Table Of Sharing

This volume explores how Mennonite Central Committee has served as a key vehicle for inter-Mennonite collaboration from 1920 until the present. Over twenty scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds examine different ways in which MCC has contributed to expanding networks of Mennonite identity.

From its inception in 1920, MCC has brought together Mennonite groups to work with one another in relief and later development and peacebuilding programs. MCC has facilitated the construction of what might be called the imagined Mennonite community. MCC has helped give groups in the United States and Canada a sense of being part of a larger Mennonite community and has expanded Mennonite identity beyond Mennonite circles through partnerships with such ecumenical groups and hiring Christians of many denominations as well as Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and more.

In A Table of Sharing sociologists, theologians, and historians explore the MCC founding narratives. They address challenges that have come with the expansion of Mennonite identity through MCC, including ways in which racial and gender identities have been constructed, erased, and asserted. They examine MCC’s place within the “humanitarian industry” and the role MCC has played in birthing other Mennonite ventures and symbols of Mennonite identity, from SELFHELP Crafts/Ten Thousand Villages to More-with-Less and related cookbooks.