Public Lectures
Canadian Mennonite University presents a number of annual lecture events, including:
- John & Margaret Friesen Lectures – January 23, 2025
- J.J. Thiessen Lecture Series
- Scientist in Residence Lecture Series
- CSOP Lecture Series
Other past lectures
- Rev'd Dr. David Widdicombe – And His Hands Prepared the Dry Land
- Rev'd Dr. David Widdicombe Lecture – To Sow the Wind
- Winter Lecture Series
- Proclaiming the Claims of Christ Lecture Series
The J.J. Thiessen Lecture Series
Founded in 1978 by Canadian Mennonite Bible College, the J.J. Thiessen Lectures are named in honour of a founder and long-time chairperson of the CMBC Board. The lectures seek to bring to the Canadian Mennonite University community something of his breadth of vision for the church.
October 22–23, 2024
"True Religion" in a Modern World: The Spiritual Theology of the Early Evangelicals
with Dr. Bruce Hindmarsh, James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology and Professor of the History of Christianity at Regent College, Vancouver, BC
These lectures explore the spiritual theology of early evangelicalism by looking at three questions that were of great importance to the movement in its origins:
- What does it mean to begin well in the spiritual life?
- What does the spiritual life look like in its consummation?
- And how do we know that our spiritual experience is authentic?
These questions are of enduring significance, and by retrieving insights from the past, we’ll be able to think wisely about the spiritual life today.
Lectures 1-3 will be livestreamed and available for on-demand viewing.
About Dr. Bruce Hindmarsh
Dr. Bruce Hindmarsh
Dr. Bruce Hindmarsh took his DPhil degree in theology at Oxford University in 1993. From 1995 to 1997 he was also a research fellow at Christ Church, Oxford. He has since published and spoken widely to international audiences on the history of early British evangelicalism. His articles have appeared in respected academic journals such as Church History, the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and the Huntington Library Quarterly.
The recipient of numerous teaching awards and research grants, Hindmarsh has also been a research fellow at the Huntington Library and recipient of the Henry Luce III Theological Fellowship. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a past-president of the American Society of Church History. His book The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism: True Religion in a Modern World won best History/Biography in the 2019 Christianity Today Book Awards. In 2022, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by Crandall University and also received the 2022 Research Award from the Dallas Willard Research Center at the Martin Institute for Christianity & Culture.
Hindmarsh teaches the history of Christianity and spiritual theology, and speaks often to lay audiences as well as preaching in his own church and elsewhere. A former staff worker for Youth for Christ and founding director of Camp Cedarwood, he is an active lay member of an Anglican Church in Vancouver. He is married to Carolyn, and they have three adult children.
Hindmarsh is the author of three major academic books:
• The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism (Oxford University Press, 2018)
• The Evangelical Conversion Narrative (Oxford University Press, 2005)
• John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition (Oxford University Press, 1996)
Lecture 1 | Conversion: How does the spiritual life begin?
Tuesday, October 22 | 11:00 AM | CMU Chapel and via livestream
Over against a merely nominal religion (“going to church and sacrament”), the early evangelicals stressed the necessity of a personally meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ. Thousands of conversion narratives in print and manuscript bear witness to a new found joy of sins forgiven and an newly released energy for mission in evangelism, pastoral work, and humanitarian concerns. How might we carry forward this impulse today?
Lecture 2 | Perfection: What is the goal of the spiritual life?
Tuesday, October 22 | 7:00 PM | CMU Chapel and via livestream
If the first generation of evangelicals had Alpha courses, so to speak, did they also have Omega courses? Was there a vision of spiritual maturity? Indeed, there was. For both wings of the early evangelical movement (Calvinist and Wesleyan), there was a strong affirmation of Jesus Christ himself as the “end of faith as its beginning.” How might this help us think today about the telos of the spiritual life?
Lecture 3 | Discernment: How is authentic spiritual life evaluated?
Wednesday, October 23 | 11:00 AM | CMU Chapel and via livestream
The phenomenon of popular revival raised afresh the question of discernment: How do I know these religious experiences are authentic? Jonathan Edwards did most to develop a theology of evangelical discernment, outlining not only the criteria for “true religion,” but also the false criteria which could mislead believers into error. Edwards’ teaching has had renewed application today in the context of revival and charismatic renewal. We still need to ask today: How do I know this is God?
Bonus Lecture and Conversation | 250 Years of "Amazing Grace"
Wednesday, October 23 | 7:00 PM | CMU Chapel (in-person only)
This is a companion event to this year's three J.J. Thiessen lectures. You need not have attended the lectures to engage in the conversation.
