John E. Toews, former president of Conrad Grebel University College and a biblical scholar who taught at several Anabaptist institutions, died Sept. 29 in Newton, Mass. He was 87.
Toews led Grebel from 1996 to 2002, arriving during a time of financial stress. He balanced the budget, grew the donor base (with donations to the annual fund growing by almost 500%) and expanded the student residence. He developed a strategic plan that led to the creation of a peace center and a graduate program in peace and conflict studies, expansion of the PACS undergraduate program and expansion of the master’s degree program in theology.
“Those of us who live, work and study at Grebel today owe a debt of gratitude to John Toews,” said President Marcus Shantz. “His leadership during a tough period ensured the long-term future of this place.”
Toews was academic dean at Grebel from 1971 to 1973 and taught at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary, Tabor College and Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary, where he served as dean.
He cultivated an interest in biblical studies, history and theology, writing the 2004 Believers Church Bible Commentary volume on Romans, along with The Story of Original Sin in 2013. He was an editor of Power of the Lamb (1986) and Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: Women in Ministry in the Church (1992).
In a 2009 biographical sketch in the MB journal Direction, former FPBS vice president and dean Valerie Rempel noted that Toews pushed to revitalize the church’s commitment to peacemaking and living as a covenanting, countercultural community.
“John was deeply disappointed when delegates to the [MB] General Conference convention in 1993 failed to affirm women for pastoral ministry and unsurprised when the number of women enrolling at MBBS began to decline,” she wrote. “Still, he continued to be a strong advocate for women, encouraging their academic endeavors, and helping to steer them into conference, church and institutional leadership wherever he could.”
Toews was active during the 1960s in the Mennonite Graduate Student Seminar, bringing together students from the Mennonite Brethren, the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church with an interest in recovering an Anabaptist vision.
From 1980 to the mid ’90s, Toews brought energy to MB task forces and boards working on peace education, women in ministry, revisions to the Confession of Faith and orientation for new pastors.
“He called for an identity that was separate from the traditions that so often defined MB church life and theology; a peoplehood defined by identity in Christ rather than Mennonite folkways,” Rempel wrote. “. . . His childhood, spent observing the workings of church and conference life on both sides of the border, gave him an instinctive understanding of MB culture, politics and personalities, and he was able to effectively use that knowledge as he worked to hold together an increasingly fragmented church.”
Toews was born July 20, 1937, in Saskatoon, Sask., and grew up in Buhler, Kan.; Winnipeg, Man.; Reedley, Calif.; and Hillsboro, Kan.; where his father, J.B. Toews, was a pastor, college president and missions secretary. As a student at Tabor College, he met his wife, Arlene (Classen). They were married in 1958. She died in 2019. He earned a doctorate in New Testament Studies from Northwestern University-Garrett Theological Seminary.
He is survived by his children, Delora, Dawn and Mark; a brother, James Toews; and three grandchildren. A memorial service will be held later this year in Fresno, Calif.
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