importantly, I love being on the tour bus listening to people’s testimonies: of a marriage that has almost ended up in divorce until they arrived in Cana and decided to reconcile. Of a doctor who walked up Mt Sinai with me, and only after reaching the top did he confess to having his 13th stent placed in his arteries just a week prior,” says Simon Setiawan.
“I always say that this is not just a tour – it’s a pilgrimage. Pray that whatever God’s plan is for you on this trip, your eyes will be open to see that,” he says.
We long for peace
“Our prayer is for peace for the people in Israel and Palestine,” says Simon Setiawan.
“Everyone is emotionally invested in the Holy Land. When there is a bit of instability, the whole world hears about it and got scared. When they’re scared, they don’t come, and the local tourism industry suffers, especially workers who live within the Palestinian Authority areas (Jericho, Bethlehem, Ramallah),” says Simon Setiawan.
“We want local industries to thrive, and for ordinary people to be able to live their lives without fear. The people want stability, safety, on both sides. And this is what we wish for them too,” say Simon Setiawan and Sarah Yetty.
—Interim Chief Communications Officer Elina Ciptadi spoke with Simon Setiawan and Sarah Yetty about their experience.
Lord, have mercy!
Christ, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!
When, O Lord, will we learn that peace does not come through force?
When, O Lord, will we learn that peace does not come through fighting?
When, O Lord, will we learn that peace does not come by conquering others?
When, O Lord, will we learn that peace does not come through mechanisms of death?
We look on with horror at the ever-escalating violence that grips the people and their nations in the Middle East.
We mourn the faith placed in military might.
We mourn the faith placed in weapons that supposedly vanquish enemies, but only perpetuate cycles of violence.
We mourn the faith placed in violence, as if that can bring about right relationships.
Christians are called to embody a faith that seeks the welfare of others, not their demise.
Christians are called to embody a faith that lays down our arms instead of participating in the ever-increasing cycle of violence.
Christians are called to embody the ways of peace, not violence, as our journey of faith.
Christians are called to love our enemies – or refuse to have enemies – and reach across barriers to build bridges of respect, mutuality and conciliation even with those who may be hostile.
Christians are called to participate in a faith that follows and seeks to live out the ways of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.
And Christians are called to invite others, including those of other faiths, to seek alternatives to violence and live into a different future where all can encounter life and well-being.
Rockets will not bring peace.
Invasion will not bring peace.
Violence will not bring peace.
Enough! Basta! Ça suffit !
God, the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Reverend Bleise Nzamba, legal represntative of Igreja da Comunidade Menonita em Angola (ICMA), died 30 March 2024. He served Mennonite World Conference on the General Council in Indonesia 2022 and Kenya 2018.
Reverend Bleise Nzamba studied at Nyanga College in DR Congo, where he was also baptized in the Mennonite church. In 2013, he graduated from theological studies at Instituto Superior no Huambo in Angola, and he received a master’s degree in theology from Logos Faculdade Batista in 2024.
He was ordained as Reverend Pastor in the Igreja da Comunidade Menonita em Angola. In 2010, he was appointed Superintendent of the Ecclesiastical Province of Luanda until the end of his mandate in December 2013.
From 2014 to 2017, he held the position of Deputy Legal Representative of the ICMA.
In December 2017, he was elected to the position of Legal Representative of the ICMA and was re-elected to the same position at the VIII Elective General Assembly in December 2023 in the city of Dundo, Province of Lunda-Norte.
In 2023, he was appointed President of the Partner Council in Angola of the Africa Inter – Mennonite Mission (AIMM).
“The fruit of his labours are evident in what God is doing in the Mennonite Community in Angola,” declares the Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission newsletter.
“We are grateful for the service of church leaders and we mourn with those who have lost a mentor and friend. We pray for wisdom as the ICMA church discerns a new leader for the role of legal representative. May the members of ICMA continue to walk in faithfulness to Jesus, living as peacemakers and sharing the gospel,” says César García.
Reverend Bleise Nzamba is mourned by his wife, Reverend Mahamba Leontina, three children and five grandchildren.
