EDITORIAL
Seeing Gospel Thickness

Michael A. King

In this issue of DSM, Dan Hertzler reviews Jeff Gundy’s book subtitled The World in a Mennonite Eye. As Hertzler reports, Gundy tells of both being committed to Mennonite convictions and remaining aware of the ambiguities and complexities within which his pilgrimage unfolds.

In their own way, the writings in this DSM issue reenact Gundy’s story. The convictions addressed are not only Mennonite ones; rather, most have to do with how we engage the Christian gospel. But if the gospel is nearly everpresent, as are aspects of his heritage in Gundy’s story, equally present are complexities and ambiguities. Often these emerge within articles or bcome evident as articles are contrasted.

Mark Wenger proposes that North American young adults are involved, against the grain of their elders’ more radical tendencies, in a renewal of theological orthodoxy. Meanwhile the article by Kris Anne Swartley, herself a young adult, does not delegitimize Wenger’s case (one I find persuasive). But in calling for moving beyond comfort zones, Swartley may cut somewhat against the trends Wenger identifies, as perhaps does poet Kaitlyn Nafziger, another young adult.

Norman de Puy considers the odd tale of how denominations have become omnipresent. What to do, wonders de Puy, about Christians who simultaneously claim allegiance to the one Lord and emphasize how different (and often better) their view of the gospel is from all others?

In Valerie Weaver-Zercher’s column as well as my own in response, convictions related to sharing the gospel are explored and as quickly complexified by worries and questions about how or whether to engage in outreach when so easily issues of race, power, or nationalism cloud the effort.

From a different yet ultimately related angle, Randy Klassen extends the discussion, wondering if Christians are ready to stand by the Jesus seen so often in the New Testament as winemaker and partygoer when they share their visions of Jesus with others. Or are Christians too ready to support only those New Testament labels for Jesus that fit their particular ideology? Next, through the prism of books about movies, David Greiser explores the ambiguities of the relationship between culture and gospel as evident in film.

Then also woven in are stories by Joanne Lehman, Douglas Noll, Noël King, and Cheryl Denise (whose poetry tells its own story). As befits stories and poems, few focus systematically on the gospel, but all show evidence of seeing life in its "thickness"—those many layers and details of experience ultimately shaped by our pilgrimage with the gospel yet so rich they cry out to be celebrated rather than analyzed. And in the end, individually and collectively, the story of pilgrimage is what this issue’s writings are thickly telling.

—Michael A. King