The waters get awfully murky when we talk about the relationship between good works and good outcomes in life. We asked James Driedger and Lissa Wray-Beale what exactly the relationship is between these things —and how misunderstanding this relationship can distort our view of God.

The Kleine Gemeinde–now the EMC–emerged from a church community that they saw as slipping into spiritual stagnation. But when they became the isolated 'still in the land,' it would take outside influence to ignite an evangelical fervour. Darryl Klassen and Layton Friesen return to discuss the EMC's historical relationship with faith and works.

Martin Luther, a contemporary of the early Anabaptists, was famously transformed by Romans 1:17: “The righteous shall live by faith.” He emphasized faith over works even when it seemed to backfire in his own congregation. The early Anabaptists weren’t satisfied with Luther’s definition of faith but broadened and “thickened” it. In this episode, Layton Friesen and Darryl Klassen unpack how the early Mennonites understood faith and works.

Ephesians 2:8-10 offers a counterbalance to James 2, reminding us that we’re saved by faith. We asked Cameron Mackenzie, Meghan Larissa Good and James Driedger - are faith and works opposed to each other? If not, how are they compatible?

Anchored in James 2:14–26, guests Cameron Mackenzie, Meghan Larissa Good, and James Driedger help answer the question: What do we mean by faith and works, and how does this passage address the relationship between the two?

The ban is that thing in the Anabaptist closet. Stories abound of this severe and condemnatory method of church discipline—its use and mostly its misuse. But what was it that Anabaptists intended and is there a redemptive way to employ the ban?  

Find the transcript, study questions, show notes and more at www.TheArmchairAnabaptist.ca.

The Anabaptist suspicion of top-down leadership remains

Find the transcript, study questions and more at www.TheArmchairAnabaptist.ca.

Mennonites have had an ambivalent relationship with politics from their earliest days, and despite our move into evangelicalism this flavour remains. In today’s episode we ask what the church’s obligation is to the state? What is the state’s obligation to the church and how should Christians interact with politics?

Find show notes, transcript, study questions and more at www.thearmchairanabaptist.ca.

In the world, but not of it, has been a particular challenge

Find the transcript, study guide and more on our website at www.thearmchairanabaptist.ca.

Is the body just a helpful analogy of how the church functions together or is it more than that? Is it expressing something more real? And if that is true, is the connection