Why did you decide to go to graduate school?

��Graduate school quickly emerged as the most appropriate step for me both personally and professionally after EMU. I was intrinsically motivated to apply to graduate programs because of my love of school. Throughout my studies at EMU and during my gap year, I was hungry to learn. I could not keep my hands off of theology, religion and history texts from the library. I knew that I wanted to go to a graduate program where I could continue to investigate the subtle contours of Christian thought.

Graduate school also was a smart decision for me professionally because I wanted a degree program that integrates both academic rigor and ministerial training, which is how I landed in the Master of Divinity program at Vanderbilt Divinity School (VDS).

VDS made an impression on me due to its ecumenical status and commitments to social justice. I wanted to be in an environment where I would interact with others who did not bring my same Anabaptist assumptions to the room. I wanted to be in a place where I could stretch myself and engage in conversation with a wider sample of future leaders of faith from across the Christian spectrum on some of today’s most pressing social demands.

Describe your field of study and research.

��The Master of Divinity degree is the more professional clergy-track route compared to the more research-oriented Masters of Theological Studies degree. My coursework is well-rounded with classes in homiletics, Christian theology, church history, biblical studies and pastoral care providing the foundation of my program.

My research concentration, however, is in “Religion and the Arts in Contemporary Culture.” One of my primary research interests is to critically examine how popular culture and media interface with religion. Music, film, and Internet memes have a way of raising everyday theological questions, such as the value of money or suffering, that invite a spirit of playfulness and imagination. I often look to blur the lines in what is conventionally dismissed as “secular” culture in order to see what contributions, critiques and commentaries these artistic expressions are making about religious life.

How did your academic studies and professors at EMU prepare you for graduate studies?

���ѱ�’s Bible and Religion Department is a real gem. Working closely with professors Peter Dula, Nancy Heisey, Ted Grimsrud, Linford Stutzman, Christian Early and Carmen Shrock-Hurst each helped prepare me for graduate studies in unique ways. Peter taught me that the beginning of a nuanced position means knowing how to read with charitable criticism. Nancy’s skills as a researcher and editor helped to strengthen my writing style. Ted always encouraged showing up to class ready to ask at

least one question from our weekly reading assignments. Linford modeled for me how to think more like an anthropologist and not to overlook or undervalue the interdependence of religion and culture. Christian introduced me to some of the most groundbreaking literature in philosophy and science. And Carmen stressed the importance of attending to my spiritual life in addition to my intellectual life. So much of my current program relies on knowing how to read, write and speak with efficiency. The strengths of the Bible and religion faculty became critical ingredients that laid a solid foundation for my communication skills.

What do you think made your application to graduate school stand out among others?

My letters of recommendation were the strongest part of my application, hands down. I felt confident asking my professors to write letters of recommendation for me because of our relationships both inside and outside of the classroom. I knew that they would help to paint a more complete picture of me beyond just my academic potential.

What are some of your favorite memories from your time at EMU?

Some of my favorite moments from EMU were all of the times that I stood around talking to my peers and professors after class. I love how our class discussions rarely ended with the period, but rather carried over into coffee conversations, long walks or lunch at the cafeteria. The real power of these more casual conversations is that they always seemed to invite at least one or two people from outside of the classroom to weigh in on the topic at hand. I believe EMU embraced a culture that encouraged both a natural curiosity and a spirit of collaboration, which makes all of these little moments and side conversations stand out in my memory.

What is your advice to undergraduates?

Don’t sell yourself short on the college experience. Everything that you do is an ingredient to help you grow and mature and be a more thoughtful person in the world. Building strong relationships with your classmates, going to special lectures, and getting involved in the broader Harrisonburg/Rockingham area are all invaluable parts of sharpening your perspective. Most of all, take time to review your perspective regularly and document how it is changing in light of these new experiences. I believe it is important to be upfront with ourselves about how we have changed and appreciating the processes that have contributed to our growth.

Describe your field of study and research at the University of Virginia and Duke.

I am now enrolled in a Master of Arts in Religious Studies, specifically in the Theology, Ethics, and Culture track.

At Duke, I wrote my thesis with the theologian Willie Jennings (now of Yale) and the chair of the English department, Sarah Beckwith. My thesis looked at the modern concept of race as a way of knowing that judges the meaning, value, and humanity of a body simply based upon skin color and other physical features. My research brought the resources of critical race theory into conversation with Wittgenstein and Cavell’s account of other-mind skepticism as resulting from dissatisfaction with the conditions of knowledge in order to argue that the modern concept of race represents a rejection of ordinary understandings of what it means to know another human being. I then argued that knowing according to race makes it impossible to recognize a raced other to be Christ for oneself.

My research at UVa builds upon my previous research. I am interested in how Christian theology purports that we know and understand our bodies, the natural world, and language. How would understanding the interconnection between bodies, nature, and language change how we think about what it means to be human beings in world created by God? My theological way of thinking is influenced by other disciplines such as linguistic anthropology and cultural geography. My hunch is that because we do not see the connections between our bodies, the natural world, and our ways of knowing and speaking, we are inclined to instrumentalize nature and other human beings. Given the history of theological rationales for violence done to the earth and the callousness with which Christians have displaced countless peoples from their lands, I believe how we think about these subjects matters a great deal.

How did your academic studies and professors at EMU prepare you for your graduate studies/current work?

I came to EMU as a transfer student from Arizona State University, having been out of school for a number of years. When I arrived at EMU, I knew that my goal was to use my time there to prepare for graduate studies in theology and I expressed this to the Bible and Religion department faculty. Having the chance to work closely with�� professors Peter Dula, Ted Grimsrud, Christian Early, and Nancy Heisey prepared me for graduate work not only because they were generous with their time, but also because they were willing to offer the rigorous critiques I needed to help hone my academic skills. The Bible and religion faculty were immensely helpful in directing me to critical texts I needed to familiarize myself with–even above and beyond their syllabi–and they were also very amenable to arranging independent studies on specific areas of interest.

