What is keeping you engaged in the conservative Menno vision/mission? What is a Menno to do when there are no healthy Menno churches to attend? Do all people who attend a church need to hold to the same doctrinal beliefs (outside credal beliefs)?
Throughout this whole series we’ve been looking at the question “What’s the big deal about being Mennonite?” This whole discussion surfaces primarily because so many are leaving Mennonite churches, today.
But leaving one’s church isn’t only a Mennonite phenomenon. It’s happening nationwide. Contrary to popular opinion, however, people are not necessarily leaving because of biblical illiteracy or because they are throwing out their faith.
Most people who have commented on this series so far have strong opinions one way or the other. There is a wide vacuum of people who are silent. People who don’t want to cause conflict. People who, like me, have had a good experience in their Mennonite upbringing, but also see areas of weakness that need radical change. Only, they’re at a loss for how to change it because either they’re written off as a rebel, or their questions and comments are hijacked by people with an agenda for the opposite of the Mennonite tradition.
Allow me, if for a moment, to wrestle aloud with the questions of someone who identifies with his friends who are leaving, but is concerned with whether we’re finding anything better.
If the early Anabaptists were alive today, I am quite certain the Mennonite church would run them out of their congregations.
I realize that’s a pretty strong statement, and not altogether fair. But I’m willing to stand by it, nonetheless.
You see, the early Anabaptist leaders, such as Grebel, Manz, Blaurock, Sattler, and others, began to question the status quo of the institutionalized church. Should the church really baptize infants? Should a believer take oaths or go to war? Even more, they questioned the ruling of a council as being more authoritative than the Spirit’s leading in people’s lives, as was commonly accepted in their day.
Everyone spoke in hushed tones. Mom cried silently, dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex. What was going on?
Moments before, I sat in the back row, behind the Vinar family, copying the gibberish I saw in a hymnbook onto a blank piece of paper my older sister had given me. Now, everyone was huddled into groups, solemn, and praying. Something important was happening. Something big!
Is this my church?
Plainspoken is a project focused on giving “plain people” (Amish, Hutterite, Mennonite) their own voice. Many novels have been written about “plain people”—Amish love tales, to be specific. But few of them actually depict the reality of life for those who come from “plain” backgrounds. Luci’s book is a personal memoir of her life as a Mennonite. So, upon her request, following is my review of Anything But Simple.
I took a risk in asking some questions last week about Mennonite distinctives. I framed the questions so they would be probing, yet wide-open for any and all to answer. It felt risky, and proved to be so.
There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a pressure point. Call me naïve, but I honestly didn’t realize asking these questions would produce as many fireworks as it did. My intention was not to create an argument or discredit our Anabaptist heritage. It’s just that there are a few things I wanted to share with my generation and felt I had to first ask some (risky) questions.
Church is confusing these days. Especially with all the different denominations and applications to scripture.
I feel a tension in my generation of Mennonites. We learn in church that a passage of Scripture means this and we should be doing that because of it.
But other believers aren’t. Other people who have authentic relationships with Jesus aren’t necessarily wearing the veiling or dressing in dresses. In fact, some of them are having a greater impact on our culture. So why do we insist on doing things our way?
Author Asher Witmer knows what it’s like to want freedom from sexual sin only to continually fail. We’re often told we need more personal discipline, that we need to think godly things instead of fleshly things.
What if I told you that discipline won’t solve your problem with lust?
Our male sexuality is given by God for advancing beauty and goodness. But somewhere along the line it becomes something that causes devastation and guilt. The good news is we don’t have to live with guilt. In Live Free, Asher Witmer shows us how we can find freedom from sexual sin, live with nothing to hide, and be able to fight for others.
