The Mennonites

[Howard509]

Today, I visited a Mennonite church for the first time and I liked it very much. The service was very informal. It is led by a lay minister on a rotating basis, giving everyone a chance to volunteer. I could tell that the commitment to nonviolence of its members was strong. The only thing I didn't like about it is that the sermon didn't seem clearly connected to the Gospel reading, except for perhaps two or three sentences.

This particular Mennonite congregation is affiliated with United Church of Christ, which perhaps makes it more "progressive" than others, something I appreciate. Next Sunday, I'll be visiting a Quaker church for the first time, but I look forward to visiting the Mennonites again in the future. At this point of my life, I wouldn't like to think of myself as the exclusive member of any church. The Spirit breathes wherever it so chooses.

[KillerTOFU]

Are you going to a programmed or unprogrammed meeting?

Where abouts in Washington are you?

[Porter Doran]

Is this near Spokane? This sounds like exactly the church my uncle, a UCC pastor, was partnering with. He's a sort who tends to call UCC "Unitarians Considering Christ" -- and likes that -- so I'm going to assume your Mennonite church is -- um -- outside the bell curve for Mennonite churches. In short, if you move, you may find Mennonite churches in your new area are about opposite to it. But good luck.

[Howard509]

Originally Posted by Porter Doran

Is this near Spokane? This sounds like exactly the church my uncle, a UCC pastor, was partnering with. He's a sort who tends to call UCC "Unitarians Considering Christ" -- and likes that -- so I'm going to assume your Mennonite church is -- um -- outside the bell curve for Mennonite churches. In short, if you move, you may find Mennonite churches in your new area are about opposite to it. But good luck.

The United Church of Christ song book uses Trinitarian language. You seem to have a judgmental attitude sometimes. And I do not deny that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I just don't attempt to explain it through Hellenistic concepts.

[Porter Doran]

I think he would've said "Agnostics Considering Christ" only that doesn't make up the acronym UCC. At any rate, he does not believe in the soul, an afterlife, a personable God, the virgin-birth or resurrection of Jesus, and he implies that UCC leadership does not either.

[Howard509]

Originally Posted by Porter Doran

I think he would've said "Agnostics Considering Christ" only that doesn't make up the acronym UCC. At any rate, he does not believe in the soul, an afterlife, a personable God, the virgin-birth or resurrection of Jesus, and he implies that UCC leadership does not either.

The United Church of Christ, in a spirit of love and unity, allows difference of theological opinion.

In 2001, Hartford Institute for Religion Research did a "Faith Communities Today (FACT)" study[7] that included a survey of United Church of Christ beliefs. Among the results of this were findings that in the UCC, 5.6 percent of the churches responding to the survey described their members as "very liberal or progressive," 3.4 percent as "very conservative," 22.4 percent as "somewhat liberal or progressive," and 23.6 percent as "somewhat conservative" Those results suggested a nearly equal balance between liberal and conservative congregations. The self-described "moderate" group, however, was the largest at 45 percent. Other statistics found by the Hartford Institute show that 53.2% of members say "the Bible" is the highest source of authority, 16.1% say the "Holy Spirit," 9.2% say "Reason," 6.3% say "Experience," and 6.1% say "Creeds."
David Roozen, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research who has studied the United Church of Christ, said surveys show the national church's pronouncements are often more liberal than the views in the pews, but that its governing structure is set up to allow such disagreements.[8] Starting in 2003, a task force commissioned by General Synod 24 studied the diverse Worship habits of UCC churches. The study can be found online[9] and reflects statistics on attitudes towards Worship, Baptism, and Communion, such as "Laity (70%) and clergy (90%) alike overwhelmingly describe worship “as an encounter with God that leads to doing God’s work in the world.” "95 percent of our congregations use the Revised Common Lectionary in some way in planning or actual worship and preaching" and "96 percent always or almost always have a sermon, 86 percent have a time with children, 95 percent have a time of sharing joys and concerns, and 98 percent include the Prayer of Our Savior/Lord’s Prayer." Clergy and laity were invited to select two meanings of baptism that they emphasize. They were also to suggest the meaning that they thought their entire church emphasized. Baptism as an “entry into the Church Universal” was the most frequent response. Clergy and laity were also invited to identify two meanings of Holy Communion that they emphasize. While clergy emphasized Holy Communion as “a meal in which we encounter God’s living presence,” laity emphasized “a remembrance of Jesus’ last supper, death, and resurrection.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_church_of_christ

