Mennonite Brethren leader and educator John E. Toews died Sept. 29, 2024, in Newtown, Massachusetts, at the age of 87. His tenure in the Mennonite Brethren church and its institutions will be remembered for the impact he made in moving the church forward. Throughout his life, Toews proclaimed that “Jesus holds all things together. Jesus is Lord,” and “the Church is center.”
Toews was born July 20, 1937, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to John B. and Nettie (Unruh) Toews. His father, a Russian Mennonite immigrant known as “JB”, was among the most influential men in the North American Mennonite Brethren community. This gave John a “front row seat to the practices of the church and the conversation of those who sought to organize them,” writes historian Valerie Rempel, former Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary vice president and dean, in a 2009 biographical sketch in the MB journal Direction.
Toews met Arlene Classen while a student at Tabor College and they married Aug. 8, 1958. Their family grew to include three children: Delora, Dawn and Mark.
Toews pursued a mix of church ministry and post-secondary education in both Canada and the U.S. With a bachelor’s degree from Tabor College and a master’s degree from Wichita State University—both in history—Toews attended MB Bible College, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and MB Biblical Seminary (now Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary) for theological studies. He achieved a doctorate in New Testament studies from Northwestern University-Garrett Theological Seminary in 1977.
Toews served on the faculty of Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, and Pacific College (now Fresno Pacific University), Fresno, California, as well as Conrad Grebel College, part of the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario.
While teaching at Pacific College, in 1966 he co-authored with Dalton Reimer, now emeritus communication professor at FPU, the original version of the Fresno Pacific Idea. The Idea still reflects the university’s interpretation of what it means to be a community of learners committed to a distinctive vision of Christian higher education and serves as a center for reflection and action and as a guide for forming a vision of our future.
In 1977, Toews was invited to join the MB Biblical Seminary faculty, where he served as professor of New Testament until 1995. Toews’ abilities beyond the classroom also led him to administrative duties. He was the academic dean at MB Biblical Seminary from 1980 to 1992 and served several stints as interim president. As academic dean, Toews guided the seminary through two accreditation processes and a major revision of the curriculum.
During this time, Toews was also involved in various denominational task forces and boards working on peace education, strategic planning, the orientation of new pastors, the debate over women in ministry and the revision of the Confession of Faith.
Toews’ views as he worked on these topics were guided by his reading of the biblical text, Rempel says. “It was a reading that pushed him to tackle critical questions of the day, but it was, at times, a reading that put him at odds with fellow church leaders.”
Toews was a member of the U.S. Conference Board of Faith and Life for six years, the General Conference Board of Reference and Counsel (later the Board of Faith and Life) for nine years, and secretary of the General Conference for three years.
In 1996, Toews returned to Conrad Grebel College, where he had served as academic dean from 1971 to 1973, to serve as president. As president, he guided the college to a firm financial footing and oversaw the expansion of the academic programs and college facilities.
“Those of us who live, work and study at Grebel today owe a debt of gratitude to John Toews,” says President Marcus Shantz. “His leadership during a tough period ensured the long-term future of this place.”
Following his retirement in 2002, Conrad Grebel named Toews professor emeritus of religious studies. Toews returned to Fresno, where he was an adjunct faculty member at the seminary. In 2007, he was named seminary dean and professor emeritus.
Toews was an avid scholar with an interest in biblical studies (particularly the writings of Paul), history, theology and church leadership. He was an editor of Power of the Lamb (1986) and Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: Women in Ministry in the Church (1992). In retirement, he wrote Romans: Believers Church Bible Commentary (2004) and The Story of Original Sin (2013).
“As a professor and as a denominational leader, John sought to shape a vision that reflected his understanding of the church as a covenanting community called to live in counter-cultural ways,” Rempel says. “John (was) a strategic thinker, and he was often the one who laid out issues and proposed solutions. 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 is survived by his three children, three grandchildren and one brother and sister-in-law. His wife predeceased him in 2019.
