AMBS hosts Jewish-Mennonite symposium on reading the Bible after the Holocaust

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AMBS.edu: AMBS hosts Jewish-Mennonite symposium on reading the Bible after the Holocaust

I am incredibly pleased to hear about this symposium at one of my alma maters, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. I hope down the road AMBS publishes some of the papers and/or presentations from the event — especially anything from Dr. Amy-Jill Levine who I’ve long been a fan of when it comes to thoughtful interfaith dialogue between Jews and Christians.

This topic is very personal to me. I spent a good chunk of my life as a minister in a progressive Mennonite church (and have worked to maintain ties of friendship with that congregation after living a ministerial role there), but these days I’m committed to Jewish community. — While there are some significant differences in these traditions, I also see some important areas of commonality, and I’m excited that there may be opportunities for these commonalities to be explored and celebrated.

By the way, on the points of commonality, I spoke on this topic about a month ago at Joy Mennonite Church in OKC.

Here’s a link to the presentation: https://jmb.mx/…/a-presentation-comparing-the…/

But the TL/DR summary is that both traditions share:
1. a present-tense earth-centered ethic,
2. a deep focus on social justice,
3. an experience of diaspora,
4. a practice of reading and interpreting texts in community.

By jmb

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