wfn.org | Major French newsweekly profiles MBM worker

[Beth Hawn]

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To:  'Worldwide Faith News'
Date: 1998-06-24 13:36
Priority: 3
Message ID: D251A5E93A0BD211AAB0006008075ABF
Conversation ID: Major French newsweekly profiles MBM worker 

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June 24, 1998
Mennonite Board of Missions
Beth Hawn
219-294-7523
<NEWS@MBM.org>

Major French newsweekly profiles MBM worker

PARIS (MBM) - One of France's most prominent weekly news magazine, Le   
Figaro,
examined the ministry of Mennonite Board of Missions worker Neal Blough   
in
its April 21 issue, highlighting the growing Mennonite community in   
Paris.

"How far does one go to follow Christ?" wrote journalist �lie Mar�chal,   
who
quotes Blough repeatedly and describes a "Mennonite agenda" that includes   

social engagement, mission, spiritual life, nonviolence, conflict
resolution, family life, Christian faith and the arts.

Blough, whose photograph appears with the five-column article, "The
Mennonites of the Valley of the Marne," describes the development of
Mennonite work in Paris since 1976. French Mennonites account for only   
2,000
of the world's nearly 1 million Mennonites.  But through the Mennonite   
Study
and Retreat Center in Paris' St. Maurice neighborhood, a racially diverse   

congregation has emerged of 40 children and 30 adults.  Although half of   
the
Islamic participants are French, others come from Angola, Chad and   
regions
of North Africa.

"The Mennonite commitment, called a covenant of membership at St.   
Maurice, invites each member to be instruments of peace and   
reconciliation at any place where we find oppression, conflicts or   
division," the article said.  "Anyone is free to come worship with us,"   
Blough added, "and join in the discussion."

Although Blough is of Swiss-German descent, the article highlights his   
own
pilgrimage from the Presbyterian congregation his family attended in his
youth in Deshler, Ohio, to the Mennonite Church as he was 18 years old   
and
wrestled with concerns over the Vietnam War.  "The Mennonite Church
maintained a critical distance ... [and] offered me an experience that   
was
nonviolent, and focused on the sacred, the world and its problems."

Blough, one of three pastors in the St. Maurice congregation, teaches at   
Vaux
sur Seine, an evangelical seminary.  He also lectures on Anabaptism at an   

institute for higher studies related to the Sorbonne.  The article
contrasted the reality of Mennonite presence in Paris with stereotypes of   

Mennonites as a group that had experiences "of isolation, of   
intermarriage
and of peaceful existence in the serene area at 1,000 meters and above in   

Switzerland."

"The Mennonites have come down into the city and into the heart of
globalization with a concern not to be absorbed by society," the article
noted, describing a secularizing influence upon French culture that has
brought Christian groups closer together.  "The Mennonite community is   
open
to ecumenical dialogue, no longer rejecting either the Protestant
Federation of France or the Catholic Church."

"Secularization has been good for us," Blough said.  "We are all in the   
same
boat."

* * *

MBM staff