Check out the Canadian Foodgrain Bank’s website and consider making a donation.

http://foodgrainsbank.ca/campaigns/syria/

“What gives most trouble to Christians of all epochs is neither lack of faith nor excess of criticism; it is Jesus himself, who bestows freedom so open-handedly and dangerously on those who do not know what to do with it. The church always gets panic-stricken for fear of the turmoil that he creates when he comes on the scene; and so takes his freedom under its own management for the protection of the souls entrusted to it….”
Ernst Käsemann: “Jesus Means Freedom,” p,149.

Canadian faith leaders are calling for climate justice in Canada—for all Canadians, and for the world. Together they have endorsed the statement “On Promoting Climate Justice and Ending Poverty in Canada.”

https://www.councilofchurches.ca/faith-climate-justice/

National Bishop Susan Johnson writes a letter regarding the niqab:
http://www.elcic.ca/news.cfm?article=427

This documentary will provide some context for understanding the motion we passed at national convention this summer repudiating the doctrine of discovery:

http://dofdmenno.org/movie/

The questions that initiate the conflict stories in the Gospels are many. Mostly they are asked by groups—religious leaders, disciples, the crowd of listeners. Behind every controversial situation is a question which proclaiming or practicing the Gospel has raised. There are questions prompted by Jesus’ own behaviour. There are other questions prompted by the behaviour of Jesus’ disciples. There appear to be questions prompted by controversy over the understanding of what following Jesus entails. Finally, there are questions designed to trap Jesus.

As we study these stories we will recognize that most of the issues involved are still more or less with us today. Are we still not troubled by what is or is not appropriate on the “Sabbath,” that is, proper worship times and practices? Or Christians who worry that all this talk about grace and forgiveness means disregard for law and order and promotes moral laxity? Because of so-called “family values” some Christians are disturbed by Jesus’ apparent disregard for the traditional family. We still debate what influence and role the Gospel has in politics, in shaping society, in education and certainly in economics. Can one be a Christian and a free market, corporate capitalist?

“Wherever the law rules, works are demanded of which only the strong are capable: hybris and despair in transgression and self-righteousness are here unavoidable and the God who gives and calls for the verification of his gift is transformed into an idol who is only capable of acting as the referee of man’s struggle with himself and the world.”

Ernst Käsemann, “Perspectives on Paul,” p. 150.

“Luther thought of the man outside grace as the ‘homo in se incurvatus’, the man inescapably imprisoned and entangled in himself. He believed, on the strength of the gospel, that to see oneself so was the work of the Holy Spirit….For the Holy Spirit convinces, not from illusions, but from realities we will not admit. He does so, too, when he lays bare to us our real sin, which is that we acquiesce in our own self-centredness, although we suffer under and complain of its consequences.”

Ernst Kasemann