Articles
The issue opens with two pieces on ritual and Anabaptist practice:
Fran Porter, using a critical gender lens, challenges whether foot washing can function as a subversive practice today, highlighting gendered experiences, body‑image pressures, and the risks of unwanted intimacy for women. She ultimately urges Christians to seek everyday practices that embody Jesus’ transformative intent.
Andrew Bolton calls for a richer Anabaptist understanding of sacrament, proposing “sacramental‑ordinances” such as baptism, communion, foot washing, marriage, child dedication, and anointing as sacred dramas that draw believers into God’s redemptive story.
A third article by Paul Lusk responds to earlier work on anarchist readings of Scripture. He argues that early Anabaptists did not reject the state but saw it as necessary for social order. Drawing on four biblical texts, he concludes that contemporary Anabaptists should cultivate networks of voluntary cooperation supported by a transparent, law‑bound state rather than seeking to delegitimise state authority.
Reflections on Practice
Eleanor Kreider continues her exploration of eucharistic prayer, while Andrew Francis reflects on fragility in discipleship amid the pandemic, and within the UK Anabaptist movement, urging the development of robust Anabaptist political theology.
Stuart Murray Williams offers an update on the expanding After Christendom series and invites proposals for future volumes.
Book Reviews
Reviews cover works by, engaging themes of materiality, Anabaptist history, pneumatology, and nonviolence:
- Brueggemann
- Dyck, Keaney, Beachy
- Friesen
- Klassen
- Mittelstadt & Pipkin
- Rempel
- Weaver & Mast
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