I should also mention that EMU does a great job of bringing in important lecturers in a variety of fields. Between the university colloquia, the Justice Lectures, and various other conferences and events, I grew comfortable engaging with top scholars.

What do you think made your application to graduate school stand out among others?

This is a really hard question to answer. First, it strikes me how well-connected the Bible and Religion Department faculty is with the broader academic world. At the American Academy of Religion, Peter Dula seems to know everyone. Many people I met at Duke knew Peter Dula from his time there, and quite a few people had read (at least) one of Ted Grimsrud’s books at some point. Many people in the academic and church world knew Nancy Heisey either from her work with Mennonite Central Committee or Mennonite World Conference.

Second and most importantly, I have been told that many letters of recommendations sound very generic because the constraints of academic life often don’t allow professors to get to know students particularly well. I was confident when I asked for letters from my professors at EMU that they knew my particular interests as well as my strength and weaknesses.

What attracted you to attend EMU as an undergraduate?

I had started my undergraduate studies at another university, but focused most of my time and attention working for a couple of Christian nonprofits. Around the time that I was looking to go back to school to finish my bachelor’s degree, I had become very influenced by peace-church theology. I was not personally familiar with the Mennonites, but I had a friend who went to James Madison University and had attended Community Mennonite Church while there. He encouraged me to look into EMU and after chatting with Peter Dula–who I learned had studied with Stanley Hauerwas, a major influence of mine–I decided to apply and commit to EMU. I was looking for a program with a strong faculty in the areas of Biblical studies and theology, but I also did not want to be in a large school. EMU, then, was a perfect fit.

What are some favorite memories of your time at EMU?

Most of my favorite memories from EMU involve time spent with professors, usually in their offices after class talking about this or that book. Probably my favorite memory though, was going on the Quebec cross-cultural with Nancy Heisey. Montreal was such an amazing city to live in for almost a month, and the topics we studied such as secularism and Quebecois class struggles were fascinating. This also afforded me the opportunity to get to know Nancy Heisey better; I took two or three classes with her at EMU, but she we also quite busy as the interim dean.

What do you think makes EMU graduates distinctive?

EMU graduates always have a passion for something interesting and important. I think the combination of academic rigor, commitment to justice and environmental sustainability, and Anabaptist convictions shapes students who care for the broader world but also about the local community. This is why you have EMU grads who go work for Mennonite Central Committee in Iraq as well as those who live in intentional communities and work for neighborhood development organizations. In the academic world, I can say that the EMU grads I’ve known have always had a passion for interesting and important topics. They bring not only their intellects to the academy, but their commitment as activists and educators.

Editor’s note: The somewhat unorthodox narrative of the following article deserves explanation. Staff writer Randi B. Hagi was regrettably unable to travel 1,750 miles for an in-person interview with New Mexico resident and professional musician Russell James Pyle ‘03. She had to settle for a phone interview, which Pyle obliged to while hiking with his dog John Henry in the Sandia Mountain Wilderness Area near his Albuquerque home. The experience of vicariously walking with John Henry and learning more about Pyle “seemed like the best way to introduce readers to him,” Hagi said later.

***

Russell James Pyle is just a few days distant from his month-long artist residency in Big Bend National Park in Texas.

“To quote Ron Swanson [from the television comedy “Parks and Rec”], ‘the national parks are probably the only branch of the federal government worth a d**n,’” says Pyle.

A regular national park visitor, he discovered the ’s Artist in Residency program while at Mesa Verde National Park last summer. After returning home, he researched online, and applied the same afternoon.

Throughout November, Pyle hiked the canyon backcountry every morning, wrote songs in the afternoon, and discussed creative processes with fellow resident artist Nick Collier at night.

The artist-in-residency program honors the important legacy of artists-turned-conservationists. From Yosemite’s initiation as a tourist destination in the mid-1800s, “the artists were the ones who got people to go to the national parks” with the paintings and pictographs they sent to the East Coast, Pyle explains.

Big Bend, he says, “is a place of healing, and it is a place of majesty, and people wouldn’t know that if artists weren’t coming back from this place and showing it to them.”

Pyle pauses the interview to instruct John Henry, an Australian Shepherd-Golden Retriever mix, to remove his nose from a cholla cactus.

The month provided introspection, personal rejuvenation, songwriting inspiration and outdoor recreation. Under the terms of the residency, Pyle also gave two programs over Thanksgiving weekend at the park’s amphitheaters. These talks were an opportunity for Pyle to meld his varied talents, interests and influences: he merged musical performance with his professional background in ecopsychology (Pyle is a licensed counselor, though not currently practicing).

One audience member left this comment: “A true connection was made with the natural world by his deep lyrics and appropriate interpretation techniques. I actually wept for a moment and left feeling in touch with this park and my inner-self.”

At the intersection of the natural world and the self, Pyle believes, is a great source of emotional healing. This healing, first experienced through fly fishing, changed his own life. As a practicing psychotherapist, Pyle had begun a PhD program in counseling education, where he encountered the field of ecopsychology and eco-counseling. But the academic approach to mental health felt inauthentic. The calm and focus experienced on the water and his growing interest in outdoorsmanship led him out of graduate school.

“By connecting with the natural world, you’re able to help heal the mind,” says Pyle. “Ecopsychology has become this very strong source of faith, and of truth and control.”

Pyle’s struggle with depression is part of why the southwestern desert speaks to the Lancaster, Pa. native.

“The desert is overflowing with metaphor in general, but one of the metaphors that speaks out to me the most is struggle,” says Pyle, naming scorpions, thorny plants and thirst among the antagonists. “I have gone through so much struggle in my life. I’m conditioned for that … I want to write songs that are going to reflect the depression, but are also going to reflect that things are going to get better.”

John Henry takes off running to a pile of bear scat and Pyle, catching his breath, admonishes the dog for his questionable taste.

Pyle admits he has a “musical pedigree.” His mother was a classical pianist, his father played the trumpet, and his grandfather was the conductor of a big band in the ‘30s and ‘40s.