The song "Amazing Grace" is sung millions of times around the world every year and is the most recorded song of all time. Poignantly, it is often sung in times of loss and tragedy. With previews from an upcoming feature film, Hindmarsh will explore the 250-year history of the song as well as the dramatic and surprising story of its author John Newton, a converted slave trader, pastor, and abolitionist.
Previous J.J. Thiessen Lectures
Past annual J.J. Thiessen Lectures published by CMU Press.
2023: Dr. Willie James Jennings, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies, Yale Divinity School
Topic: Gathering the pieces that remain: Weaving life together from the fragments of faith, race, and land
VIDEO
2022: Dr. Robin W. Jensen, Patrick O'Brien Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame
Topic: Picturing the Bible: How Artists Tell the Story
VIDEOS
2021: Dr. Edith M. Humphrey, William F. Orr Professor Emerita of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA
Topic: Mediation and the Immediate God
VIDEOS
2019: Dr. Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, Georgia Harkness Professor of Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL
Topic: Christology Revisited: Why Jesus Matters
VIDEOS
2018: Dr. John Witvliet, Director & Professor of Worship, Theology, and Congregational and Ministry Studies at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, MI
Topic: Violence, Injustice, Trauma, and the Ordinary Practices of Christian Worship in a Social Media Age
VIDEOS
2017: Dr. C. Arnold Snyder, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Waterloo
Topic: Faith and Toleration: A Reformation Debate Revisited
VIDEOS
2016: Dr. J. Richard Middleton, Professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis, Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, NY
Topic: The Silence of Abraham, The Passion of Job: Explorations in the Theology of Lament
VIDEOS
2015: Dr. Darren Dochuk, Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame
Topic: Crude Awakenings: The Faith, Politics, and Crises of Oil in America's Century?
VIDEOS
2014: Dr. John Swinton, Professor and Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies, University of Aberdeen, Scotland
Topic: Becoming Friends of Time: Disability, Timefulness and Gentle Discipleship
VIDEOS
2013: Dr. P. Travis Kroeker, Professor of Religious Studies, McMaster University
Topic: Mennonites and Mammon: Economies of Desire in a Post-Christian World
AUDIO Book
2012: Dr. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Helen H. P. Manson Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis, Princeton Theological Seminary
Topic: From Powerlessness to Praise in Paul's Letter to the Romans
2011: Dr. Peter Widdicombe, McMaster University
Topic: Scripture and the Christian Imagination: Text, Doctrine, and Artistic Representation in the Early Church and Beyond
2010: Dr. Belden Lane, Saint Louis University
Topic: From Desert Christians to Mountain Refugees: Fierce Landscapes and Counter-Cultural Spirituality
AUDIO BOOK
2009: Dr. Peter Ochs, Edgar Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies, University of Virginia
Topic: The Free Church and Israel's Covenant
2008: Dr. Mark Noll, Professor of History, University of Notre Dame
Topic: A Yankee Looks North: Toward an Appreciation and Assessment of the History of Christianity in Canada.
2007: Dr. Ellen Davis, Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, Duke Divinity School
Topic: Live Long on the Land: Food and Farming from a Biblical Perspective.
2006: Dr. Joel J. Shuman, King's College, Wilkes-Barre, PA
Topic: To Live is to Worship: Bioethics and the Body of Christ
BOOK
2005: Dr. Paul J. Griffiths, Schmitt Professor of Catholic Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago
Topic: The Vice of Curiosity: Towards a Theology of Intellectual Appetite
BOOK
2004: Dr. Peter C. Erb, Professor of Religion & Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario
Topic: Late Medieval Spirituality and the Sources for Peace and Reconciliation: Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich
2003: Dr. Paul G. Hiebert, Distinguished Professor of Mission and Anthropology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Topic: Doing Missional Theology
2002: Dr. Seán Freyne, Professor of Theology in the School of Religions and Theology at Trinity College, Dublin
Topic: Jesus, Jews, and Galilee
2001: Dr. Letty M. Russell, Yale University Divinity School
Topic: Practising God's Hospitality in a World of Difference
2000: Dr. William P. Brown, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary
Topic: God and the Imagination: A Primer to Reading the Psalms in an Age of Pluralism
BOOK
1999: Dr. T.D. Regehr, Professor of History, University of Saskatchewan
Topic: Peace, Order & Good Government: Mennonites & Politics in Canada
BOOK
1998: Dr. Eugene H. Peterson, Professor of Spiritual Theology, Regent College
Topic: Christ Plays In Ten Thousand Places
1997: Dr. Richard B. Hayes, George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament, Duke Divinity School
Topic: New Testament Ethics: The Story Retold
BOOK
1993: Dr. Phyllis A. Bird, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
Topic: Feminism and the Bible
1990: Dr. Werner O. Packull, Mennonite Archives of Ontario, Conrad Grebel University College
Topic: Rereading Anabaptist Beginnings
John and Margaret Friesen Lectures
The John and Margaret Friesen Lectures in Anabaptist/Mennonite Studies are co-sponsored by Canadian Mennonite University, the Mennonite Heritage Centre, and the Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies. The inaugural lectures in November 2002 were delivered by Dr. Abraham Friesen (Professor of History, University of California, Santa Barbara), the generous donor who initiated the lecture series.