USA
I grew up in Guatemala in evangelical and Pentecostal churches. Our songs, Sunday school teachings and sermons were filled with Christian Zionist theology that declares God’s will to be the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The duty of Christians is to support Israel. Some churches even display an Israeli flag in their sanctuary.
There and in evangelical and Hispanic Mennonite congregations in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and Goshen, Indiana, USA, our worship included songs about the God of Israel who cuts the heads off our enemies. Our readings were primarily from the Old Testament which depicted violence and genocide.
In our worship, we celebrated the deaths of the enemies of Israel.
I was taught to believe that the nation and state of Israel were the people of God. It was sinful to question this belief.
No surprise
It is of no surprise to me that many who come from similar theological frameworks do not question the actions of the Israeli government in this current moment.
They see the state of Israel as a David coming up against a Goliath. They believe that Israel continues to be the little biblical nation it once was and not the world superpower it is now.
I held that Zionist vision of Israel for most of my life. That is, until I studied history and theology at Goshen College in the Hispanic Ministries program.
Theology professors such as Juan (John) Driver and Ron Collins were patient enough to help me deconstruct these violent narratives and reconstruct a new Anabaptist peace theology with a different vision of God, Jesus and Israel.
I learned that the Bible is not flat. There is a mountain in the gospels, where we stand with Jesus and can see and understand the rest of the Bible through Jesus’ teachings, vision and mission.
So, when my Hispanic/Latino(a) brothers and sisters opposed a “Seeking Peace in Israel and Palestine” resolution at the Mennonite Church USA convention in 2015, I knew exactly where that opposition came from.
Come and see
In that instant, I decided to join the “Come and See” Israel-Palestine Working Group (composed of Anabaptist agencies and organizations).
The objective of the working group was to educate leaders about Palestine and Israel and to join a learning tour of the Holy Land which included a visit to both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
More than 110 Mennonite leaders signed up, including most of my Hispanic/Latina(o) brothers and sisters walked to the microphone at the convention in 2015.
Some stated, “I am pro-Israel and will not change my mind.” But that mindset was challenged as we listened to stories from people on both sides of the Israeli separation wall.
In 2017, I again joined a learning tour group. It included leaders from MC USA Iglesia Menonita Hispana (Hispanic Mennonite Church), a few Anglo Mennonite leaders and an African American couple.
In addition to visiting the typical Christian “holy sites,” we went behind the walls which very few visitors cross. We walked through checkpoints, reminding us of the challenges undocumented members of our congregations face in the USA.
We visited Palestinian refugee camps and Israeli settlements.
We enjoyed the hospitality of Christian Palestinian sisters and brothers near Bethlehem, and listened to stories from Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. At Bethlehem Bible College, we learned about the complex Christian theological perspectives on the land.
We planted olive trees in the West Bank, near Israeli settlements (built against international law). The settlers wanted to displace the Christian Palestinian farmers.
We learned that the conflict is not Muslim-Jewish, or Jewish-Palestinian, it is between the State of Israel and anyone who opposes the expansion of its occupation – even against Jewish people of conscience who oppose illegal expansion and the displacement of Palestinians.
Apartheid experience
We began to get a sense of the apartheid experience as soon as we arrived, seeing the strong segregation and oppression of Palestinians under a brutal military occupation.
We felt the tensions and racial segregation. We, Latinas(os), share some physical features with ethnic groups in the Middle East (I was constantly asked if I was Lebanese).
As we passed through Israeli immigration and customs, one woman was held for interrogation. She had been so excited and joyful as we landed. But when she came out of the immigration and customs area, she was almost in tears.
Three days into the learning tour, the African American woman in our group wanted to return to the U.S. She felt unsafe, referencing the Jim Crow times in the USA.
By the end of our Come and See learning tour, we were not able to consider the single story of our Christian Zionist upbringings anymore.
Our belief system and theology had been changed.
Commitment to peace
At the Mennonite Church USA convention in 2017, Hispanic Mennonite and People of Color leaders were some of the first to approach the microphone to speak in support of the Seek Peace resolution.