“I was forced to play piano. I hated it,” says Pyle.

At 12, he found an old ukulele in the attic. Thinking it was a miniature guitar, Pyle took fishing line, strung the missing fourth string, and “had already picked out a major scale” by the time his parents got home that evening.

Thankful their piano-hating son showed musical talent, his parents bought him a guitar. Pyle taught himself to play and began various bands with his friends at Lancaster Mennonite High School.

Those relationships, including that with his best friend and future wife Deborah Good ‘02, took him to EMU. There, he met Professor (now emeritus professor of peace theology), who noted Pyle’s interest in music and advised him to join a physics of music course.

“It was so much math, and so little music,” Pyle bemoans, adding that he never took another music class.

Despite the poor advice, Grimsrud and Pyle became good friends. Their friendship has also overcome some questionable musical recommendations (Grimsrud did not care for Nickel Creek) and also one of Pyle’s college-era performances, which Grimsrud remembers as “just shouting.”

“He has regained his credibility since then, both with the evolution of his music and his recommendations,” jokes Grimsrud. “His new, solo stuff is impressive. He’s a thoughtful writer, going back, I’m sure, to the deep lessons in theology he got from me and [Professor] Christian Early! .… Now he’s got some real sensitivity, perhaps borne out of the challenging experiences he’s had in the years in between.”

Pyle stops to pick up a plastic bottle, now understanding why so many park rangers are grumpy.

“They work so hard to educate people and protect the land, and people trash it!”

He has had a rough few days adjusting back to the city.

“I was struck by noise. I’m not just talking about audio noise,” he says. Groups of people were overwhelming, lights were too bright, sounds were too loud. After being curt with a cashier, Pyle stopped to reflect.

“You had a literal ‘mountaintop experience,’ emotionally,” he told himself. “Who came back from Big Bend? Because it’s not the same person that left Albuquerque.”

His study of ecopsychology informed him that, after being in the wilderness, people often feel despair in the bustle of society. In exchange, Pyle gained resilience from Big Bend, and the prioritization of experiential over material wealth.

“That noise is the opposite of who I am,” Pyle says of the rushed consumerist mindset. He can use that contrast to help him “focus to create, heal myself, and help those around me, in my community. The noise doesn’t have to grind me down.”

John Henry is now cruising through boulders where Pyle can’t follow. Pyle calls him back. John Henry ignores this. The dog’s stubbornness means that becoming a nationally touring, support dog to his human is challenging at best. Pyle laments the situation.

Pyle is far from being ground down. He heads off in mid-December, which will take him to 13 states, including Harrisonburg, Virginia. In January, he lands in Birmingham, Alabama, to record his second LP, and he’s back home in Albuquerque for a Feb. 4 performance.

Participants include��, emeritus professor of peace theology; , now vice president of and the School of Graduate and Professional Studies;�� history professor and department chair; archivist and seminary professor ; and , executive director of the .

The film gives a historical account of reformer Martin Luther’s life, the revolutionary act of his 95 theses, and the theological impact on Christianity. Key questions raised by the filmmakers are “Did the Reformation go too far?” and “Can the unity Jesus called for ever be achieved?”

“It gives a good overview of the 16th century Reformation in an interesting and engaging way,” says Grimsrud. “There is helpful attention paid to present-day relevance of that event.”

The EMU representatives primarily speak on Anabaptist history, specifically its role in and reaction to the Reformation. Other featured experts include university and seminary faculty, theologians and clergymen.

“Certainly, and appropriately, the bulk of the film focuses on the mainline Reformation – Lutherans and Reformed – and the Catholic response. But the Anabaptists do get lengthy and respectful attention,” says Grimsrud.

Byler was tapped primarily to talk about “the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding as a contemporary Anabaptist expression of engaging the world,” he said. “Mohan’s emphasis on the tendency of denominational bodies to stress their differences rather than commonalities is an important challenge in this new season of polarization.”

���ѱ�’s featured experts and their talking points

• Grimsrud gives an introduction Anabaptist history, including Menno Simons’ early life as a Catholic priest and brother’s involvement in the small, violent “Munsterite” faction of Anabaptism.
• Sprunger explains historical context as to the political subversion of adult baptism. “It was a movement of the people,” she says in the film, peasants and artisans forming separate congregations with distinct personalities.
• Byler and King round out Anabaptist perspectives on nonviolence, a literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount and humanization of “the enemy.”
• Yoder contributes bonus material to the film about conscientious objectors in World War I and intra-church dynamics among early Anabaptists. He explains that the Anabaptist’s Reformation was “radical” in the sense that it was “going back to the root,” both to emulate the purity of early Christianity, and to excise the corruption resulting from the conflation of church and state.

The three-hour series is available on DVD and online streaming at

That “conversation inside my head and my heart” continued this fall semester when Myers became ���ѱ�’s first practitioner-in-residence for six weeks. He brought good humor, a willingness to subject himself to endless questions and cups of coffee, and a wealth of life experience from which to share.

During days filled with classroom observations, talks and more formal lectures, strategic plannings, and informal interactions with faculty, staff and students, not to mention still keeping in touch with his D.C. staff — Myers was a man on the move.

The result was a kind of Mennonite-inspired Chatauqua — a time both personally restorative and intellectually challenging, “as I’d hoped it would be,” Myers said. “���ѱ�’s academic programs at the , the and the offered a kind of intersection with my professional life that I thought would be an interesting mix of learning, conversation and feedback … this has really been one of the wonderful experiences of my life.”

Service and leadership

The Practitioner-In-Residence program was developed by the Provost’s Office.

“We want to provide space and time for experienced practitioners and recognized leaders to reflect on their own work and learn new skills by interacting with our own skilled academics and professionals, but we also want our campus community to engage and benefit from the opportunity to learn from a variety of people in diverse settings,” said Provost Fred Kniss.

