It’s been another year of changes, but for the first time I have found a sustainable place to both do my work, and live well. It’s rare to encounter an institution or organization where theoretical and practical, religious and political, and professional and personal distinctions are mediated so well. But last week we moved to Hamilton, where I am now the pastor at the Hamilton Mennonite Church – a wonderful place where sharp minds and kind hearts run the show. It’s good to return to ministry in a tradition and congregation who value intellectual inquiry and mental health so much, and I have good models to follow in spaces between the religious and the secular.
I will continue running Pandora Press, and I am also looking forward to having some time and space during my off hours to finish my postdoctoral book this year in my capacity as a Senior Research Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Far-Right Studies. It’s already clear to me that the connections between each part of my life and work are going in new and exciting directions, and I have so many people to thank for that.
The past few months have been busy, with an 18 hour move from Thunder Bay, to the tragic loss of our dog, and the beginning of new work in pastoral care, preaching and teaching, and some policy writing. Life is full, but full of good things.
During my week off over Christmas I finished editing two translations: Astrid von Schlachta’s Anabaptists: From the Reformation to the 21st Century. Trans. Vic Thiessen (Pandora, 2024), and Thomas Kaufmann’s The Anabaptists: From the Radical Reformers to the Baptists. Trans. Christina Moss (Pandora Press, 2024). Both texts represent significant contributions to the 10 volume Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies series that I edit with Pandora Press, and I learned a lot from the process of commissioning the translations, editing them, and publishing them – especially as the 500 year anniversary of Anabaptist beginnings is underway. More volumes in the series are coming, including a massive biography of Hans Hut.
I’m off to Winnipeg now for Astrid von Schlachta’s lectures at CMU, and the rest of the year will bring more conferences (Bluffton University’s Spiritual Life Week, Elizabethtown, Mennonite/s Writing, AAR) and interesting opportunities for connecting the philosophical, theological, historical, and critical work that I’m privileged to do. For more on the paradigm I’m developing, which will appear in fuller form in a book called Mennonite Metaphysics sometime in the next few years, see my article below: “Anabaptist Critique” Mennonite Quarterly Review 99 (January 2025): 209-216.
Dr. Maxwell Kennel 