In 2017, over 405,000 readers visited TheMennonite.org close to 1 million times and read hundreds of original stories, blog posts and feature articles. In our January 1 edition of TMail, our weekly e-newsletter, we will run our list of this year’s top 10 news stories. Here you can find the top 10 most-read blog and opinion pieces of 2017.

1. Remembering MJ, By Ben Wideman: “As news unfolds around the kidnapping of MJ’s U.N. Team and his death, I’m left with poker chips, a handful of memories and last week’s painful and beautiful quote from MJ’s father, John Sharp, ‘I have said on more than one occasion that we peacemakers should be willing to risk our lives as those who join the military do. Now it’s no longer theory.'” (5, 595 reads)

2. White women vote, By Melissa Florer-Bixler: “The glaring truth of this moment is that white women made a choice. We chose race over gender. Women of color asked us to join them in stopping the abusive, KKK-endorsed Trump and instead we chose the maintenance of our whiteness. We chose to get by in a system of white supremacy rather than doing the difficult work of coalition building. We said that abuse is acceptable, as long as we keep it in the family.” (5,132 reads)

3. How can we be silent? By Carlos Romero: “We need to share openly the gospel message of love, peace and reconciliation. And we cannot be effective in spreading this message to the world without it beginning with us. One of the simplest commandments we have been given also is one of the most profound: to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. As church people and church institutions, we need to say clearly and unapologetically that we cannot engage in racism, sexism, abuse and bullying.” (4,274 reads)

4. Anabaptist Women in North America: A photo essay: “Rooted in and innovating out of these traditions, Anabaptist women live out their faith in a variety of ways. They are pastors, teachers, business leaders, nonprofit workers, volunteers, mothers, grandmothers, gardeners, journalists, professors, writers, mission workers, runners, librarians and so much more. In this short post, we hope to paint a fuller picture of Anabaptists in North America. We put out a call for Anabaptist women to send us pictures with short statements about their work, their congregations and how their faith shapes their lives.” (4,111 reads)

5. A call to prayer as tensions rise between N. Korea and the U.S., By Hyun and Sue Park Hur with Hannah Heinzekehr: “Friends, no matter where you stand regarding North Korea, we must not respond with ‘fire and fury like the world has never seen.’ Even without nuclear weapons, over 11 million people in both North and South Korea will die within hours if there are missile strikes. Please take a moment to pray for the Korean Peninsula. Pray also for the leaders of North Korea and the U.S. that they would take the path of peace, not annihilation.” (3,674 reads)

6. Lima bean eulogy, By Tim Nafziger:

“We planted lima beans the morning after
villagers found MJ’s body.” (3,426 reads)

7. Reflections on being in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, by Cynthia Lapp: “The love of God overhead, hate over the hill, menacing guns in front, undaunted chants behind. At that moment, I chose the words ‘over my head, I hear love in the air’ as the prayers continued.” (2,654 reads)

8. When Anabaptists were refugees, By Gerald Mast: “In a 1708 letter urging organized support of the persecuted Swiss Anabaptists, Jan Freriksz from Deventer described the conditions that led Christian leaders to attack Anabaptist communities in Switzerland, threatening them with prison, deportation, and galley slavery. He writes that ‘as long as there are followers of hatred and as long as there is hatred, especially that which originates in pseudo-religion, there will be persecution: one time less, another time more.’ Freriksz cited a proverb: ‘Theological hatred is satanic hatred.’ The causes of persecution have not disappeared, nor have the needs of persecuted refugees that require the advocacy and generosity of the church.” (2,631 reads)

9. Seven roadblocks that get in the way of dismantling racism in the church and society (and strategies to overcome them), By Tobin Miller Shearer: “Over the last 30 years of equipping people inside and outside the church to resist racism and white supremacy, I’ve repeatedly encountered the following seven roadblocks. They appear time and again within the white community in general and among white Mennonites in particular. In light of the resurgence of overt white supremacy in Charlottesville, Virginia, it has become even more essential that we remove these roadblocks from our lives, congregations and denomination.” (2,286 reads)

10. Practicing compassion in churchwide disagreements, by John Paul Lederach: “In the wider church, and in and across our country, we seem caught in divisive turmoil that has left us emotionally frayed and without a doubt frustrated no matter which side we may fall on. Unfortunately, these divisive challenges tend to express themselves in ways that would be hard to describe as loving kindness. Rather they track toward defensiveness, blame, escalating polarization, and at times painful dehumanization, and this is experienced on all sides.” (2,294 reads)