But our new narratives held the complexity of the stories we heard and of the shared humanity of Palestinians and Israelis.
We committed to read and study The Kairos Document put together by our Christian brothers and sisters in Palestine and Israel.
We committed to speak out!
As we witness the atrocities of the recent violence in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, I am reminded of that commitment.
This is the time to use our Christian political leverage to call for a permanent ceasefire and a just resolution to the conflict.
This is the time to embrace complexity in a world where media often simplifies narratives, promotes misinformed stories and fuels conflict.
This is a moment to relentlessly seek peace.
—Saulo Padilla is migration education coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee’s U.S. National Peace & Justice Ministries.
“There should be justice. They should pay for the terrible wrong they have done.” These and other similar phrases have been repeated in the news in recent months.
In my country, Colombia, I have heard the same sentences too many times on the lips of Christians who claim to follow Jesus, the God who chose compassion over retaliation, the one who taught us to give to our enemies and even oppressors, not what they deserve but what they need.
While I reflect on the images of the atrocities caused by the war in uncountable places in the world, I remember the words of a wise Jewish rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, who served as Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013. Let me quote some of his writings here:
“It is our task [of the Abrahamic faith] to be a blessing to the world…. To invoke God to justify violence against the innocent is not an act of sanctity but of sacrilege. It is a kind of blasphemy. It is to take God’s name in vain.”1
“Nothing is more dispiriting than the cycle of revenge that haunts conflict zones and traps their populations into a past that never relaxes its grip. That has been the fate of the Balkans, Northern Ireland, India and Kashmir, the Middle East…. Retaliation is the instinctual response to perceived wrong.… Historic grievances are rarely forgotten. They become part of a people’s collective memory…. It is this that makes forgiveness so counterintuitive an idea. It is more than a technique of conflict resolution. It is a stunningly original strategy. In a world without forgiveness, evil begets evil, harm generates harm, and there is no way short of exhaustion or forgetfulness of breaking the sequence. Forgiveness breaks the chain.”2
Rabbi Sacks observes – as does anyone who has considered the conflict in Israel-Palestine – that the issues are complex. It would have been implemented if it had been simple to find a solution acceptable to the major parties.
There are long memories involved: Israelis think about “2,000 years of Jewish suffering and the existential need for Jews to have, somewhere on earth, defensible space,” Rabbi Sacks writes, and Palestinians remember “displacement and loss, political impotence and economic hardship, of humiliating defeat and anger.”3
As each group attempts to protect their own space, their attempts to secure it sometimes result in harm that affects the other and turns back on themselves. “Forgiveness seems absurdly inadequate to substantive conflicts of interest and the sheer momentum of suspicion, distrust and cumulative grievance,” Rabbi Sacks writes.
“Yet in the end peace is made, if at all, then by people who acknowledge the personhood of their opponents. Until Israelis and Palestinians are able to listen to one another, hear each other’s anguish and anger and make cognitive space for one another’s hopes, there is no way forward [… As a Jew] I honour the past not by repeating it but by learning from it – by refusing to add pain to pain, grief to grief. That is why we must answer hatred with love, violence with peace, resentment with generosity of spirit and conflict with reconciliation.”4
As I write these words, the cycle of violence and retaliation continues to deepen. It is almost impossible to say anything about that situation without angering someone somewhere, as was the case with the Reconciling response to war in the Middle East statement we wrote in October 2023. And yet, we are called to respond, as a Global Communion, to this and many other terrible scenarios of war we see today. That is why we invite you, in this issue of Courier, to reflect on understanding biblical messages in terms of today’s realities.
Yes, amid terrible atrocities, people, whoever they are, have the right to demand that the perpetrators get what they deserve for what they have done. But, thanks to God, it does not have to be that way. Thanks to God, Jesus shows us another way.
—César García is general secretary of Mennonite World Conference. Originally from Colombia, he lives in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
1. Not in God’s Name, 5.
2. The Dignity of Difference, 178-79.
3. Ibid., 189-190.
4.Ibid., 189-190.