Myers was a natural selection for the pilot program: his professional life has been spent at the confluence of faith, service and leadership in a variety of positions, including church ministry and nonprofit leadership. He pastored four Mennonite congregations, worked as a conference youth minister, and served two years in Mennonite voluntary service. He also was a founding board member of a state-wide fatherhood initiative, co-founder of an HIV/AIDS social service organization, and director of three homeless organizations.

Appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, Myers heads one of 13 centers that liaison between the faith-based and neighborhood organizations and their particular “home” agency: other similar centers reside, for example, with the departments of health and human services, education, labor and justice, among others.

Myers says much of his work is with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where he and his staff work to improve partnerships between the Department of Homeland Security and faith-based and voluntary organizations, which are often the “first responders” in emergencies.

In a series of exploratory meetings with programs at EMU, Myers was especially interested in the work of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, with a special focus on the (STAR) program.

Because his appointment will end with the conclusion of the Obama Administration, Myers says that some of the ideas he came away with may never come to fruition.

“But I am strongly committed to the idea of trauma-informed congregations,” says this former pastor, “whether that takes the shape of a webinar or a training” created and implemented by his office.

Prompted to reflection and discovery

Myers’ interactions on campus ranged from classroom observation (he particularly enjoyed Professor ’s “Biblical Theology of Peace and Justice” class and wanted to stay longer in Professor ’ course on war-to-peace transitions) to a day-long visit to Eastern Mennonite School.

Opportunities for what he calls “mutual exchange” often nudged him towards personal reflection and insight.

To Professor ’s “Leadership for the Common Good” graduate course, Myers brought moral dilemnas from his own career. With undergraduates in a social work practice, he talked about the role of the executive director and board relations, which turned into a conversation on strategic planning and goal setting.

“People are really curious about the government, so I always try to explain a little bit so that it is not quite so much of a mystery and a little less intimidating,” he told the audience during one of two formal lectures. (The titles of these lectures give a glimpse of his sense of humor and the kind of cultural challenges he has encountered in the past several years: “As Out of Place as a Mennonite (Ordained, No Less) in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security” and “Blowing Down Fences, Making Good Neighbors: Interfaith and Intercultural Collaboration in Disasters.”)

By the end of the six weeks, Myers shared his gratitude for the experience and for the opportunity to share and reflect upon not only his profession, but the Mennonite values that have helped to guide him through the challenges of trying to do good work in a political world. “I’ve learned that I will always have a Mennonite way of being in the world, and I’ll take that assuredly and self-consciously into whatever I do next.”

A yo-yo pattern was developing.

“I just didn’t feel like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, so I would drop out,” says Wert, who went on to spend time in South Texas and Central America during subsequent dropouts from college.

But Wert couldn’t quite shake EMU altogether. A 1996 to Ghana blew his eyes wide open. He made some close friends, got involved in peace and justice activism on campus, and was inspired by a handful of professors who raised provocative, poignant questions about what it meant to be Mennonite (he was raised in a Mennonite family and congregation in Florida).

By 2001, Wert had cobbled together enough credits to graduate with a and a slew of minors, including one in . As a freshman, he’d considered studying viola performance. By his super-super-super senior year, he was playing genre-bending shows around campus and Harrisonburg with The Red Wagon Band, alongside classmates Trent Wagler ‘02, Jaime Miller ‘01, and Nick Hurst ’01.

Fittingly, music will bring Wert back to campus once more on. He performs manic, foot-stomping folk, country and Americana music as a one-man band under the name .

The wanderlust that kept interrupting Wert’s college studies didn’t end with college. After graduation, he and his wife, Jenny, moved to New Mexico, then Texas. They lived in Maine for a time, then in Colorado, then back to Texas when their first son was born, to be closer to family. During that nomadic phase, Wert had mainly worked in the nonprofit world. After returning to Texas, he became a teacher – a career direction in which he’d always felt pulled. He is now a special education teacher at Curington Elementary School in Boerne, Texas.

Wert has been playing as Possessed by Paul James since 2006. He’d played a few dozen shows a year and thought it would always just be a side project. But then, to his surprise, his most recent album – – made a run on the Americana/Bluegrass Billboard charts (peaking at #12 in November of 2013). The following spring, Wert was , and at the end of 2014, a New York Times critic included a Possessed by Paul James show on .

“We were kind of dumbstruck with what the attention has been this past year,” says Wert. (It wasn’t the first time attention has been paid, though; Wert was featured in a 2008 documentary, The Folk Singer, by Slowboat Films, and a previous album, Feed the Family, won an Independent Music Award in 2011 for Best Alt Country Album.)

Wert’s friends from EMU who have followed his music are less surprised by the critical praise.

“Konrad is pure energy, pure heart,” says former bandmate Trent Wagler, who now fronts the widely acclaimed Americana band, . “I have never been around a more passionate performer or artist. He is an inspiring, creative force.”

Professor recalls Wert’s large impact on EMU “with his energy, commitment to peace, and outsized personality.”

“He plays with a joyful, soulful intensity. His stage name, Possessed by Paul James, indicates something of his out-of-left-field sensibility. Konrad does his music his way, following his own muse. It’s exciting to see him meet with success.”

As that musical success grows, Wert finds himself confronted with decisions about the future. He loves teaching, even though he gets “real rowdy” about the unrealistic demands placed on teachers and public schools across the country, and the growing gap between what’s needed in schools and the resources allocated to them – topics that find their way into much of his songwriting.

(Wert has also been recognized for his work in the classroom, having recently been named Teacher of the Year at his school.)

He and his wife have two sons now, ages 4 and 6, and the family loves to travel. Every summer they load up the van and wander. The recent success of Possessed by Paul James has them wondering whether they could wander more full-time from show to show, visiting schools along the way to perform, talk, listen and stay engaged.

“If you leave [education], you kind of give up on the process of changing it,” Wert says. “And if you stay in it, you internalize it, and it can make the quality of life pretty hard.… It’s hard to find a balance where you’re passionate and positive day after day after day.”