[Porter Doran]

And at any rate my point was that I believe you to have found a nonstandard Mennonite church.

At most Mennonite churches -- and I think I can speak with authority as someone raised among them and with Mennonite family -- there is an amount of unconscious tension between conference and individuals. Most individuals are prone to a sort of rural fundamentalism and can listen to their seminary-educated ministers with some bemusement. After all, the church in its present aspect dates only to radical changes ca. 1970, a time which most members lived through.

But if you are attending the church I think you are, you won't encounter any such mixtures, and good for you.

[Howard509]

I personally don't see how fundamentalism is consistent with the Radical Reformation's original principles.

[Porter Doran]

Originally Posted by Howard509

I personally don't see how fundamentalism is consistent with the Radical Reformation's original principles.

The sad truth is that radical Anabaptism lasted about fifteen years.

After that, it was killed --

Partly by incredibly-fierce persecution from Reformers, Rome, and secular governments -- really unprecedented brutality in which women were buried alive, families burned alive together, armies commissioned to take cities and sweep countrysides -- this literally killed the first generation of the movement.

But mostly by the sadly-aptly-named Dirk Phillips, an ex-Dominican -- the Dominicans ran the Inquisition, recall -- who managed in his short lifetime to excommunicate huge masses of Brethren including any radical leaders, to split the remainder into no less than five denominations, and, worst of all, to introduce creeds and dogmatism as weapons. Weapons with which to fight other denominations, of course -- and with which to harry and censure those within. After him, the Mennonite preoccupation was with their own destruction -- by slanders and mutual excommunications and internal persecutions -- by the time of, say, the Ammanites, to be a Mennonite in many parts of Europe was to make a modern-day fundamentalist look like a carefree hippy.

And, to take the dour view, this bad spirit has animated Mennonites until this day. Of course, modern leaders have done much to counter this -- first, by, in the 1880s or so, introducing evangelicalism and other American optimisms and, then, really quite recently, reminding them of their radical genesis and promoting a loving unification. Still, today there are hundreds of denominations of Mennonites and Amish, most of them minuscule in size and often openly uncertain about the salvation of the other denominations.

Well, that was unfair but there's truth in it.

[Andy Alexis-Baker]

Originally Posted by Porter Doran

The sad truth is that radical Anabaptism lasted about fifteen years.

After that, it was killed --

This is an inadequate view of Anabaptism. Phillips and Menno excommunicated those in the Reformation who continued to hold to an apocalyptic eschatology that required them to take up violence. The disaster at Muenster was a catalyst for rethinking that type of Anabaptism that had held sway from the Peasants Revolt, when thousand upon thousands were killed, to Muenster, when misguided Anabaptists believed that Elijah and Moses and literally come back and were about to usher in the second coming of Christ right there at Muenster.

Menno Simons and Dirk Phillips saw that if anything, that type of Christianity was not only heretical, but doomed to fail. After that time, Anabaptists began to coalesce around the Schleitheim articles, that renounced violence completely.