Anabaptist Peace Witness – Historical Significance and Today's Mission
with Dr. Astrid von Schlachta, Head of the Mennonite Research Center and lecturer at the University of Regensburg
January 23, 2025
- 11:00 AM | CMU Chapel (600 Shaftesbury Blvd.)
- 7:00 PM | CMU Chapel
- Both lectures will be livestreamed and available for on-demand viewing later
- News release
Dr. Astrid von Schlachta of Weierhof, Germany, is head of the Mennonite Research Center and lecturer at the University of Regensburg. As a historian, she has published widely on the history of Anabaptism, Pietism and the Estates in the Early Modern period. She is a member of the Mennonite congregation in Regensburg and on the board of the Associated Mennonite Churches in Germany (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mennonitischer Gemeinden in Deutschland).
She is the author of Hutterische Konfession und Tradition, 1578–1619 (Zabern, 2003), Die Hutterer zwischen Tirol und Amerika (Wagner, 2006), Gefahr oder Segen? Die Täufer in der politischen Kommun-ikation (V&R, 2009), Täufergemeinschaften: Die Hutterer (Institut für Europäische Geschichte, 2011), Alles Mythos! 20 populäre Irrtümer über Preußen (Theiss, 2011) and Die Täufer in Thüringen. Von wehrhaften Anfängen zur wehrlosen Gelassenheit (Vopelius, 2017).
Two of her books have been translated into English, including From the Tyrol to North America: The Hutterite Story Through the Centuries. Trans. Werner and Karin Packull (Pandora Press, 2008) and “Holding Fast to What is Good?” Tradition and Renewal in Hutterite History. The 2020 Jacob D. Maendel Lectures. Trans. Jesse Hofer (Hutterian Brethren Book Centre, 2020).
Lecture 1 | Anabaptists and the Peasants' War
11:00 AM | CMU Chapel (600 Shaftesbury Blvd.)
2025 marks not only the 500th anniversary of the first Anabaptist baptism of believers, but also important events in the Peasants' War. The Peasants' War has been a difficult chapter for Anabaptists and their descendants in the past. The participation of later Anabaptists in the Peasants' War and the defamation and criminalization of Anabaptists with the Peasants' War raised the question of the peace testimony of Anabaptist congregations. This lecture deals with Anabaptist debates on “the sword” and the use of violence in the sixteenth century. How can the close relationship of later Anabaptists to the Peasants' War and in particular to Thomas Müntzer be reconciled with an understanding of Anabaptism that was measured at the “Articles of Schleitheim” (1527)?
Lecture 2 | Mennonites and Military Service
7:00 PM | CMU Chapel (600 Shaftesbury Blvd.)
The question of military service has arisen repeatedly for Mennonites throughout their 500-year history, with varying consequences. On the one hand, the Mennonite conviction not to take up arms brought persecution and expulsion. On the other hand, the toleration of Mennonites in cities such as Altona and Neuwied was linked to the promise that the tolerated would not have to take up arms. From the 19th century on and the introduction of universal conscription, Mennonites then found themselves challenged to justify their position of non-violence and to bring it into the political debate. The lecture examines the significance of the Mennonite peace testimony in different political situations and the impact of changing surrounding conditions on the congregations.