Maybe Wert’s unexpected recent musical success will offer a shot at that sort of balance, though there are lots of “ifs” to figure out. Wert and family are looking at Winnebagos, thinking about their next adventure. Wert plays a show in Washington D.C. on Friday evening. Then it’s back once more to EMU on Saturday and quickly away again for class on Monday. The future is uncertain, exciting, but for now there are still lessons to plan and progress reports to write.

Moshe Shner, a professor of Jewish philosophy at in Israel, spoke about his mother’s participation as a paramedic in a Jewish partisan group that violently resisted Nazi Germany during World War II. Shner grew up on an Israeli kibbutz surrounded by the children of other veterans of the partisan movement, feeling pride that they had “done something” to stand up for themselves.

“It doesn’t mean that we love war or that we love bloodshed,” said Shner. But it does mean, he continued, that sometimes, when all other options have been exhausted and when facing a truly implacable enemy causing harm to innocent people, using violence to try to prevent further harm is the ethical choice.

“Violence is bad. Violence is ugly … but in the end, we have responsibility to ourselves and our society and we have to do something that will stop [other] violence,” said Shner.

Unethical to acquiesce to harm

, an ��ݮ���� professor who has written extensively on the subject of pacifism, agreed with Shner that standing aside while innocent people are being harmed is unethical. As a conviction that each human life is precious, pacifism, Grimsrud said, requires nonviolent resistance to protect others from harm. But he argued that eventually resorting to violence – and later “valorizing” that violence, as he implied Shner does in the case of the Jewish partisans – makes violence “much more acceptable” the next time a conflict arises.

Grimsrud also said that the lesson of World War II should be that violence doesn’t work, as indicated by the Allies’ failure to stop the Holocaust from happening.

“The war was essentially a failure when it came to preventing harm-doing to Europe’s Jews,” he said.

He pointed out that the most successful instances of saving Jewish lives during the war – the “rescue” of Danish Jews to Sweden and the safe haven created in the French village of Le Chambon – were forms of nonviolent resistance.

Shner simply disagreed with Grimsrud’s stance on the efficacy of violence during World War II. It wasn’t philosophers or theologians or intellectuals who stopped Nazi Germany, he said, it was General Patton and General Zhukov who stopped Nazi Germany and saved the Jews who were still alive when the Allied armies were finally successful.

Force necessary at times?

“There are moments in life – you don’t like them and you hope they don’t come – when you have to use force,” Shner said.

By the end of their debate, Shner and Grimsrud had agreed in general that we are ethically obligated to nonviolently resist people or things causing harm to other people. They then began to split finer and finer hairs over the appropriate response to a harm-doer who doesn’t stop when confronted nonviolently, moving through an increasingly aggressive set of nonlethal violent tactics up to, finally, lethal violence (which Shner said is justified when all other options are exhausted).

“The line that I wouldn’t want to cross is killing somebody,” said Grimsrud, acknowledging the difficulty of the issue. “In a fundamental sense, I think violence is always wrong … but it was good that the Nazis were defeated.”

Shner’s visit to EMU was arranged by , a professor of who regularly leads semester-long study groups to the Middle East. Stutzman first met Shner more than a decade ago when Shner made a similar presentation to a group of EMU undergraduates in Israel, as he has regularly been doing ever since.

“His position on the ethics of ‘non-pacifism’ is intriguing. We need that to test our own convictions,” said Stutzman, who said that Shner’s position, if nothing else, compels pacifists to empathize with individual traditions and experiences that lead people to non-pacifist stances.

Stutzman also said that the question of pacifism’s efficacy, which consumed much of the debate, isn’t central to his thinking on the subject. Violence clearly is effective, and claiming pacifist convictions is easy in the comfortable Shenandoah Valley, Stutzman continued. But Jesus, he said, wasn’t in a position of personal security or comfort when he taught his followers to love their enemies.

Called to pacifism as a follower of Jesus

“I’m not a pacifist because I think it will protect me [or others]. I’m a pacifist because I believe that’s what Jesus calls us to do.”

Elise Sauder, a junior who attended the debate, came because she’s sometimes wondered whether her own pacifist convictions are always ethical.

“Although I believe that Moshe had really good points, my thinking is that things always come back to my faith in God, that He will protect me. If somebody was attacking me, I believe in my heart that I know where I’m going,” said Sauder, who was also a student on Stutzman’s cross-cultural to the Middle East in the spring of 2013.

And when it comes to the ethics of using violence – or not – to prevent harm being inflicted on someone else?

Much harder question, Sauder acknowledged, as other members of the audience clustered around Grimsrud and Shner to continue the discussion past its allotted hour and a half – not enough time to change peoples’ minds, it seemed, but plenty to get them thinking hard about difficult questions.

“There are more options out there for today’s students,” says Dula. “Rather than joining a traditional church structure, they sometimes choose to search for something even more Anabaptist.”

The emerging church movement and New Monasticism have created alternatives to traditional church that draw from and can inform an Anabaptist perspective, says Dula, a 1992 graduate.

“New Monasticism focuses on prayer, communal life and reaching out to the poor… Ideas that are rooted in the Christian tradition, but in a way Anabaptists can recognize as their own. It is an interesting time to teach and think about Anabaptism.”

Embracing the change

Instead of resisting alternatives to traditional worship, Dula and , a 1981 EMU graduate and Bible and religion instructor, see an opportunity to embrace alternatives and use them to engage and inform students.

“Our goal is to equip students to engage in shaping the future of the church,” said Schrock-Hurst, who also serves as co-pastor at Immanuel Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va. “All these ideas are available to this generation and we can create space for them to explore and figure out what works in their faith journeys.”

���ѱ�’s Bible and religion department tries to continually learn from students, says Dula. “Many of them are way out ahead of us as teachers.” We want to be a “meeting place,” he notes, where Mennonite and students from diverse backgrounds can share ideas on faith and God’s calling in their lives.