As far as the subsequent centuries, you also do not know what you are talking about. The communities had their own internal disputes, and you do not do them justice at all by reading back a 20th century phenomenon, fundamentalism, onto earlier centuries. The communities that were harried in and out of parts of Europe by one persecution after another, were not and could not have been "fundamentalist" because it is an anachronism. Not only that but you collapse Anabaptism into Mennonites. There were also Hutterites, Amish, Brethren, etc. that sprang up, and not out of stupid disputes but out of real ones. The Amish, for example, were not the result of a conservative fundamentalism, but the result of a real and valid dispute about whether the Mennonites should so blithely accept modern technologies that might eventually destroy their communities and assimilate them into the wider mainstream. In retrospect, the Amish have been absolutely correct about modern technology and its disastrous consequences for tight-knit communities.

Nor were the splits between the Hutterites and other Anabaptists over petty issues. The Hutterites believed that the real sharing of goods is a mandate of the Gospel. That without an economic model that breaks radically with the emerging capitalism, the Anabaptists are not really witnessing to the new humanity that breaks down distinctions and illegitimate hierarchies. The Catholic Workers in the 20th century have said similar things, though their manner of interacting with the larger public is different.\

I could go on and on, but I suppose that is enough. I am a Mennonite.

I'd suggest that you take a read through Arnold Snyder's Anabaptist History and Theology and or his Following in the Footsteps of Christ. John Roth recently came out with a trilogy on Anabaptism aimed at a popular audience as well. Stories, I believe, gives some of the history.

Regarding the church Howard visited in Washington. I don't know anything about the church. It could be that they simply meet in another church's building. That often happens.

[Porter Doran]

Andy, it's pleasant to talk to somebody else who's Mennonite after all these years, and especially about history.

Well, here are more of my understandings. First of all, Simons and Phillips were so far from being the same that Phillips tried to excommunicate Simons. Simons' concerns for "heresy" among Anabaptists were certainly much as you say, and he used sermons and pen gently to erect what could be an orthodoxy for them. But Phillips was a later convert with a different mode of operating as a leader. Simons sought to unify the Brethren in the Netherlands; Phillips singlehandedly tore Simons' result into five bitter pieces (each of which held the others to be damned to hell).

Second, Phillips was far from attacking Muensterism. His letters and acts were against established Mennonite leaders and members and mostly addressed matters of practice or doctrine incredibly trivial or odd. For example, one issue he used as a lever to break up Simons' church, and which most likely was invented by him, was that of extending the "ban" into the marriage bed -- that is, that a wife must refuse sex to a banned husband. In this and all matters, he banned those who could not agree with his opinions -- and, what's worse, in so doing sowed a cultural seed to outlast him.

Third, when I mentioned modern "fundamentalism", I was trying to make an analogy with a spirit and mindset -- I did not and do not suppose that the emphases of the Mennonites were anything like, say, a modern Southern Baptist's. That said, I'll dare to shift the topic a little and point out that fundamentalism did make its inroads into the Mennonite church in the twentieth century. In fact, the "Garden City" Confession of Faith adopted -- when? ca. 1920? -- was prompted by The Fundamentals themselves and mirrors fundamentalist concerns and language. Later, in the '50s and '60s, there was a showdown between church intellectuals and entrenched bishops such as the George Brunks pere and fils, the former very adequately fulfilling the progressive and the latter the fundamentalist categories of overall religious culture of the time. But none of this recent history is what I had in mind -- of course modern events are far-removed from our Mennonite ancestors -- I had in mind a very critical and ascetic spirit and mindset that I aver is ancestrally Mennonite.

Which brings me to a fourth comment: Jakob Amman was a young German Mennonite man enamored of Phillips' role in church history, and so inspired he, upon very young being ordained a bishop, forthwith viciously badgered and finally excommunicated the majority of German and Swiss Mennonites of his day -- using similar excuses to Phillips' -- viz., inventing "concerns" such as whether, amid persecution, to accept financial aid from sympathetic "worldlings" rather than to promise them hell. The Mennonite church wars over technological innovations would not come for another 300 years, in America -- these gave birth to the Old Order Mennonites and Amish.

