Stanley Mogoba to Enter Politics

By Noel Bruyns

In a sudden move, the presiding bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, Bishop Stanley Mo-goba, quit his position in order to stand as president of the former liberation movement, the Pan Africanist Con-gress (PAC).

Bishop Peter Storey of Johannesburg, said that Bishop Mogoba had requested permission to retire as a Methodist minister in order to take up a career in politics.

Bishop Mogoba had been expected to lead the Methodist Church until September next year, when Bishop Mvume Dandala was due to succeed him.

Bishop Mogoba is a prominent figure in international church circles. In 1994 a call from Bishop Mogoba to the central committee of the World Council of Churches, meeting in Johannesburg for a global initiative against the rising tide of violence world-wide, led to the setting up of the WCC's Programme to Overcome Violence.

In October last year Bishop Mogoba was awarded the 1996 World Metho-dist Peace Award. The citation com-mended Dr Mogoba for his consistency in never advocating violence or taking sides for either African or white people, tribes or political parties in the struggle against apartheid.

It praised his courage in seeking reconciliation...and his creativity in his decision to work in the churches in South Africa as a Christian leader to seek a way forward'.

Stanley Mogoba was elected president of PAC on 15 December.

ENI Bulletin, n 1, 12 Jan 1997

New CEC General Secretary Elected

In a special meeting on Saturday, 11 January 1997, the Central Committee of the Conference of European Churches (CEC) elected the Rev Keith Winston Clements, MA, BD as General Secretary. Mr Clements will take office on 1 September 1997.

This election is the culmination of a 12-month search for a successor to Mr Jean Fischer, who announced at the Central Committee in Assisi in 1995 his decision to terminate his responsibilities in the CEC at the end of September 1997. Mr Fischer has been General Secretary since 1987.

Before coming to its decision, the 35-person Central Committee, in session at the Ecumenical Centre, Geneva (11-12 January, 1997), met with Mr Clements and exchanged views and concerns relating to the future work of the CEC.

Mr Clements (53) is currently the Co-ordinating Secretary for International Affairs of the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland (CCBI). He is an ordained minister of the Baptist Union of Great Britain.

Mr Clements has been closely associated over the last few years with the work of reconciliation which CEC has undertaken in relation to the former Yugoslavia. He has also been closely involved with the churches' Human Rights' Programme. Through this programme the CEC, together with the national councils of churches of the United States and Canada, monitors the activities of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

A prolific writer and author of a number of books, Mr Clements has a special interest in the life and work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church in Germany during the Second World War. He has also been active in various programme activities of the World Council of Churches (WCC), notably as the Baptist consultant to the WCC's Commission on Faith and Order.

CEC Monitor,
March 1997

New London Mennonite Centre Staff
by J. Nelson Kraybill & Terri Miller

Mid- December 1996 marked the departure of J. Nelson Kraybill and his family from the London Mennonite Centre. Nelson assumed the presidency of the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkahrt, Indiana, USA.

"The greatest joy my family and I have had during our five and a half years in England has been learning to know people who visit the London Mennonite Centre, who buy Metanoia books, or who otherwise relate to the work and vision of this place. We've also been nurtured and challenged by visits to homes and congregations across the UK. To everyone who has so enriched our lives we say a heartfelt thank you! "

Mark Thiessen Nation is now serving as LMC Programme Director. Mark became a Christian and an Anabaptist as a young adult and has many years of experience as a minister in the Church of Brethren. He was founder and director of a Christian peace and justice centre in Chicago, Illinois, USA, has worked as a social worker and has had broad ecumenical contacts.

He is a specialist in Christian ethics and is a published author and editor. He has worked closely with John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas and other Anabaptist-related theologians. He is a "people person" who enjoys both congregational and academic settings.

Mary Thiessen Nation is serving with LMC as a teacher and consultant on urban mission and spirituality - she is also involved in the growing work of the Bridge Builders mediation and conflict training project.

Mary is a native of Canada who spent twenty-three years in inner city mission work in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was co-director of the World Impact staff, helped set up an elementary school among the poor and worked to start a live-in ministry for single mothers.

Both Mark and Mary were involved in teaching Cross Currents events in 1996. Mark is prepared to preach and teach on theological and biblical aspects of peacemaking, as well as Anabaptist history and ethics. Mary is an outstanding resource for people involved in mission, and particularly is prepared to speak on spiritual disciplines and nurture for those in urban settings. Please do not hesitate to ring or write the LMC about engaging them.

London Mennonite Centre
4 Shepherds Hill
Highgate
London N6 5AQ
Tel: 0181 340 8775
Fax: 0181 341 6807

Peace Activist Catharine Perry Leaves Friends House

Catharine Perry left Friends House in August to work in Oxford after 13 years of work on peace testi-mony issues with Quaker Peace & Ser-vice.

Catharine Perry

From her arrival in October 1983 until the signing of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987, Catharine's role was chiefly to support the many Friends and others active in anti-nuclear witness.

Since 1994 Catharine has been co-ordinator for 'Turning the Tide', a Quaker programme on non-violence and social change.

Over the years Catharine's forte has been her work with the ecumenical peace networks such as Church and Peace and the Churches' Peace Forum.