“Some of our best students enter EMU without a background in Anabaptism or the Mennonite church,” said Dula. “They find here, however, a space to own, appropriate and transform what they learn in our classrooms in ways that manage to be thoroughly Anabaptist.”

, professor of Bible and religion added, “I find that sometimes the students who are not from Mennonite backgrounds add a kind of new-discovery freshness when they embrace the peace position. Other times, we get challenges to pacifist assumptions born out of different ways of thinking about the Bible and Christianity.”

More than a classroom

���ѱ�’s provides an alternative classroom for many Bible and religion students with profound results. The experience, led by , professor of culture and mission and his wife, , showcases the history of the Bible while exploring current conflicts. Students are immersed in language and cultural studies while living in Palestine and Jerusalem.

After spending a semester in the Middle East, senior Jamie Hiner, from Culpeper, Va., observed, “I can connect to the stories [of the Bible] on a completely different level. I understand who Jesus was on a human level, and I have a connection to the land, people and cultures.”

In addition to the Middle East cross-cultural program, EMU is the only higher-education institution offering a major in . , associate professor of , says that while Catholics and Protestants have a long academic tradition in philosophy, Anabaptists are important contributors “because our own history of having been marginalized, our understanding of concrete embodied community, and our commitment to peace and reconciliation.”

Senior Ben Bailey, from Simsbury, Conn., found his knowledge of the Bible to be “limited compared to my peers at EMU.” A double-major in and , Bailey says his studies have provided him with a “comprehensive base knowledge to build upon.

“I continually feel the need to understand and question the Bible and theology on a deeper level.”

Hiner, a major with a minor in , added, “I’ve learned so much from personal relationships with my professors. I love having real conversations with them outside the classroom.”

Looking ahead

Bible and religion department faculty envision their department’s influence expanding across campus and in the community through dialogue with campus ministries and local churches. Interest in the department’s is growing as opportunities to explore internships outside of “traditional” pastoring arise. The very definition of “pastor” and “church” is changing; students are interested in how they intersect with these concepts.

“Students have an advantage with on campus, in addition to and numerous Mennonite churches nearby to integrate and connect with pastors, leaders and teachers,” Schrock-Hurst says.

Dula agrees, adding, “The goal is to make the discussion and debates that occur in our classrooms become the heart and soul of campus. This will encourage growth not only in the department and across campus, but in the broader church.”

BLUFFTON, Ohio—The necessity of World War II isn’t as clear-cut as widely believed, Bluffton University’s Keeney Peace Lecturer told a campus audience Oct. 25.

The reasons often given for American involvement in the war raise complicated questions, said , PhD, professor of theology and peace studies at ��ݮ����. But unjust means were certainly used to wage the war, he asserted, citing bombing of civilians that inflated the conflict’s tremendous cost in lives lost. And it continues to cast “a long shadow” in terms of consequences for the United States, he said.

Providing an alternative narrative, though, are the roughly 12,000 conscientious objectors who performed alternative service during the war, noted Grimsrud. As servants—and, in some cases, transformers who later addressed social change—they strengthened organizations such as , the and the , he said.

Pointing to a death toll estimated at up to 80 million, most of them civilians, Grimsrud called World War II “the biggest catastrophe to ever befall humanity.” But the war has generally been viewed as necessary, a conclusion he disputed.

“Many people insist this is just a no-brainer,” said the former Mennonite pastor. Others see moral complexity but, all things—particularly the Holocaust—considered, believe it had to be fought, he added.

Grimsrud argued, however, that facts don’t necessarily support reasons put forth for going to war at the time, namely to maintain national autonomy, protect democracy against totalitarianism and save the Jews.

Neither Germany nor Japan was interested in invading and trying to conquer the U.S., according to the professor. Both countries knew the difficulty of such an undertaking and wanted to dominate only their respective regions of the world, he maintained.

The notion of the need to protect democracy was complicated in large part by America’s alliance with England, which ruled a colonial empire in opposition to people’s right to self-determination, and with the communist Soviet Union, which, under Stalin, was “as far from democracy” as any nation, Grimsrud said.

The Holocaust question was complex as well, he continued, explaining that while then-Gen. Dwight Eisenhower said that was why the U.S. was fighting, his war policies ignored it. “Nothing was done to stop the Holocaust as it was happening,” said Grimsrud. And demanding unconditional surrender by the Nazis delayed the war’s end, allowing them to continue the genocide for months, he added.

Although acknowledging the explanation may be “simplistic,” he suggested the war effort was sustained by other factors, including U.S.-Japanese imperialist conflict over the Far East, German undermining of American corporate interests and growing U.S. awareness of its potential for world economic and military dominance.

Early in the war, the U.S. urged noncombatant immunity—one standard for judging if the means used in warfare are just, Grimsrud noted. That changed, though, by 1943, when air attacks intentionally incinerated everything in their path for the first time, he said. Hamburg, Germany, was hit that July, sending displaced residents to work in suburban weapons plants where they helped the German war effort by alleviating a labor shortage, he pointed out.

All reluctance to strike civilians was gone, he continued, by early 1945, when Dresden, Germany, was bombed in February and Tokyo in March. A bombing campaign ensued across Japan over the next five months before the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Debate continues about the military necessity of those bombs,” which killed, whether immediately or eventually, hundreds of thousands of Japanese, Grimsrud said. “However, they clearly violated the ‘just means’ criteria of proportionality and noncombatant immunity.”

The surge in wide-scale bombing—considered a war crime by some—had a major impact on warfare in following years, he added. Total tonnage of bombs dropped by the U.S. rose to about 6.7 million tons during the Vietnam War, nearly double the 3.4 million tons unleashed during World War II, he noted.

“It’s too easy to say, ‘We won, so it’s worth it,’” said Grimsrud, recounting not only the death toll but also the “tens of millions” injured and driven from their homes, and the environmental damage wrought.

