Can Robots Love God and Be Saved?
A Journalist Reports on Faith

John Longhurst

JOURNALISM / RELIGION / ECUMENISM & INTERFAITH
June 2024 | 282 pages | paper | $28.00
ISBN 978-1-987986-19-8

New! Interview with John Longhurst

"John Longhurst takes religion seriously in ways few in Canada do today, notably in the media. He poses fair and thought-provoking questions and analysis that stir careful consideration. This is what quality journalism ought to do. For those willing to read and listen with an open mind—while also holding to one’s convictions—John is a helpful conversation partner for thinking deeply about the role and place of religion in contemporary Canadian life. And if John had his way, readers would allow their thinking about religion and society to then transform their behaviours for the betterment of others."— Joel Thiessen, Professor of Sociology, Ambrose University

Recording of 12 June 2024 launch at McNally Robinson Booksellers

In columns and reporting for the Winnipeg Free Press for over 20 years, journalist John Longhurst has covered faith from a multitude of perspectives. This collection of his most stimulating reflections on faith of all sorts is also a series of reports on culture, politics, death, technology, and just about anything in our society that intersects with religion. Longhurst is perennially curious about religious faith in its various expressions. As his Free Press bio says, "One constant through John’s career has been his belief that almost every story has a religion angle, and that the media could do a better job of telling it." Whether writing about Holocaust survivors, residential schools, religious relics, inter-religious misunderstandings, assisted dying, or how women religious leaders are treated, John Longhurst has something thought-provoking to say about the way faith intersects with all aspects of our lives.

"John Longhurst’s new book is the culmination of a great and meaningful career of writing and reporting the news. Containing hard-hitting articles spanning two decades, this book explores key questions of Canadian life today from an engaging and progressive faith perspective: questions of reconciliation with First Nations, the environment, LGBTQ+ communities, MAID, artificial intelligence, pacifism, war, and much more. As faith news columns have disappeared over the years, there has been a loss of an important kind of voice in the country, one that speaks on matters of spirituality and meaning in our everyday busy lives. This book, and John’s reporting in general, ensure the continuation of this much-needed voice for the Winnipeg community and beyond. Much of this book’s writing acts as an important bridge between the academic study of religion in the humanities and social sciences, and how findings from these studies can be significant and have real-world value. The author draws on his vast knowledge, curiosity, and networks of faith matters and research to bring the reader a distinct point of view that draws them in and gets them thinking about what is important in our society."
— Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, Associate Professor, Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo

Wearing a Broken Indigene Heart
on the Sleeve of Christian Mission

Right Reverend Dr. Carmen Lansdowne

Forthcoming 2025
ISBN 978-1-987986-18-1
THEOLOGY / MISSIOLOGY / INDIGENOUS STUDIES

The Indigenous intercultural theology proposed in this groundbreaking work by Dr. Carmen Lansdowne seeks to reframe many of the (often unspoken) assumptions about the field of Christian mission. Ultimately, Dr. Lansdowne searches out answers to the question If Indigenous hearts are broken by Christianity, what is it in Christian theology that is life giving at all?

She writes: “This work is very much a labour of love—which is fitting coming from a Christian missiologist. I have written from a place of deep commitment to and love for the Christian faith. As an Indigenous woman, I have been asked many times (from both inside and outside the church) why I choose to be Christian at all. This work is my first attempt to articulate for the church why traditional worldviews are so important for the church, for theology, for the world. My work is at one both very specific (being an ordained minister, a PhD-holding theologian Heiltsuk woman, Indigenous to the central coast of British Columbia), and at the same time woven into the macro-story of global oppression and the struggle to redefine Christian mission in a way that separates itself from colonialist thinking and action.”

The Right Rev. Dr. Carmen Lansdowne was elected Moderator of the United Church of Canada in 2022, the first Indigenous woman in that position. Born in Alert Bay, BC, and a member of the Heiltsuk First Nation, she has a history degree from University of Victoria and both Master of Divinity and Master of Theology degrees from Vancouver School of Theology. In 2016, she earned her PhD from Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Before her election as moderator, Dr. Lansdowne directed the First United Church Community Ministry Society in Vancouver; she has taught intercultural theology, Indigenous liberation theologies, and global religious traditions in many centres. In 2025 she will take up a position on the faculty of Emmanuel College, University of Toronto.

