Mennonite Heritage Week 2020

In 2019, the Government of Canada declared the second week in September to be Mennonite Heritage Week. This occasion offers Grebel an opportunity to share about Mennonite history and culture. For Mennonite Heritage Week 2020, Grebel’s Institute of Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies (IAMS) curated some resources that speak to pressing issues in 2020. Resources include a selected list of articles about Mennonite relations with Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour primarily in the Canadian and Ontario context, plus a list of recent articles about how communally-oriented Anabaptist groups in Canada have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour communities have called upon white settlers to learn more about the roles that racism and colonialism play in our unfolding history together,” noted Archivist-Librarian Laureen Harder-Gissing. “Our hope is that these readings will help Canadian Mennonites understand and reflect in a specific way on our relationships with BIPOC communities.”

Marlene Epp, Professor of History and Peace and Conflict Studies, moderated a panel conversation on “Conservative Anabaptist Groups and COVID-19,” hosted by the Institute of Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies.

“The global COVID-19 pandemic is creating difficulty for everyone,” explained Epp. “For communal or community-minded religious groups that maintain restrictions on certain modern technologies and for whom ‘gathering’ is central to their community life, the pandemic creates unique challenges. This panel explores the ways in which conservative Anabaptist groups in Canada, such as the Old Order, Hutterites, and Low German-speaking Mennonites, are affected by and are responding to the challenges of the pandemic.”

Reading list and video available at uwaterloo.ca/grebel/mennonite-heritage-week