In the name of missions

MENNO WIEBE

Marvin E. Kroeker. Winnipeg: Kindred Press, 1997. 177 pp.

Marvin Kroeker's research centres around the missionary efforts of Abram and Magdalena Becker. During their four decades of evangelization and Christian service among the Comanche people of Oklahoma, the Beckers witnessed the transition from mission status to the establishment of the Comanches' own congregation.

Releasing Comanches and Mennonites is a venture as courageous as it is precarious. Both author and publisher deserve credit for bringing forward the findings of Mennonite missions that was launched in the 1890s, the era in which European immigrants assumed divine justification for pressing frontier boundaries into Indian lands.

This book describes the search for a Mennonite mission in Oklahoma during the last decade of the 19th century.l Precipitated by contacts with the Cheyenne from an established Mennonite mission just north of the Comanches, MBs launched a mission at Post Oak. Amidst the forcefully relocated Comanches, the mission had its crisis-laden beginnings. Belonging to its subsequent travails and growth was the mission's own forced relocation prompted by military expropriation of Comanche and Mennonite mission land holdings.

Figuring prominently in Kroeker's account is Quanah Parker, "last chief of the Comanche". Parker's significance lies in the missionaries' acknowledgement of Comanche leadership for local decision-making and his liaison to the government pertaining to detribalization, land negotiation and his almost paradoxical adherence to traditional Comanche beliefs. Parker, who was designated as chief by the US government and who received financial benefits from surrounding white ranchers, represents a type of cultural broker. In this liaison of conflict, it is not always clear, from the author's stance, on which side the Mennonite mission lent its support. On the matter of the Mennonites' own identity, Kroeker notes the paradox of Mennonites' own resistance to assimilation while seemingly endorsing Comanche assimilation into mainstream society.

Kroeker's alertness to community building as an ingredient of missions seems especially significant in light of a cultural resurgence of aboriginal peoples. In effect, a peoples' corporate rebirth is acknowledged against substantial odds of forced relocation, individualization and decimation. Thus, a wholesome alternative to the church as a competitive community divider is presented. Moreover, the actual mission reflects achievements beyond stated goals of soul winning and church planting. Word and deed flow together especially in the practical work of Magdalena Becker. The immense rewards of friendship accorded the entire Becker family by the Comanche people reflects not only their durable tenure but a mutual discovery of one another as children of one God.

One is left to wonder about the church as an agent of assimilation, especially at a time when Mennonites are abandoning their own cultural heritage in favour of the American mainstream. A second perplexity lies in the Christian response to the ugly history of Indian land confiscation and cultural decimation. Whether the gospel of justice must reach beyond an internal spiritual domain is a question left to the reader.

Casting new light on the parables of Jesus

MARVIN DYCK

V.George Shillington, ed. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997.

"It is in the nature of parable . . . not to let its reader/participant walk away blithely nodding to the moral of the story . . . [I]ts form and figures and plot are certain to leave `the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought' " (p. 89).

If that were true when Jesus first told the parables, today it requires even more thought and spiritual sensitivity to understand them, removed as we are by culture and by 2000 years.

Accordingly, George Shillington, professor of biblical and theological studies at Concord College, Winnipeg, edits this book with two purposes in mind. The first is to view "the figure of Jesus afresh through a new reading of his parables". The second is to "expose . . . different approaches to the interpretation of the narrative parables of Jesus."

Shillington writes the introductory chapter, which provides excellent insights for understanding parables, and a chapter on the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20). The remaining ten chapters are written by different scholars on other parables of Jesus.

With so many contributors, there is diversity in writing style and vocabulary. However, no Bible study leader, Sunday school teacher or Bible student should be put off by the scholarly language. The subject matter is familiar.

I came away from this book with a new understanding of who God is and with an appreciation for the insights of those who have more closely studied the life and times of Jesus. They bring to light all kinds of details about those times and show how those details can affect the way we understand the parables of Jesus.

I recommend this book as a valuable resource for any preacher, teacher or small group leader who is dealing with the parables of Jesus.

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