There they encountered an elderly volunteer eager to show them around. On a summer afternoon in 1972 or 1973, the controversial Mennonite Brethren editor and novelist, Rudy Wiebe, was visiting the Steinbach Mennonite Museum in Manitoba with several friends. "Many Mennonite readers strongly supported, but for a time the negative outcry won the day." (1) -Rudy Wiebe "1963, including the surrounding years, was an amazing era." -Delbert Wiens The essay especially makes visible some of the intellectual and artistic breakthroughs that occurred during that decade. The essay draws into focus Wiebe's identity as editor of the Mennonite Herald, the Mennonite Brethren denominational magazine in Canada, along with the skirmishes among church leaders and the increasingly prominent and cosmopolitan musicians in the church, and the long-simmering tensions between inward-looking pietistic expression and outward-looking intellectual engagement among Mennonite Brethren during the 1960s, not only in Canada but also in the United States, where Delbert Wiens was articulating concerns that echoed Wiebe's. Abstract: Drawing on newly-discovered archival material surrounding the reception in 1962-1963 among Mennonite Brethren of Rudy Wiebe's controversial novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many, this study explores some of the oppositional forces within the denomination that came into play when the novel appeared.
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