Previous John and Margaret Friesen Lectures
2024: Revisiting the Mennonite Experience in Ukraine
Lecturer: Dr. Nataliya Venger, Professor of History and Chair of the World History Department at Dnipropetrovsk National University, Ukraine
2023: The Neglected Role of Dutch Mennonite Innovators in the Scientific Revolution and Early Enlightenment
Lecturer: Dr. Gary K. Waite, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of History, University of New Brunswick
2022: Reading Mennonite Writing Now
Lecturer: Dr. Robert Zacharias, Associate Professor of English, York University
2020: What if Mennonites Had Never Left the Netherlands? – CANCELLED
Lecturer: Dr. Piet Visser, Professor Emeritus of Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
2019: A Twentieth Century Reformation: Anabaptism in Guatemala
Lecturer: Dr. Patricia Harms, Associate Professor of History, Brandon University
2017: Faith and Toleration: A Reformation Debate Revisited
Lecturer: C. Arnold Snyder, Professor Emeritus, History, at Conrad Grebel University College
2015: Come Watch This Spider: Animals, Mennonites, and the Modern World
Lecturer: Royden Loewen, Chair in Mennonite Studies and Professor of History at the University of Winnipeg
2009: Mennonite Women in Canadian History: Birth, Food, and War
Lecturer: Marlene Epp of Conrad Grebel University College.
2008: Church and ethnicity: The Mennonite Experience in Paraguay
Lecturer: Alfred Neufeld, Dean of the School of Theology of the Protestant University of Paraguay.
2007: Mennonite Identity in the 21st Century
Lecturer: John D. Roth
2006: Sacred Spaces, Sacred Places: Mennonite Architecture in Russia and Canada
Presenters: Rudy Friesen, Harold Funk, Roland Sawatsky
2005: Recovering A Heritage: The Mennonite Experience in Poland and Prussia
Lecturer: Peter Klassen, Professor Emeritus of History, California State University, Fresno
2004: Mennonite and Brethren in Christ Church in Africa
Lecturer: Barbara Nkala, Director of the International Bible Society of Zimbabwe and Malawi
2002: Russian Mennonites and World War One
Lecturer: Dr. Abraham Friesen, Professor Emeritus of History, University of California
CSOP Lecture Series
CANCELLED
Unfortunately, this event has been canceled due to external factors beyond our control. We apologize for the inconvenience.
"Going Local with International Crises: The Storytelling Dilemma"
with Monika Maria Kalcsics, a journalist with more than 20 years of experience in public service media, print, TV, and film as a reporter, producer, and commissioning editor of award-winning documentaries and reports
How do international non-governmental organizations tell their stories when the pressure from news outlets is increasingly to create a hyper local connection?
- 30-minute presentation with Monika Maria Kalcsics
- 10-minute response from Susan Tymofichuk – Managing Editor, CTV News Winnipeg
- 30-minute Q&A with audience
About Monika Maria Kalcsics
Currently employed by the science, education, and society department at Austria 1, the national information radio channel of ORF (Austrian Public Broadcasting Corporation), Kalcsics is also the head of the multimedia initiative "Fixing the Future – Casting New Ideas." She is also a founding member of the production company name>it positive media, covering underrepresented areas in the media. Across this time, she also made emergency aid missions, establishing communication lines.
Kalcsics' combined career as a journalist and emergency aid worker has allowed her to understand the challenges we face when confronted with a humanitarian disaster and the need to report it. She was granted a fellowship at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University to research the relationship between aid organizations and the media in a "competitive compassion market".
Wednesday, June 14, 2023 "Dignifying Story Angles: The Ethics of Representation Dilemma," a professional development event with Monika Maria Kalcsics.
Unfortunately, This event has been canceled due to external factors beyond our control.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Previous CSOP Lectures
2022: Choosing Love in the Wake of Wounding
Lecturer: Dr. Johonna McCants-Turner
Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, Conrad Grebel University College at the University of Waterloo
2020: The Myth of Religious Violence
Lecturer: Dr. William Cavanaugh, Professor of Catholic Studies, DePaul University
2019: Imagination, Courage, and Resilience
Lecturer: Dr. Emily Welty, professor and director of Peace and Justice Studies at Pace University, NY
2018: A Transformative Spirituality for Peacebuilding
Lecturer: Dr. Fernando Enns, Professor of Theology and Ethics at Vrije Universiteit (Free University), Amsterdam
2018: The TRC, Calls to Action and the Mountain Before Us: Stories of Hope and Challenge
Lecturer: The Honorable Senator Murray Sinclair
2016: Living with Uncertainty: The Road to Peace
Lecturer: John Ralston Saul, award winning essayist and novelist
Past Public Lectures
Rev'd Dr. David Widdicombe – And His Hands Prepared the Dry Land: political theology of climate change
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In the face of historical emergencies, societies are always being invited to reconsider priorities and possibilities. Climate change is here—whether catastrophic or not, climate change is here.
This lecture will:
- Explore some of the theological tools for thinking about the climate crisis and consider how all the outdated values of the past might be our last chance to still have a future.