Bibliography
Sacks, Jonathan. The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations. London: Bloomsbury, 2003.
———. Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence. First American edition. ed. New York: Schocken Books, 2015.
Germany
After high school, I spent a year in the Israeli-Occupied West Bank, living and working at Tent of Nations, a Palestinian Christian ecological peace project. I learned many things during this time: from cooking on an open fire and caring for animals to recovering from tear gas by smelling raw onion.
But the most transformative and lasting learnings concerned how I understand and follow Jesus.
It was Palestinian Christians who taught me to see that Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem are real places whose histories shaped Jesus. His context, plagued by military, economic and cultural oppression, was not so different from the situation of Palestinians growing up today in refugee camps in the West Bank or Gaza. Now as then, injustice breeds resentment and repression creating spirals of violence and complex patterns of trauma which seem inescapable.
Solidarity with the oppressed
It is in this wounded world that God chose to come and be in solidarity with the oppressed and model a different way to struggle for dignity and freedom – one that sets both victim and oppressor free.
The Nassars, my Palestinian Lutheran hosts, taught me how to put Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies into practice. On boulders originally placed by Israeli soldiers as a roadblock they wrote their manifesto: “We refuse to be enemies.”
I witnessed Daher Nassar invite armed settlers who broke into his land for tea, causing them to retreat confused. At the same time, the Nassars refused to give up on their connection to the land and their dream of a shared future for all.
The Jewish and Muslim members of Bereaved Parents Circle also taught me a new understanding of forgiveness. As they came together to mourn the deaths of their children in the conflict, they realized that retaliation did not bring life. Only forgiveness had the power to set people free from bitterness, free to work for liberation for all.
Reconciliation over recrimination
Having witnessed these living stones before me helped me honestly face my own entanglement in this conflict. Both my grandfathers fought in the Nazi army and contributed to the murder of six million Jews in Europe. Jews refer to this atrocity as the Shoah, a Hebrew word meaning “catastrophe.” This heinous crime against humanity represents the culmination of 2 000 years of dehumanization and terror toward Jews.
It bears repeating that this violence was perpetrated out especially by Christians. Gentiles who forgot that they were adopted into God’s people by grace.
Antisemitism is the trauma that created the need for a Jewish state. Yet this state was not founded on “empty land,” as the common colonial trope goes, but by displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, whose children and grandchildren still live as stateless refugees around the world. Palestinians refer to this as the “Nakba” – Arabic for “catastrophe”.
These twin catastrophes are the foundational wounds of the two people, and as is common with wounds, we usually pay more attention to our own.
Stories that unsettle
In conversations with Israeli and Palestinian peace activists, I was humbled to learn that owning my legacy of my entanglement in violence did not taint me. Instead, it opened up conversations about what repentance and reconciliation can look like.
These activists shared about their slow and painful realization that they had been lied to. While the Shoah was central to Israeli education, they had never learned about the Nakba.
Meanwhile, Palestinian schools portrayed the Zionists only as colonizers, while omitting that they were fleeing genocidal violence in Europe.
From the peace activists, I learned the importance of sharing our stories and allowing for another’s truth to unsettle us. To work for a just and lasting peace between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, we must repent both of our deep-seated antisemitism as well as our colonial imagination and resist their manifestations in our societies today.
There is an image that grounds my hope. Each year, the Nassars invited people to the vineyard to help with the harvest and provide a nonviolent deterrence to settler violence. I remember harvesting buckets and buckets of the sweetest grapes I have ever eaten together with dozens of volunteers from around the world – including some Israelis.
Both the Israelis and my Palestinian hosts took considerable risks in this encounter as there are people on both sides adamantly opposed to any form of coexistence. Yet they consciously took the risk, because they were convicted that peace requires relationships of trust and solidarity that only grow with time and shared labour.
The joy at this harvest and the feast of hummus, olives, and falafel at lunch break has become a foretaste of the kin-dom of heaven I cherish and long to taste again.
