November 5thFrom the Desk of Our Executive Minister
Culture of Life People
05NOV2025 Culture of Life People
I have been astounded at the inconsistencies sometimes in my own life. It's good when a close friend or colleague can gently encourage me towards better integrity, narrowing the gap between my inner and outer selves. This is very countercultural in the world and often, unfortunately, the church. When we do not work at this, we end up in soul-deadening cycles of performing (our outward self) and hiding (our inner self).
In our larger Mennonite-land, we have similar gaps.
Some heated examples that come to mind: People who were loud about making abortion rare (illegal or safe and rare) may do little to help encourage and support the single mother post-birth. People who were loud about Gaza are silent on the ancient scourge of antisemitism (or worse, parrot the talking points of those committed to Jewish erasure) and are silent about serious conflicts with equal or worse death-dealing. Conflicts that include the Islamist violence against Christians in Nigeria, Sudan, Muslim Uyghurs being enslaved and experiencing slow genocide (literal and cultural) in East Turkestan (Mainland China colonizer name "Xinjiang Autonomous Region"—which is anything but autonomous), the Kurds, and so on.
We also have the situation where MAiD is undercutting the dignity of some, such that the UN (not a bastion of even-handed moralising by any measure) is calling on Canada to rein it in. It's pushing a dangerous line of devaluing life in the name of a narrowly defined understanding of dignity for differently abled folks and for those with painful mental illness. (https://www.inclusioncanada.ca/post/do-better-inclusion-canada-welcomes-un-committee-s-concluding-observations-on-canada-s-disabilit )
I would like to encourage those of us in this West Coast Anabaptist-Mennonite Network AKA MCBC to cast ourselves on the grace of Christ. Let us consider our outward peacemaking and our culture-of-life—because Jesus names and displays on the Cross that everyone has inestimable worth—in a more honest and robust way.
I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. -Galatians 2:20
When we detach the Peace with God and Self from peace with Others and Creation, we are easily drawn into political-power-over ways of being that enslave us to the controlling, death-dealing stories of those powers. We lose something distinct, being shaped and empowered by Jesus and the Holy Spirit in doing the works of the Kingdom/Kindom of God.
If we lose Jesus in our actions, we lose what it means to be a church and cut ourselves off from the power of God making all things new.
Your servant, and servant of God,
Shelby