The war’s legacy went much further, however. Among the Allies’ goals, as stated in the Atlantic Charter of 1941, were postwar disarmament and expansion of the right of self-determination to all people. Grimsrud said. But the result, he said, was “abject failure” in central Europe, where communism spread rather than democracy, and even in the U.S., where President Franklin Roosevelt, feeling constrained by the Constitution, had taken war action without congressional consent or public knowledge. After the war, the nation didn’t demobilize, as it had following previous wars, but instead became “a national security state” with the Pentagon at the center of power in the federal government, according to Grimsrud.

Both a small military and congressional declarations of war were “gone forever” by 1945, the professor said, and two years later, the U.S. was locked into the Cold War by the Truman Doctrine. “The past 65 years are a litany of one Truman Doctrine-inspired intervention after another,” including the 1991 Gulf War, which could have been avoided diplomatically but instead represented a lost chance for ongoing peace after the Soviet empire dissolved, he said.

Grimsrud concluded with an allusion to the visions of the Beast and the Lamb in Revelation 13 and 14. “The beastly power of militarism seems an overwhelming legacy of World War II,” he said. “But we may draw hope from the Lamb-like witness of those who opposed that war and whose inspiration has rippled down through the years and empowered an alternative legacy of nonviolent peacemaking.”

Bluffton’s Keeney Peace Lectureship was established in 1978 by the family of William Sr. and Kathryn Keeney to express appreciation for Bluffton’s influence and to strengthen the continuing peace witness among the community.

John L. Horst, Ted Grimsrud and Jim Bishop produce and host weekly programs on public radio station WEMC, 91.7 FM. They do it on a volunteer basis because they believe there are sufficient numbers of people hankering for their special brands of music.

And, while they acknowledge that their programs appeal to a “niche market,” they get enthusiastic listener response to shore up their conviction.

“Mostly Mennonite, Mostly A Cappella”

John Horst

Horst, a retired physics professor at EMU, hosts “Mostly Mennonite, Mostly A Cappella,” 8-9:30 a.m. Sundays. He plays blocks of, as the program suggests, mostly unaccompanied sacred choral music by local and nationally-known artists and groups.

Horst draws from years of musical experience, which included singing with the former “Mennonite Hour” radio broadcast’s chorus and male quartet in the mid-1950’s to the mid 1960’s as well as composing. Music from the 15 CD reissues of Classic Mennonite Hour singing often appears on the program.

Listeners on a given Sunday morning may hear groups ranging from local favorites such as the the Eastern Mennonite High School Touring Choir, the EMU Chamber Singers, the Shenandoah Valley Men’s Chorus, the Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir and local composers Jim Clemens and Brad Lehman. A sampling of contrasting music outside the Mennonite tradition is usually part of each program.

“Friday Night Jukebox”

Jim Bishop

Bishop, who dubs himself a “hopeless nostalgic,” dishes up an hour of dusty discs from the decade of the 1950’s, the “Friday Night Jukebox,” 8-9 p.m. Fridays. The show features straight-ahead rock and roll, street-corner doo-wop harmonies, top ten instrumentals, off-the- wall novelties and sock hop specials with artists as diverse as Chuck Berry, Perry Como, the McQuire Sisters, Marty Robbins, Duane Eddy and Little Richard who shared the charts during this era.

The last 15 minutes of the show every week is devoted to unabashedly romantic tunes to watch the submarine races by. Requests and dedications are welcomed by calling 432-4211.

Bishop also teams up with WSVA radio personality Jim Britt for the monthly “Warped Records Show,” a two-hour montage of, as the title suggests, weird, wacky tunes that were once stables of radio but today don’t “fit” any station genre, 10 a.m.-noon, usually on Thursday. The show will feature warped holiday tunes twice in December – on the 8th and 23rd of the month.

“I’m not aware of any commercial radio station anywhere doing a program like this one,” Bishop notes. “Even WSVA doesn’t know what to make of the avid listener response.”

“Wavelength”

Ted Grimsrud

Rumor has it that if Ted Grimsrud’s CD collection was laid end-to-end, it would stretch from Harrisonburg to Hinton – maybe even Rawley Springs.

Dr. Grimsrud, professor of Bible and religion at EMU and – yes, he’s a rockin’ jock PhD – is host of “Wavelength,” 3-6 p.m. Saturdays. He modestly describes the program as “music from the intersection of country, folk, rock and roll, blues and gospel.”

On any given week, one might hear Waylon and Willie, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan and the Beatles followed by the Everly Brothers, Bruce Cockburn, Nina Simeone and Los Lobos – and it “seams” to work.

The Bible prof-music buff even manages a “Wavelength” blog at

About WEMC and WMRA

WEMC, Virginia’s oldest public radio station, founded in 1955, is owned by ��ݮ���� but now managed by the staff of James Madison University’s public radio station, WMRA. WEMC operates out of WMRA’s studios at Cantrell Ave. The station can be heard on-line at .

Mark Thiessen Nation

The book is available in the university bookstore and will be for sale at the close of the program.

Ted Grimsrud and Mark Thiessen Nation, EMU and EMS theologians and professors, respectively, have taken on an issue that continues to vex and divide the Christian church – homosexuality.

They will draw from their book, Reasoning Together: A Conversation on Homosexuality (Herald Press, November, 2008) in discussing and debating all sides of the issue in an open forum 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19, in Strite Conference Room 105 on first floor of EMU’s Campus Center. See campus map.

Dr. Grimsrud and Dr. Thiessen Nation “will engage in respectful yet passionate give-and-take over the differences between them as well as areas of agreement and consensus and field audience questions,” said Brian Martin Burkholder, EMU campus pastor.

“This event, part of a year-long campus emphasis on ‘Embodying Sexual Wholeness in a Broken World,’ is designed for people who want to hear more than one angle on this challenging issue,” Martin Burkholder stated.

Grimsrud’s and Thiessen’s book is available in the university bookstore and will be for sale at the close of the program. The authors will be available for book signings.

The event is sponsored by EMU campus ministries. For more information, contact Martin Burkholder at 540-432-4115.