—Benjamin Isaak-Krauß co-pastors with his spouse Rianna at Mennonitengemeinde Frankfurt, a congregation of Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mennonitischer Gemeinden (AMG) in Germany. He represents the Deutsche Mennonitische Friedenskomitee (German Mennonite Peace Committee) on the steering committee of Community Peacemaker Teams.
Mennonite World Conference has no formally associated Anabaptist member churches in the Middle East. This was a missiological decision not to start another church in a region replete with variety.
However, Palestinian Christians are a witness to the Mennonite communion around the world. Where theory meets reality, they have shown those who are paying attention what it is to be faithful to Jesus’ call to nonviolence.
Since 7 October 2023, the eyes of the world have been turned to the Middle East where an act of violence and violation has unleashed a flood of death and destruction.
As Christians, we may look to our Bibles to interpret today’s realities in light of long ago promises.
The answer to this question is different for each faith community, says Dorothy Jean Weaver. A Jewish community’s answers arise from the Hebrew Bible, but as Christians, we are called to live out of the new covenant where geography is “no longer a factor for the disciples of Jesus.”
She joined several Mennonite scholars with experience in the region to reflect on what we read today.
A trajectory of inclusion
Starting in Genesis 12, we see the trajectory of inclusion that can be followed throughout Scripture, says J. Nelson Kraybill. It speaks of blessing and cursing but of these coming through the people of Israel to others.
“In Amos 9:7, God frees not only the Israelites, but also other people, even those who are considered the enemy of Israel,” adds Paulus Widjaja.
“One of the themes that comes through in the Old Testament in passages like Leviticus 26 or Jeremiah 7 is that covenant with God’s people is contingent upon acting justly,” says J. Nelson Kraybill.
“Jesus then picks up on Isaiah’s vision of all nations streaming toward the mountain of the Lord’s house (Isaiah 2:2) when he says the Temple Mount is supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations (Matthew 21:13),” says J. Nelson Kraybill.
Matthew (which is a very Jewish Gospel) ends with the disciples leaving Jerusalem, leaving Galilee and going to make disciples of all the nations, says Dorothy Jean Weaver.
And the very same thing happens in the Gospel of Luke. There’s a lot of focus on Jerusalem in the early story of Jesus, but by the end and even more so in Acts, “the gospel is moving from Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth,” says Dorothy Jean Weaver
A different framework
“Let Gaza Live,” artwork by Leyla Barkman
There is sometimes a problem of ignorance even among some Christians, says Paulus Widjaja. “The Israel in the Bible and the modern State of Israel are two different things. We cannot just bring it together as if the modern Israel is the biblical Israel.”
“What makes me sad is that what has been created today is hatred, not love. Both Israelis and Palestinians have become victims,” says Paulus Widjaja.
“According to Leviticus, the land is God’s – people are tenants and aliens in the land,” says Alain Epp Weaver. This applies whether talking about Israel or North America or any place.
“Remember, as Mennonites, we have historically rejected the idea of the nation state and the sovereignty of kings,” says Jonathan Brenneman.
“If we read the Bible carefully, Abraham was chosen not for himself but to bless others,” says Paulus Widjaja.
“And in the New Testament, we see that these ideas are being taken and broadened to include the people of God who are followers of Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:19, 1 Peter 2:9),” adds Dorothy Jean Weaver.
“The test of whether we are faithful stewards of the land we inhabit is whether we are doing justice in the land. We need a humane theology for Israel and Palestine, a theology that recognizes the image of God and each person – in Israeli, Palestinian, Muslim, Christian, Jew. God calls people to do justice and to stand against the violence of the nation-state that mars that image of God,” says Alain Epp Weaver.
“As an Anabaptist, I seek deeply for a transnational, grassroots, non-state-based system. It’s not related to ethnicity. There’s no justification for violence in the life of any Christian because we follow one who – even in his capture by the imperial army (the cops) – said ‘it’s not coming in through violence’ and healed Malchus’ ear (John 18:10),” says Sarah Nahar.