Fifth, I must reiterate that my experience with the unfortunate aspects of Mennonite and Amish culture is very personal and very factual and remains a living part of my daily experience when I interact with or observe my siblings and friends. We undoubtedly have different experiences, have made different studies of our history, and attach different historical explanations to our and each other's experiences. I am always very eager to learn more.

[Andy Alexis-Baker]

I am not sure what part of the Amish you were part of. I know that there are big differences between geographic areas, and often differences within a smaller geography in terms of technologies and such. Do you speak Platt Deutsch? What Mennonite church are you part of now, what area are you in?

I am not and never have been a part of the Amish church. I have enough interactions with some of the ones in Northern Indiana to know that they are often very reluctant to make judgments about the salvation of those outside of their church. I had dinner with an Amish bishop once, along with several other Amish folks, and we talked very explicitly about this. They simply said that they have their ways, and other people have their own. It is not for them to judge, but for God. That is a fair assessment in my view.

I also have had talks with Amish folks in this area about shunning and such things. This is how they explained it works in this area: shunning is not a bitter practice. It consists in not accepting help from the shunned brethren. They are still talked with, still allowed to come around. But if somebody needs help, the person in need of aid is not allowed to accept aid from that shunned person. In such tight-knit communities, I was told, that is very hard. I was also told that this is a relatively rare thing. Hardly ever happens in the churches in the area. I was also told that when the "churches" get too big to meet in the area houses, they have to split off and form new churches under the area bishop. So that is how a lot of the churches in this area are starting. The Amish are growing quite rapidly and have a high retention rate of their children (unlike Mennonites).

I am well aware of past splits over what we now think are trivial issues. Whether to have black bumpers on cars or allow Chrome (Mennonites). Whether to allow buttons on blazers, etc. These seem trivial to us, but to them they were not so trivial but bound up in a set of practices and worldviews that made them worth discussing, even worth going their separate ways over. I am also aware that in some Amish and Old Order churches there are right now some arguments about evangelical charismatic itinerant preachers going around. I have to say, I am a little wary of the charismatics as they have been described in the Mennonite publications. I see good reason that the Old Orders are resisting that right now.

Of course fundamentalism made its inroads in the 20th century. It could not have done so before that though as it was a reaction to Liberal Protestantism of the early century. Both sides were wrong in that debate. Most Mennonites have rejected that fundamentalism. Some on the east coast still are embedded in it though.

I don't know the situation with the Amish on that. I suspect it is highly divergent depending on area. The ones I know around here, they certainly hold the Bible in high regard as the Word of God, a view I respect. But like I said, they are not willing to say to others that they are damned to hell.

There are also a few ex-Amish in my congregation. People who grew up in the Amish communities and who have decided to leave, but not leave the Anabaptist fold. They usually join the Mennonites, and it usually has to do with technology more than anything else. The folks that I know who grew up that way don't usually have huge grudges against their upbringing. It probably helps that the Mennonites in this area see the Amish as a good people and don't at all denigrate them. There are pretty good relations around here between us all I would say.

I travel in and out of Chicago every week on the Amtrak. There are always 20 Amish or so on the train. Sometimes I strike up conversations. I have pretty regular contact with Old Orders that way.

[Howard509]

Originally Posted by Andy Alexis-Baker

Regarding the church Howard visited in Washington. I don't know anything about the church. It could be that they simply meet in another church's building. That often happens.

It's a congregation of Mennonites who merged with a congregation of UCC.

[Porter Doran]

Originally Posted by Andy Alexis-Baker

Both sides were wrong in that debate.

Amen. I like the way you think. Also, I rejoice to hear your testimony that MC has conserved or found a third way.

I was raised Nationwide Fellowship Mennonite, which is what I would call a "plain" Amish - Mennonite group in that their Bishops enforce detailed lifestyle rules on their communities. Nationwide began as a reaction to reforms by the General Conference -- they date themselves to a Brunkite conservative convention in Missouri in 1969, although they were not themselves organized until 1974. Today they are about one-third ex-MC, one third ex - Old Order Amish, and one-third ex - Old Order Mennonites and ex-Horning.

