In a year of big anniversaries — Anabaptism’s 500th, Mennonite World Conference’s 100th, Mennonite Disaster Service’s 75th — here’s a small one: Anabaptist World is 5 years old this month.

It’s not much as milestones go, but it does give a reason to reflect on what we do and why.

It also creates a chance to ­consider the “media apocalypse.” That’s a phrase from a kind reader who called AW “a breath of fresh air” in the midst of the carnage. We’re trying to live up to that generous assessment.

But the apocalypse (epic destruction of the world we once knew) continues, and we’re fighting (to use the provocative language of this month’s theme) to survive it.

Thousands of magazines and newspapers that thrived at the turn of the century are dead or barely hanging on. On the Mennonite scene, as recently as 1998, three periodicals — Gospel ­Herald, Mennonite Weekly Review (both weekly) and The Mennonite (twice a month) — served the people of what is now Mennonite Church USA. One monthly remains.

But “monthly” isn’t the whole story. You can find new content on the AW website every weekday. That’s life in our borderline era between analog and digital.

Is print dying? I don’t think so, but that might be wishful and old-fashioned thinking. As evidence of my antique sensibility, I submit that this paragraph was hard to write because I was taught long ago that editorials are impersonal — the voice of the publication, not an individual.

But who are we kidding? My byline’s on this page anyway, so I’m going to make this one a rule-breaker.

In that spirit, I have one more anni­versary to share. It’s personal, but rel­e­­vant. One hundred years ago this month, Henry P. Krehbiel, the founding editor of MWR, hired my grand­father, Menno Schrag — making a pivotal link in the chain of events that led to AW’s existence.

Schrag succeeded Krehbiel as editor in 1935 and preserved the newspaper at a point of crisis in 1946. If it hadn’t survived at that time, there would be no AW today — because, a half century later, the media apocalypse played out this way: In 1998, Gospel Herald merged with The Mennonite. In 2020, The Mennonite merged with MWR, creating AW.

This year, as Anabaptists remember those who came before us, I honor the leaders of AW’s three predecessors. Longtime editors of the past 40 years — Dan Hertzler, J. Lorne Peachey, Everett J. Thomas, Muriel Stackley, Gordon Houser and Robert M. Schrag — stand out in my mind, along with others who did excellent work for shorter periods of time.

To carry their legacy forward, AW relies on subscribers and donors who believe Anabaptists need a general-­interest magazine (print and digital) to tell our stories, facilitate conversation and forge unity of purpose. Bringing a fragmented faith tradition together in one media space has always been more aspiration than reality, but worth striving for.

Multiplying the challenge today is the decline of thoughtful journalism, whether secular or faith-based. An ill-informed population divides into factions that create their own versions of reality. A flood of misinformation sows delusion so that honest reporting and nuanced analysis get lost in the noise or ignored due to mistrust. Voters reward politicians who lie shamelessly and presume to define what is true or false, regardless of the evidence.

It’s gotten to the point that both conservative and progressive folks — Christians very much included — take pride in refusing to even try to understand the other side. They think they already know those people are utterly foolish or evil.

I’m a believer in reading things that I think I will disagree with. Sometimes I agree with some of them. Always it helps me understand how others see the world. If you experience this when reading AW, I hope you will write a short letter we can publish.

Christians know the importance of contending for truth. “By the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God” (2 Corinthians 4:2). The urgency to do so has never been greater. As one of this month’s feature writers, Molly Wiebe Faber, says: “We must relentlessly fight for the truth, no matter the cost, and this fight must be waged peacefully.”

Anabaptists are in the fray. I hope you find AW a source of information, a builder of community and a plowshare in your truth-telling arsenal.