With files from Conrad Grebel College and Fresno Pacific University
Read the biography of John E. Toews written by Valerie Rempel in Direction Journal, the publication for MB institutions of higher education in Canada and the U.S.: https://directionjournal.org/38/2/holding-to-center-life-of-john-e-toews.html
Connie Faber joined the magazine staff in 1994 and assumed the duties of editor in 2004. She has won awards from the Evangelical Press Association for her writing and editing. Faber is the co-author of Family Matters: Discovering the Mennonite Brethren. She and her husband, David, have two daughters, one son, one daughter-in-law, one son-in-law and three grandchildren. They are members of Ebenfeld MB Church in Hillsboro, Kansas.
My heart is saddened. I just learned of “John E’s” death this morning.
Thank you, Connie, for your excellent piece about John’s life.
Along with Henry Schmidt, Waldo Hiebert, Allen Guenther, Elmer Martens, D. Edmond Hiebert, J.B. Toews, Larry Martens, and other seminary professors under whose teaching I sat during my sojourn at the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary (now called Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary) in the early 1980s, John E. also impacted my life in many blessed ways. Often, we don’t realize the theological imprint people leave on our lives until decades later. Such has been my experience with these men.
John E. addressed a particular theological, ecclesiastical, or discipleship concern with a holy pursuit by beginning with the Scriptures and then applying healthy hermeneutical principles to find a biblical solution. He didn’t start with popular accepted trends and practices found in the predominate church culture but with the Scriptures. Understanding words in their original life setting and cultural context was important to John E. I have tried to follow this same pattern in my treatment of life’s questions.
Biblical worship and eschatology were two areas where John E. especially impacted my thinking and convictions. As to worship, I vividly remember his paper titled “Worship in the New Testament” (sadly, it was never published) which he prepared for the School for Ministry held at the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno, CA in January 1983. Most of the seminars and teaching in that school of ministry focused on the Sunday morning “worship event” and the importance of music and creating a worshipful mood. The “worship phenomena” was just beginning in the US at that time.
On the last day of this school of ministry, John E. read his 10-page theological essay on worship. In typical John E. fashion, he began with a word of confession. “I have not studied the subject of worship in the New Testament until recently. My negligence is a commentary all of its own… To worship, I thought, is to ascribe worth to God.”
He then went on to say how this understanding began with a study of “an Anglo-Saxon word that evolved from ‘weorthscipe’ into ‘worthship’.” To correct his hermeneutical foible, he then led his audience and later readers into an exhaustive study of all the NT Greek words and their antecedents in the OT related to or translated worship. His conclusion regarding biblical worship moved in a very different direction than that of the rest of the presenters, as seen in the following quote:
“Worship is service or ministry to God in the church and in the world. There is no longer a distinction between assembly for worship and the service of Christians in the world. Worship does not take place in specially defined places and times, but in the midst of life lived by Christians. Worship is mission; it does not call people out of the world but rather sends them into the world to service in spirit and in truth.”
John E. was a lone voice in the wilderness at that school of ministry. As I have tried to bring a needed corrective to many of the contemporary and less biblical notions regarding worship, both during our 20-year sojourn in Spain as MB missionaries and later as a former pastor of several MB churches in the States, I have not sensed a hearty reception to John E’s thinking on worship. We need to get back to a biblical understanding of worship.
John E’s understanding of eschatology has also been greatly appreciated. Over the decades I have often consulted John’s article “The Tribulation of the Church,” one of several papers presented at the Our Blessed Hope Study Conference on Eschatology held on January 25-27, 1978 in Fresno, CA. With precise and dedicated scholarship, John E. treated the question of eschatology through a careful study of Mark 13:1-37, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11, and 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. I am sure he has written on the subject of eschatology in other forums.
John E’s quest for scholarship and biblical integrity aside for a moment, I have always remembered John E. to be accessible, not self-serving, friendly, calm, and non-abrasive, one who was deeply committed to the MB Church worldwide.
And to this, I say, thanks John E., and glory to the Father!
PS For anyone wanting a PDF copy of the above two articles authored by John E., please contact me at lynnandmary@gmail.com. Both are a must-read even though they were written almost 50 years ago. They have much to say about the church today and our present trek as disciples of Jesus toward the Day of the Lord.