- Embark in a conversation about the climate emergency and how churches ought to respond
- Attempt to retrieve Christian perspectives from the past for use in resisting the dominant scientific/technological assumptions of our time
- Challenge the sense that nature has no soul—that if nature is merely a thing, then everything on it and in it is available for human consumption.
- Claim that in the midst of the climate crisis our call as Christians is to honour the God who rules over earth and heaven. Local and national communities should find ways to conserve their own fossil fuels in the depths of the earth...and so re-create the historic and customary connections between nature and culture, land and life, love for neighbour and nature which are central" to the messianic love of the Jewish and Christian communities.
- By faith we must ask what God has to do with the climate and how we should think about and understand the climate in the light of the death and resurrection of Christ.
- In hope, we must ask, what we can hope for, work for, and expect to have to deal with in the future, whatever it may turn out to be.
- Through love we must ask how we shall live together, survive together, as a church and as a wider set of communities whatever the future may bring. We should know now and commit to whatever is for the good of this place and neighbourhood in acts of friendship, solidarity, and love because we will need each other.
Rev'd Dr. Widdicombe is the Rector of Saint Margaret's Anglican Church in Winnipeg.
When
Wednesday, November 13 | 7:00 PM
Where
Marpeck Commons | 2299 Grant Ave.
Rev'd Dr. David Widdicombe – To Sow the Wind: An Argument Against the War on Terror and Other Bad Ideas
Just War theory has received a lot of attention in recent times but the results have been mixed. It is no longer a tradition of thought designed to place strict restraints upon the use of force in the necessary use of force in restraint of evil. Under the pressure of humanitarian interventionism, theories that democracies do not fight wars against each other, American (and Western) exceptionalism, supposed states of emergency, and other ideological adventures upon the turbulent seas of the international order, the tradition has lost its profound Augustinian political skepticism and moral realism. This lecture will ask whether the restraint of force wasn't always a better (foundational) idea than the pursuit of justice in the just war tradition, a tradition that once thought war tragically endemic and sometimes justified, but never simply unambiguously just.
Rev'd Dr. Widdicombe is the Rector of Saint Margaret's Anglican Church in Winnipeg.
Winter Lecture Series
The CMU Winter Lectures was an annual public lecture series that highlighted the arts, science, humanities, and interdisciplinary studies at CMU and to foster dialogue between these disciplines and the Christian faith. The series ran from to 2006 to 2011.
Audio/video recordings of these lectures are available through CommonWord Bookstore and Resource Centre.
2011: Resonance, Receptivity, and Radical Reformation
Lecturer: Dr. Romand Coles, McAllister Chair in Community, Culture, & Environment at Northern Arizona University. Resonance, Receptivity and Radical Reformation
2010: Paradoxes of Reconciliation
Lecturer: Vern Redekop, Associate Professor of Conflict Studies at Saint Paul University in Ottawa. Topic: Paradoxes of Reconciliation
2009: Placing Our Faith in a Placeless World?
Lecturer: Dr. Norman Wirzba, Research Professor of Theology, Ecology and Rural Life, Duke Divinity School. Topic: Placing Our Faith in a Placeless World?
2008: Art, Beauty, and Christian Theology
Lecturer: Erica Grimm Vance, Assistant Professor and Visual Arts Coordinator, Trinity Western University. Topic: Art, Beauty and Christian Theology.
2007: Cosmology, Evolution, and Resurrection Hope
Lecturer: Dr. Robert Russell, Professor of Theology and Science, Graduate Theological Union, and Director for the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. Topic: Cosmology, Evolution and Resurrection Hope.
2006: Psychology and Theology
Lecturer: Alvin Dueck, Evelyn and Frank Freed Professor of the Integration of Psychology and Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary
Proclaiming the Claims of Christ Lecture Series
This lecture series has been offered at CMU since 2007. The series addresses the various dimensions of Christian apologetics (theory, evangelism, Gospel and society, singularity of Christ in a multi-cultural context, etc.).
Previous Lectures
2012: The Unique Gift of Christ
Lecturer: Dr. Benne Jordan-Trexler Professor of Religion Emeritus and Director of the Center for Religion and Society at Roanoke College, Salem, Virginia.
2011: Cancelled
2010: Proclaiming the Unique Claims of Christ; Negotiating the Christian-Muslim Interface
Lecturer: Emmanuel Ali El-Shariff
2009: Being a Christian in the public media, radio broadcaster, and media commentator
Lecturer: Michael Coren
2008: Proclaiming Christ in a Post-Christian World
Lecturer: John Stackhouse, Regent College.
2007: Joe Boot, evangelist, apologist, author and the executive director of Ravi Zacharias Ministries in Canada.
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