MWR : Articles : Paul Schrag

Last updated March 09.

image of March 15 front page Download a PDF version of page one of MWR's March 15 print edition.

Send letters to the editor, or suggestions for our stories or Web site, to MWR‘s editors.

Articles : Paul Schrag

Portrait of war’s addiction

Every realistic war movie can be viewed as an antiwar movie, though not necessarily because the filmmakers intend it to be. The Hurt Locker, best picture winner at the Academy Awards on March 7, betrays no agenda.

Demise of the death penalty?

Kansas Mennonites’ campaign to end the death penalty in their state this winter ended in disappointment. But capital punishment is losing ground nationally and around the world. Peacemaking Christians are adding their voices as the movement to end executions gathers strength.

Debate with a measure of grace

Goshen (Ind.) College’s decision to play the national anthem at some sporting events has generated a flurry of discussion on Mennonite Weekly Review’s Web site. By Feb. 11, readers had posted more than 50 comments on a news story and an editorial.

Purposeful agents of change

Change is constant but hard to control. Technological progress, economic cycles and cultural trends will sweep us along unless we take charge of our own choices.

Pulling a nation from the ruins

Haiti owns the unfortunate label of “poorest nation in the western hemisphere.” That may be true financially, but money is not the sole measure of wealth. Haitians are rich in courage, generosity and resilience. These qualities, evident in the days after the Jan. 12 earthquake, hold the key to Haiti’s recovery.

Power of God and of story

Peter J. Dyck may have owed his life to Mennonite Central Committee, and he repaid the debt many times over.

Spiritual gift of the MB church

If Mennonites are a body with many parts — each with its own gift, as 1 Corinthians 12 says — the Mennonite Brethren are the ones with the gift of letting the Spirit move them to release what they feel inside.

Year in Review: Fellowship lifts spirits in days of stress

Celebrations of blessing and belonging on a grand scale lifted spirits in a year of financial struggle for Mennonite families, congregations and institutions.

Memoir of going home is acclaimed, critiqued

Rhoda Janzen freely admits readers shouldn’t take everything in her new memoir literally.
Where thrift and generosity meet

Jokes about Mennonite thrift are older than that stash of rubber bands you can’t throw away. “You know you’re really a Mennonite,” says The Mennonite Starter Kit (Good Books, 1993), “when the fact that someone would save old bread bags to braid into doormats doesn’t strike you as odd.”