Roll Over Menno

At the end of a 2005 Christianity Today article called Give ‘Em a Break (here), a section called How to Pay for a Sabbatical provides the following information:

2. Endowments. The Lilly Endowment’s National Clergy Renewal program offers as many as 100 grants each year, in amounts as high as $45,000, to churches whose pastors are planning a sabbatical. The pastor and the church will need to apply, and plans for the sabbatical will need to be presented. Find out more information at www.lillyendowment.org/religion.html.

One might ask why the Lilly Endowment is so interested in “sustaining the quality of ministry in American congregations.” Not only do they seem to have a vested interest in pastors and congregations, they have been giving grants to Christian colleges, universities, seminaries, and retreat centers.

In 2002, the Lilly Endowment invested over $25 million into theological study across North America. According to a Lilly Endowment document, several Mennonite schools received large sums of money:

-Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Ind received 1,879,536
-Eastern Mennonite University, VA received $2 million
-Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary, California received $1,598,190

Source: (www.lillyendowment.org/pdf/TheologicalExofVoc2002Winners.youngpeople.pdf)

Another Lilly Endowment project was the $15,000 grant for the labyrinth at Eastern Mennonite Seminary (see Into the Mennonite Labyrinth, here).

In 2001, Goshen College also received a grant from the religion division of Lilly Endowment. The Goshen grant, called the CALL project, sponsored a visit from emerging church leader Brian McLaren to the college (see here).

Speaking of the emerging church, find out more about the Lilly Endowment and the large amount of money it has given to fund this movement here:

Emerging Church: A move of God or a well-funded enterprise?
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/index.php?c=1&more=1&p=721

It may be interesting to note that many of the courses, retreats and projects funded by the Lilly Endowment thus far have promoted contemplative spiritual formation. We can only wonder what Menno would have thought had he known that his followers would one day take money to substitute the truth of God’s Word for an ancient spirituality, much of which is repackaged but rooted in the Catholic church belief system he paid a high price to renounce.

ROM Index: high

The following article is about the Mennonite Central Committee and Israel:

The Mennonites’ Mission
-http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1452

When it comes to attacking Israel’s legitimacy, the Mennonite Central Committee hits way above its weight class. The MCC bills itself as a relief development and peace agency for adherents of the Anabaptist tradition, and is supported by North American churches and congregations totaling only 150,000 members, but its output of anti-Israel propaganda exceeds the volume of disinformation produced by much larger church groups.
For example, at the height of the Second Intifada, the MCC produced three videos - more than an hour’s worth of imagery and sound - devoted to the Middle East, all of which portrayed Israel as the primary source of suffering in the region.

Meanwhile the MCC has produced no videos whatsoever about violence in Central Africa which has killed several million. Apparently, for MCC , the deaths of a few thousand inhabitants of the Middle East is worthy of more attention than the deaths of several million black Africans. This disparity cannot be blamed on the MCC’s ignorance about African violence. According to MCC’s annual reports, the organization has just over 50 volunteers in the Middle East, and three times that many in Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, the scene of extensive bloodshed.

What really sets the MCC apart from other American church organizations is its avowedly anti-Zionist agenda…

The rest of the article may be read at the above camera.org link.

Here is some additional recommended reading for those who are interested in this topic:

The Theological Background of Christian Zionism Part 1:
http://www.christiansstandingwithisrael.com/theological-background-christian-zionism-reflection.html

The Theological Background of Christian Zionism Part 2:
http://www.christiansstandingwithisrael.com/theological-background-christian-zionism-reconciliation.html

Many Christians who go through spiritually dry times in their walk with the Lord later look back and realize that He brought them through the valley for a reason. It is often through these trials and tests that we grow and learn to depend on Him alone.

According to a recent article in The Mennonite, the answer to getting through these ‘dark nights of the soul’ lies in practicing the spiritual disciplines of contemplative spirituality, such as meditation, centering prayer, lectio divina, silence and walking a labyrinth.

Read this article called When you can’t pray here:

http://www.themennonite.org/issues/11-3/articles/When_you_cant_pray

The Mennonite is a semimonthly magazine for members of Mennonite Church USA.

James 1:2-4 tells us:

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

While the Bible often mentions God’s purpose for discipline and the result of trials, no where does it say anything about using bodily discipline or endurance to walk a labyrinth, slowly repeat scripture mantras, sit with your spine straight, or control your breathing while finding the silence within.

ROM Index: high

Roll Over Menno would like to alert concerned Mennonites to the following:

Brian McLaren and Rene Girard to speak at upcoming Preaching Peace Conferences.
‘Preaching Peace’ spreads nonviolent message
http://www.mennoweekly.org/DEC/12-24-07/PEACE12-24.html

Preaching Peace, which draws on speakers from a variety of Christian backgrounds, offers several nonviolent atonement seminars each year on topics ranging from “Perceptions of God That Lead to Violence” to “Restorative Justice as Forgiveness.” The first such gathering in 2008 will be held Jan. 12-15 at Parkersburg, W.Va.

In 2008, prominent speakers such as author Brian McLaren, theologian Jurgen Moltmann and (Rene) Girard will take part in some of the ministry’s other offerings…

…Though most Anabaptist churches are familiar with the gospel of peace already, Hardin said there is a need for renewal among Mennonites who have been swayed by mainstream or fundamentalist ideas about politics, warfare and faith.

…Hardin said. “We are out there really looking to inspire . . . new ways of thinking and being the church.”

See conference details here:
http://www.preachingpeace.org/makingpeace.htm

An interesting note here might be something else that Michael Hardin says about these new ways of thinking in a recently published book endorsed by emerging church leader Brian McLaren called Stricken by God?. This book is an ecumenical collection of essays questioning the theory of the sacrificial blood atonement as the church understands it. According to a book review of Stricken by God?, Hardin writes in the Preface that “Preaching Peace has created the Nonviolent Atonement Seminar featuring Tony Bartlett, Denny Weaver, Sharon Baker and myself. We will be traveling the US and Canada over the next few years bringing this new paradigm to churches, clergy and laity alike…there is a need to construct a new paradigm of the atonement in the 21st century; the sacrificial model is flawed.” (Incidentally, according to the above mentioned book alert and review, “two of the endorsers of Stricken by God? are MENNONITES - Willard Swartley, Professor Emeritus of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and Ted Grimsrud of Eastern Mennonite University.”)

ROM agrees that the new way of thinking taught at these conferences will definitely be about a new paradigm…it’s called a departure from the truth of the gospel.

ROM Index: Dangerously High

The following may be of interest to Mennonite readers…

“Catholic Connection” (A Mennonite Speaks Up)
by David Burkey

In June of 1977, monks, nuns and lay women and men met in Petersham to discuss how best to accomplish “fruitful communication between adherents of Eastern and Western world religions”…

The rest of this article can be accessed here:
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletter021808.htm#LETTER.BLOCK13