She has been a key person in helping to formulate and promote the World Council of Churches' new initiative, The Programme to Overcome Violence.

Quaker News, Oct 96

Catharine was member of the Administrative Committee of Church and Peace from 1988-1997.

Quaker Peace & Service became a member of Church and Peace in 1988.

Kreider Member of Administrative Committee,
British Steering Committee Chair
by Terri Miller

Eleanor Kreider became chairwoman of the Steering Committee for Great Britain last summer and was recently elected to the Church and Peace Administrative Committee at the General Assembly in March.

She states, "I believe that reconciliation is at the heart of the Gospel of Christ. It should be a central concern of all Christian churches. I am committed to walking on that faith pilgrimage which brings Christians of many backgrounds together in advocating, praying and working for peace at every level. I am grateful for the opportunity to join with others of Church and Peace in this common quest."

Eleanor lives in Oxford and teaches worship and liturgy at Regent's Park College, a Baptist college within Oxford University. She is the author of two books and numerous articles on worship. Her latest writing is due for publication in October and is entitled "Communion Shapes Character". It calls for more frequent communion and for a variety of biblical themes to surround communion services.

Eleanor, an Mennonite originally from the USA, has taught extensively at seminaries and church conferences. She works with her husband Alan in an Anabaptist network of individuals and groups seeking church renewal. Eleanor and Alan have been working as a peacemakers alongside other Christians in Britain for the past twenty five years.

The General Assembly also voted in March to accept Marie-Pierre Bovy, David Maggs, Anita Thomas and Paul Gentner as new Administrative Committee members. Nine persons from the British, German, French and Eastern European regions make up the Administrative Committee.

New Francophone Regional Co-ordinator
by Sylvie Gudin Poupaert

Many of you have most likely noticed me sitting in the interpreters' booth during a Church and Peace conference! I have attended Church and Peace meetings for the past several years in this function.

But I have known that which was called simply Church and Peace for a long time, since the beginning of the 80s...at that time Wilfried Warneck had only a tiny office and was assisted by the first (I think) volunteer, Jean-Jacques Widmer. Jean-Jacques and I were responsible for a small group of Mennonite conscientious objectors in France, and a few of us came to Wetzlar to tape a radio broadcast on the subject of conscientious objection and nonviolence.

Today Church and Peace has grown significantly and even has, thanks to Doris Reymond, a francophone co-ordinator! Therefore, it is with much emotion that I take over the reins of the francophone region.

It is due to Mennonite/Anabaptist theology and primarily because of its accent on nonviolence as an absolute of the Gospel that I decided to become a Mennonite. A few years before this my life was changed significantly by Martin Luther King's example and the way in which he applied principles of evangelical social justice to the society in which he lived.

I grew up in Paris and lived in community first near Vesoul in France, then in Burgos, Spain, before coming to Strasbourg 18 years ago (I never imagined that I would stay here so long!). When I first came to Strasbourg, I started attending the new Mennonite church there, the church I still attend. For several years I led the group of Mennonite conscientious objectors. I then spent a year in the United States under Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) for peace work training in a variety of areas.

Upon my return to France I continued work with MCC in Strasbourg under the heading of "Peace and Inter-church Relations". Then I married and had two children whose care took the majority of my time. We spent a year in England where we lived in a neighbourhood community with other Christians. I also taught French.

Once back in France I decided to study language and literature at the university in Strasbourg in order to receive an education in teaching French to speakers of other languages. I received my Master's degree in French as a Foreign Language in 1995. I had always expected to teach overseas but I was guided onto a different path...

And here I am, still in Strasbourg, and still a bit surprised by this new venture, but also happy to be able to work once again with a pacifist, Christian organisation.

For me witnessing for peace has always been inseparable from the Gospel. Among the first Bible verses that I learned was the following, which continues to prick my conscience: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:2)

I hope to work in this intent, praying for a spirit of creative nonconformity...

translation: trm

New Laufdorf Office Staff Member
by Terri Miller

Dear friends,

Warm greetings from the newest staff member of Church and Peace! I'm honored to break the year and a half long "volunteer drought" in the Laufdorf office and am looking forward to developing many friendships and meeting new challenges in the coming two years.

As the British English speakers in the crowd will quickly realize, I hail from across the Atlantic pond. I grew up in a Mennonite family amongst the corn and soybean fields of central Illinois in the US. In 1987 I was fortunate to be able to spend a year studying in Grenoble, France, and so began my love affair with foreign languages. Several years later, after periods of study in Jena and Marburg, Germany, I received my Bachelors of Arts in German and French from Goshen College, a Mennonite post-secondary school in Indiana.

My interest in the connection between church and peace grew during my time at Goshen. Through Goshen's Peace Studies program I had the opportunity to critically examine and discuss the church's responsibility for and response to violence in society today. For me voluntary service is a further step in the process of living out a personal commitment to the peace church witness. My move to Laufdorf comes on the heels of three years spent in Tramelan, Switzerland, as a volunteer in the MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) Europe office.

I'm excited about my translation, communications and general office administration work here in Laufdorf. Frederick Buechner, speaking about vocation, once said, "the place God calls you to is the place where your deepest gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." My hope and prayer is that Church and Peace will be this place for me.

Terri Miller