“Reading the Bible through to Revelation, we find our call to be egalitarian, boundary-breaking groups of people who are living with integrity with deep respect for the land and each other,” she says.
“It’s a call to complexity, not simplicity. We seek to be people living without a need to control others,” says Sarah Nahar.
“White churches of European heritage inherit legacies of anti-Jewish theologies that say that God has repudiated the Jewish people. We need to examine and reject anti-Jewish theologies which have fueled antisemitism,” says Alain Epp Weaver.
“Antisemitism historically has been part and parcel of European colonialism and racism. As Anabaptists, we need to stand firmly against antisemitism as a forms of racism,” says Alain Epp Weaver.
Readers of Scripture everywhere have the same call: love mercy, seek justice, free the oppressed, release the captives, declare Jubilee (Micah 6:8),” says Jonathan Brenneman.
The answer to ‘who is chosen’ is in the Beatitudes: blessed are the peacemakers; blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; blessed are the poor (Matthew 5:3-10).
“Blessed are those who are oppressed, basically,” says Jonathan Brenneman.
Some commentators, including human rights organizations, have referred to the Middle East today as an apartheid reality. How can Mennonites support a place where all people, Palestinian and Israeli, can sit securely under vine and fig tree (Micah 4:4)?
“It’s very hard to see what road map can chart a path from the current reality of violence and structural discrimination toward a future reality in the land in which both Palestinian and Israeli peoples can live freely, securely and at peace,” says Alain Epp Weaver.
“We pray, we support Palestinians and Israelis who are working to bring down the dividing walls that keep people from seeing each other as children of God and those dividing walls. We need to stand against the dividing walls in our hearts – and against the very physical walls erected by the Israeli state – that harm, degrade and kill people,” he says.
“We live in a world that has been divided up, where there are plots of land that some group says, ‘this is ours!’ But our calling to be faithful from wherever we are in society is to push for God’s justice on earth to the extent that we have the energy to move toward that goal as we are empowered by God: ‘your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth!’ (Matthew 6:12),” says Dorothy Jean Weaver.
“Who is responsibility for God’s will to be done on earth?” she asks. “The ultimate answer is that God is powerful over all. But God will also call us into action in bringing God’s will into existence on earth. We need to pray the Lord’s Prayer boldly and courageously.”
For those in Canada and the USA, the Mennonite Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Coalition is helping people do the challenging work of recognizing that sin is structural.
“The tasks that I can do include understanding how dynamics of power show up everywhere; recognizing systems of displacement and dispossession; asking at what cost and whose cost I gain privilege in society,” says Sarah Nahar.
“The gospel offers a new way of thinking about our lives and encouragement to reach across barriers no matter where we are or who we are,” she says.
“In ethics, if we want our action to be meaningful, that action should be based on a narrative because otherwise the action will not be meaningful at all,” says Paulus Widjaja.
There is opportunity for those who seek meaningful narratives to ground action and understanding regarding the Holy Land. Bethlehem Bible College, an evangelical school in the heart of the West Bank, is hosting their 7th Christ at the Checkpoint conference 21-26 May 2024. “Do Justice, Love Mercy: Christian Witness in Contexts of Oppression” – an invitation to “come and see!”, in person or on livestream. (Click here to learn more.)
How can Mennonites be peaceful but not passive? When there seem to be two sides, is it possible to be neutral without implicitly siding with the oppressor?
“Neutrality is a very dangerous word for us because it allows us to imagine that things are equal and very often things are not equal,” says Dorothy Jean Weaver.
In much of the world, especially the USA, Christians are assumed to be on the side that of the military that is committing the genocide. As Christians, if we are not speaking out, we are assumed to be on the side of militarism, of violence and of genocide,” says Jonathan Brenneman.
“If we look at that question from the theological perspective, then yes, we take a side, but not on the people, certainly not on a state – we take a side on values: justice, peace, reconciliation,” says Paulus Widjaja.
The Israelites in the Bible assumed that God was always on their side, but there were times God said: ‘I’m on your side when you are oppressed, but I’m also with others when they are oppressed.’