Suffering the Truth: Occasional Sermons and Reflections

Chris K. Huebner
2020 | 111 pages | paper | $20.00 limited stock
ISBN 978-1-987986-07-5

Structured around the Christian liturgical calendar, Suffering the Truth offers a series of reflections on a worshipping life which is exceedingly difficult yet potentially joyful. Beginning with a meditation on Advent as a time to be ready for the unexpected and concluding with a sermon that challenges the conception of peace celebrated on the day Mennonites call Peace Sunday, Chris Huebner presents a provocative account of the unusual rhythms of Christian temporality. These sermons seek to elaborate a liturgical counter-temporality and ask what might happen when these rhythms inform the way Christians actually go about their ordinary lives.

“Pastors who invite [author Chris Huebner] to their pulpits will not find him to be grateful for the invitation. He finds it a terrifying business. But they will be glad for the companionship of a theologian who knows what they are up against week by week... While Huebner may not thank them for the invitation, their congregations certainly will.”
— David Widdicombe, review in Direction

The Challenge is in the Naming: A Theological Journey

Lydia Neufeld Harder
2018 | 370 pages | paper | $32.95 $20.00 limited stock
ISBN 978-1-987986-04-4

This is a collection of groundbreaking, powerful essays by a passionate scholar written over the course of 30 years. Included are provocative discussions of power and vulnerability, postmodern suspicion, feminist challenges to conventional theology, and discernment regarding sexual orientation within church communities. The director of Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre in the 1990s, Harder continues as a Senior Fellow there. She advocates for an embodied theology which acknowledges location, gender, sexuality, class, and ethnicity within the theological conversation.

A rich blending of personal, church, and academic narratives and contexts... This interdisciplinary collection has the potential to become a pivotal resource for the next generation of Mennonite theologians, scholars, and pastors.
– from the foreword by Kimberly Penner and Susanne Guenther Loewen

Approaching the Divine: Signs and Symbols of the Christian Faith

Margaret Loewen Reimer
2017 | 96 pages | paper | $14.99 now $10.00 limited stock
ISBN 978-1-987986-01-3

A handbook on signs and symbols in the Christian tradition, written from a Mennonite perspective. It provides a window into the meaning behind liturgical practices and art forms developed by the church through the ages. It also explores the seasons of the church year and observances related to special "Holy Days" in the Christian tradition. Includes a section on more universal signs and tokens, such as numbers and shapes, and some popular expressions of faith.

Empire Erotics and Messianic Economies of Desire

2013 J.J. Thiessen Lectures
P. Travis Kroeker
2016 | 91 pages | paper | $12.00 limited stock
ISBN 978-0-920718-98-8

Pairing biblical and literary sources, the 2013 J.J. Thiessen lectures undertake a theological exploration of the crucial interconnections between desire (eros) and economics in our intimate and institutional relationships. Beginning with an exploration of the distortion of messianic desire—self-emptying love—into the self-serving erotics of empire, this book asks how the messianic community can live out an alternative liturgy of service in the everyday.

On Being Human:
Essays from the Fifth Shi'i Muslim Mennonite Christian Dialogue

Edited by Harry Huebner and Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen
2013 | 269 pages | paper| $15.00 limited stock
ISBN 978-0-920718-94-0

A collection of dialogical essays around various topics pertaining to human nature and destiny from a theological perspective. The essays reflect the authors' ideas of how best to convey what they hold to be not only their personal beliefs, but also the beliefs of their communities, to an audience that is not expected to share these beliefs. Surprises abound as discussions reveal both astonishing similarities across religious convictions and differences in basic concepts where similarities were assumed.

Peace and Justice:
Essays from the Fourth Shi'i Muslim Mennonite Christian Dialogue

Harry J. Huebner and Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen, editors
2011 | 277 pages | paper | $10.00 limited stock
ISBN 978-0-920718-89-6

While the goal of inter-religious dialogue is sometimes thought to be a single religious understanding, that proves to be a mistake, and a dangerous one, because of its tendency to impose closure not warranted by intellectual honesty. The essays from this dialogue are lodged in another pursuit: of freely giving each person the voice to speak for his or her faith tradition. This posture of open engagement can be a mode of peacemaking: a way of engaging difference that is far from the view of the Other as enemy.