Young Anabaptist Radicals

Today is the fourth anniversary of Tom Fox’s death. Tom was killed by his kidnappers in Iraq on March 9, 2006, 104 days after Harmeet, Norman, Jim and Tom were driving back from a Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) delegation visit when their car was pulled over by armed men and they were kidnapped. Since I didn’t know Tom personally, I can only really write about my experience of his loss. For a more intimate portrait of Tom, see these eulogies by my colleagues.

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Three years ago today, Eric wrote the first post here on YAR. We’ve been through all sorts of interesting things in the past 3 years. I think we’re old enough now that we can start doing some looking back. In celebration of those 3 years, I’d like to invite YAR authors to curate their own top 6 lists of past blog posts. For example, what are your top 6 funniest YAR posts or most discussed. Or most provocative. Or most outrageous. Be imaginative.

Here’s an example for you. It’s a modified list of the most often viewed posts on YAR over the last little while. You’ll notice in reading this list that some of those with the most views are ones that happened to connect with popular Google search terms. I also only included one blog post per author, so we can spread around the love. Two other notes: I’ve adjusted for length of time that the post has been up and the recording of page views started on June 8, 2008.

Top 6 most viewed blog posts on YAR in the last 15 months

#1 pink Menno campaign

This one paragraph post by Luke owes its top spot on this list to its high positioning in the Google results when one searches for Pink Menno. At one point it came in second to the main Pink Menno site. It received a couple hundred of hits after Pink Menno made the Associated Press at the Columbus convention. It’s also had its share of drive by comments by ticked off Mennonites. Luke’s longer high page view piece was his review of Love is an Orientation. (more…)

Thanksgiving makes me nervous.

For years, I’ve gotten a sinking feeling in my stomach as the month of November draws to a close and this day looms. On the one hand, Thanksgiving is about joy and gratitude. It is a time when I travel to see family and friends, welcome a few days of rest and look forward to the holiday season. In my mind, I know it is a good thing to have a day where the sole emphasis is to give thanks to God for all God has done. I also appreciate the opportunity to celebrate all my loved ones do and are to one another.

And yet Thanksgiving reminds me of a beautiful but altogether itchy sweater. Sure it looks good on the rack in my closet. It is slimming, well-made, gorgeous color—everything you could hope for in a sweater. But if I put it on I’m guaranteed to spend the whole day tugging, scratching and feeling downright uncomfortable. Try as I might, I can’t shake that weird feeling about that good ole holiday. It gets to the point where weeks in advance I’m trying to come up with other things to say besides “Happy Thanksgiving.” And since “Happy Day Off” doesn’t cut it I go ahead and mutter the greeting anyway, wheels still turning for a suitable substitute. (more…)

Hi Friends!
It is time for the 2nd preach-off between Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and Goshen College. The first one was in 2006 (organized by some YARs) and it was very successful.

For the preach-off, folks will give three-minute sermons on scriptures they’ve received 24 hours prior. People can vote with their donations, and a panel judges will give humorous feedback.

The donations benefit up and coming young adult leaders from the Global South by giving them a full scholarship to attend the Global Youth Summit (July 10-12 in Asunción, Paraguay).

In addition to the fun of preach-off, we realize that the lives of many people in Northern Indiana have been enriched by connections with the global church. So this event will be interspersed with short testimonies from people in the area, celebrating these ties as we raise funds to support the next generation of Anabaptist leaders from around the globe.

So, YARs…we’re collecting crazy passages. If you know of one, please write the reference as a comment. Your help is appreciated…and if you’re in Northern Indiana at 6pm on Dec. 6 you are warmly invited to materialize and participate!

Written by Elina (from Indonesia, in Singapore).

ST got me into your website and I read many articles with great interest. I wish there was this much dialog about “things that matter” in my Asian constituency. Many young people in Asia are busy building their careers, doing well at school, putting up an image and conforming to norms of society—to the point that it prevents them from speaking up and sharing things that really matter. Although, I’m not sure if this issue is specifically Asian …

However, in reading the articles, I don’t see a lot on prayer. Yes, prayer. It’s the one thing that Jesus did every single morning before he did anything else. The one thing that every great person in the Bible did throughout their journeys. (more…)

Yesterday was the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King and I spent a good part of the afternoon listening to the media coverage. To commemorate the event, I read his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech delivered April 3, 1968 at the Mason Temple in Memphis, the night before his assassination. It’s a speech that in hindsight is not only prescient about MLK’s fate, but also prophetic–

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I’m happy, tonight.
I’m not worried about anything.
I’m not fearing any man!
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!

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I can’t even bear to write a post about the war.

This is just to send a word of encouragement to all working to stop the war and build societies of peace and justice. I hope you have found sustainable, life giving ways to resist and create. We must keep speaking up, because as Rev. Dr. MLK Jr. said, “our lives begin to end the moment we are silent about things that matter.”

Its been three months since Eric kicked things off here. Since then we’ve had 64 posts and 126 comments. For those of you who like statistics, that’s an average of 1 post every 1.4 days and and 1.4 comments every day. How’s that for serendipity?

We’ve had 40 people sign up as users on the blog and 14 of you have gotten around to writing a post (you can see who you are under Harlequin/Zealots label on the right hand sidebar). We look forward to hearing from the other 26 of you! Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you along.

We’ve attracted the attention of a few other bloggers out there. Our most consistent links have been from Hootsbuddy’s Place: (more…)