Nicholas Wolterstorff, professor emeritus of philosophy at Yale University and currently a visiting professor at the University of Virginia, will give two lectures on "justice" Thursday, Nov. 13, at Martin Chapel of the seminary building.

The first presentation, at 3:30 p.m., will be, "Why Are Christians Suspicious of Justice?" Dr. William Hawk, professor of philosophy at James Madison University, will respond, followed by open discussion.

The second, at 7 p.m., will be, "Re-Thinking Love in the New Testament." Dr. Ted Grimsrud, professor of theology and peace studies at EMU, will give a response, followed by open discussion.

Wolterstorff, a well-known Christian philosopher, has written numerous books on philosophy of religion, political philosophy, aesthetics, education and grief. His most recent book is "Justice: Rights and Wrongs" (Princeton University Press, 2008).

One of his most poignant works is "Lament for a Son," written as a response to the loss of his 25-year-old son in a mountain climbing accident. His reflections in the wake of that tragedy are deeply personal, expressed with a prayerful anguish with which most bereaved parents will identify. In the book, Wolterstorff refuses to turn from the "demonic awfulness" of death and, as he moves faithfully through grief, discovers new meaning in the Beatitudes, together with a new understanding of a suffering God.

Wolterstorff received his BA from Calvin College in 1953 and his PhD in philosophy from Harvard University in 1956. Prior to retirement, he wasNoah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology. Before that, he taught for 30 years at his alma mater, Calvin College.

The lectures, sponsored by EMU’s Bible and religion department and the EM Provost’s office, are free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Ted Grimsrud, 432-4464; email: grimsrud@emu.edu.

They spoke Aug. 8-9 to about 45 faculty, plus several graduate students, from schools including Kansas’ Bethel and Hesston Colleges, Ohio’s Bluffton University, Indiana’s Goshen College; Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg; Conrad Grebel University in Waterloo, Ont., and Mennonite Education Agency (MEA).

Willard Swartley introduces the faculty conference theme with a keynote address on “The World via the Word.” (Photo by Jim Bishop)

“How the logos creates the world is really unanswerable,” said keynoter Willard Swartley, speaking on “The World via the Word.” Dr. Swartley, professor emeritus of New Testament and former dean at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind., was EMU’s 2004 alumnus of the year.

Referencing John 1:1-18, he characterized the creation-vs.-evolution debate as irrelevant, declaring God “the enabler” who makes change possible.

‘God’s Created World’

Speaking, in turn, on “The Word via the World,” Doug Graber Neufeld promised, “My forays into theology will be brief and filled with trepidation.”

Yet, Dr. Neufeld, who chairs EMU’s biology and chemistry departments, sees spiritual challenges in “what we’re doing to God’s created world.”

Having co-taught EMU’s “Green Design” course and served with Mennonite Central Committee in Cambodia, Neufeld recently received a National Science Foundation award for research on drinking water quality. While few minority students are entering scientific fields, he cited positive trends including “citizen science” and “creation care.”

In a roundtable session Mennonite professors reflect on ideas presented in the keynote address for their discipline. (Foreground) Lisa Thimm, Sally Weaver Sommer, Angie Montel, Greta Ann Herin, Jerrel Ross Richer; Background: Bill Eash, Bradley Kauffman, Merrill Krabill, Gerald Mast, Greg Luginbuhl. Photos by Jim Bishop

It was the first annual conference, and first visit to EMU, for Bethel’s Lisa Janzen Scott and Kulsum Kapacee.

“The title got my attention,” said Kapacee, a nursing faculty member originally from Kenya. She hoped to “to learn from what is working” at other schools.

Scott, a teacher-educator, enjoyed linking faces to names of colleagues whose publications she’d read.

Ted Grimsrud, EMU professor of theology and peace studies, often talks with non-EMU colleagues in his disciplines, but appreciated meeting conferees from other fields.

Ecology and Sustainability

Ryan Sensenig, who teaches biology at Goshen, hoped to find ways that “interdisciplinary faculty can work together in ecology and sustainability.”

Delivering one of the conference’s several short presentations, Sensenig, a 1992 EMU graduate, said he wants his teaching to reflect kenosis (receptiveness to God’s will). While he worked in Kenya with grassland ecosystems, Sensenig’s two five-year-olds enjoyed the diversity of plant life.

Back in Kansas, he said they demonstrated kenosis by asking, “Hey, Dad, when can we let our grass grow nice and tall like that?” Sensenig has begun a similar project on the prairie.

Bluffton art professor Gregg Luginbuhl expresses Creation themes through images of mushrooms; masks; the dorsal fin of a fish becoming a headdress. Comparing God’s work to human-made art, he said, “God’s creation is dynamic. My art is static, although it sometimes gains life.”

Vi Dutcher, professor and chair of EMU’s language and literature department, described grappling for words to convey empathy. “I have never shared with my students the excruciating nature of writing,” she admitted during audience questioning.

Dr. Dutcher recently submitted a children’s book for publication, titled “The Red Pop Beads” and based on her childhood reactions to the loss of a sister.

The conference included “table group” discussions as well as musical entertainment: “Anabaptist Bestiary Project,” by Bluffton’s Trevor Bechtel. In the project, modeled on the Medieval bestiary tradition, Bechtel saims to celebrate God’s creation by exploring the ways in which God’s creatures reveal God’s will.

EMU President Loren Swartzendruber cited today’s campus challenges as increased parental involvement, declining biblical literacy, and society’s de-valuing the life of the mind. He told attendees that in the 1970s, while he was an admissions counselor at then-EMC, someone suggested that all faculty be ordained. Impractical as that may be, Swartzendruber said, teachers do as important work as pastors.

Chris Edwards is a free-lance writer from Harrisonburg.

Ted Grimsrud, associate professor of and at ��ݮ����, was awarded “honorable mention” (third place) for biblical interpretation at the 91st annual awards ceremony of the Associated Church Press.

The award was announced Apr. 24 in Chicago at the annual convention of the ACP, the oldest interdenominational press association in North America.

Headlined “The Lamb