Just look at the biblical prophets. They could never ever be accused of being neutral about the situations in which they lived,” Dorothy Jean Weaver adds.
“So I’m taking the side of the Christian principles of justice, love and reconciliation. Whoever is being oppressed, then I will be with them regardless of their nationalities,” says Paulus Widjaja.
“It’s been really meaningful to do theology out on the streets together, working for a ceasefire with Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Baha’i and humanists,” says Sarah Nahar who sees far more than two sides.
“I’ve had a chance to do theology alongside anti-Zionist Jewish people who are experiencing great grief when their beautiful, multifaceted, deep faith is being smashed on one side by nationalism and crammed in on the other by militarism,” she says.
Christians are still recovering from CE 313 when the empire took over Christianity, so we can understand people who say they don’t want a state force to be associated with who they are.
“State violence does not protect me: relationship protects me. We can have safety and space in a shared world,” she says.
“In an eschatological sense,” says Alain Epp Weaver, “there is one side, the side of humanity, the humanity God is reconciling back to God’s self through the work of the Spirit, the Spirit that breaks down walls of division and hatred.”
“For the church to witness within this broken world means speaking out against all forms of injustice, including the structures of military occupation that build walls and deepen divisions. When we speak out for justice, people will sometimes accuse us of creating division, but we are doing it animated by this vision of a reconciled humanity that God is calling back to God’s self, calling us back to our created nature,” says Alain Epp Weaver.
Palestinian Christians raised a call that was published at the end of October: “We hold Western church leaders and theologians who rally behind Israel’s wars accountable for their theological and political complicity with the Israeli crimes against Palestinians,” they wrote. (Click here to read the full document.)
“I saw and affirm that call,” says Alain Epp Weaver. “The Western Church has been complicit in the dispossession of Palestinians. And the time for speaking out in action is long overdue.”
“The wide Palestinian Christian coalition that wrote that letter are working together in significant concord with each other and they are calling the bluff of the Western Church. I pray that the Western Church has ears and heart to listen,” says Dorothy Jean Weaver.
“I’m grateful for the tradition of pacifism so we can boldly and humbly not only take stances, but do action and be in prayer with a commitment to not eliminate others,” says Sarah Nahar.
“If we are wrong, we can seek, repair and learn. I’ll carry some of these questions into our 500-year anniversary which some believe should be a celebration because we have been faithful and others think this should be a moment to grieve that our Christian body was torn,” she adds. “That is also a complex question.”
“We all continue to work and pray for wholeness in that broken part of the world and in our own broken lives,” says J. Nelson Kraybill.
Contributors
Dorothy Jean Weaver is retired from teaching New Testament at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg, Virginia, USA. She also has a long history of travel in and out of Israel-Palestine, both for academic sabbaticals and for leading study tours and work groups.
J. Nelson Kraybill is a retired academic and former president of MWC (2015-2022). He also has long-standing involvement in Israel-Palestine both as tour leader and as an academic. He recently served as scholar-in-residence at Bethlehem Bible College in the West Bank for eight months.
Paulus Widjaja is an ordained minister in GKMI. He is a lecturer in the faculty of theology at Duta Wacana Christian University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Alain Epp-Weaver directs strategic planning for Mennonite Central Committee. He lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. He has worked in occupied Palestine for 11 years, including two years in Gaza. as program coordinator and has written and edited books related to Palestine.
Jonathan Brenneman is a Palestinian American Mennonite. He has worked with Community Peacemaker Teams in Palestine and worked on Mennonite Church USA’s “Peace in Israel and Palestine” passed in 2017.
Sarah Nahar currently lives in Syracuse, New York, USA (unceded Onondaga Nation land). She was the North America representative on the AMIGOS – a precursor to MWC’s YABs Committee. A former executive director of Community Peacemaker Teams, she served with Mennonite Central Committee in Jerusalem at the Sabeel Liberation Theology Centre.
Updated 16 April 2024: date of Christ At The Checkpoint conference corrected
