James Brenneman’s “Back to the Future: Mennonites in 2525” (January) presses on questions we cannot avoid: Christianity’s long entanglement with empire, the coercive enforcement of doctrine and the church’s grievous history of anti-Judaism. Any Christian future worthy of the name must reckon honestly with centuries of violence against Jews — most horrifically culminating in the Holocaust — and repent without qualification.

Brenneman is also right to insist that Jesus be read within Israel’s story. Jesus prayed Israel’s prayers, taught Israel’s scriptures and embodied Israel’s hope. When Christians forget this, Judaism becomes a foil rather than kin, and theology becomes abstract in ways easily harmonized with power.

Where I would urge greater care is in how we narrate the path forward. The Council of Nicaea can rightly be criticized for the coercive uses to which its formulations were later put, but it is too simple to make Nicaea itself the decisive rupture that “created” Christianity or the primary source of Christian anti-Judaism. More important, repentance does not require erasure. Rejecting coercion does not require discarding confession. Refusing the sword does not require silence.

From an Anabaptist perspective, the deeper task is not a “return” behind the church’s confession but learning to confess our faith under the shadow of the cross rather than from the seat of power. Anabaptists have long resisted creeds not because words about Jesus do not matter but because they matter too much to be compelled. The tragedy is not that Christians cared about words; it is that we tried to protect holy speech with unholy force.

Perhaps the courage Brenneman right­ly seeks will take this form: to honor Judaism without erasing difference, to repent without rewriting the gospel and to practice a noncoercive fidelity in which truth is spoken carefully, lived obediently and never enforced.

Nate Showalter, Los Angeles

I appreciate James Brenneman’s call for Mennonites to return to our Jewish roots and mentioning the many similarities between the Anabaptist and Jewish faith communities. I can also speak empirically, having spent 45 years married to a Jewish woman. When my fiancée and I told my family of our plans to get married, the immediate question was: Would I become Jewish, or would my wife become Mennonite? We explained that neither of us had any plans to convert, as Mennonites and Jews worshiped the same God, and we shared the same ethical and moral values. We have had many conflicts and disagreements, but my wife has been very clear: “Your problem is not that you are Mennonite but that you are a man.”

Doug Hostetter, Easthampton, Mass.