My siblings mostly migrated to Pilgrim Conference, a very small group mostly in Lebanon, Penna., that traces itself back to Lancaster Conference. (In fact, they are a very recent "split", having formed themselves ca. 1995.) They are also what I would call "plain", as their Bishop "board" enforces by excommunication such lifestyle decisions as what size engine a car may have, whether to ban newsmagazines, and how many pleats ought be sewn into a "head veiling".

I have one brother who's just joined an Old Order Amish - derived community experimenting with English hymns and semi-communist living. You may see him at a Greyhound station someday. : )

Altogether, my family and then I alone made friends among and visited scores of "fellowship", Beachy, Russian, and other Amish - Mennonite communities across the U.S. The variety but consistency has really filled my mind -- there's a culture and spirit that is so different from what one thinks of as Western -- something very precious is on the verge of passing away forever. (But the religion is not passing away -- mind you, I am talking about je ne sais quoi.)

Hmm, Alexis-Baker is no more traditionally-Mennonite a name than Doran. I assume you and I both have "Englischer" backgrounds. It really would be great to meet you some day, Andy, and shoot the breeze.

[Howard509]

Today, I visited the Orthodox church because the bishop was visiting. Other than the bishop's sermon, I was bored during the liturgy. I didn't necessarily want to be bored. This is a church to which I've given years of my life, and it just didn't feel the same as it did before. I haven't really been "into it" for a year. I prayed during the liturgy for God, if He desired it, to make me enjoy the liturgy. I think I may have enjoyed visiting the Mennonite church more. I liked the informal nature of the worship, and its non-hierarchical structure.

One reason why I haven't formally left the Orthodox church is the belief in apostolic succession, that the sacraments are only valid when administered by a priest. But when I visited the Mennonite church, I shared the Lord's Supper with them. They referred to it as the body of Christ, just like in the Orthodox church. I consumed it and felt that Christ was mystically present. There was no need for sacerdotalism. According to traditional Orthodox doctrine, I've already excommunicated myself for receiving the Eucharist in a "heterodox" church.

[njtom]

According to traditional Orthodox doctrine, I've already excommunicated myself for receiving the Eucharist in a "heterodox" church.

The Mennonite-UCC combo congregation sounds much more attractive to me.

[Porter Doran]

I and my wife visited Eugene's Church of the Brethren today. The congregation comprised -- oh, let me count it in my head -- no more than sixteen, a few of whom were also just visitors. Unfortunately, we came on a day of Conference Meeting reports, so, besides learning that their Northwest District is a population of only 650, and what their budgets are, and such, we did not learn a lot of about what they're like there. Folks were a similar mixture of bubbling Boomers and silent oldsters that we'd found at Eugene Mennonite -- not a young person to be found! It was nostalgic to encounter the old Mennonite names: Rohrers, Baers, &c. were present.

If anyone knows of any other Anabaptist / Pietist churches accessible by bus from Eugene, Oregon, please let me know!

[Howard509]

Originally Posted by Porter Doran

I and my wife visited Eugene's Church of the Brethren today. The congregation comprised -- oh, let me count it in my head -- no more than sixteen, a few of whom were also just visitors.

There were about fifteen of us at the service I attended. Is that typical for a Mennonite congregation in this country? If not, how does one go about growing a church? I was the only young person besides two middle school kids.

[Porter Doran]

Originally Posted by Howard509

There were about fifteen of us at the service I attended. Is that typical for a Mennonite congregation in this country? If not, how does one go about growing a church? I was the only young person besides two middle school kids.

Andy'll be the authority on MCUSA, but the "independent" Mennonite churches I'm more familiar with are almost always a few hundred, mostly families and children and young people. These are out in the country though -- downtown is not the native Anabaptist habitat (although it's worth remarking that the very first Anabaptists were mostly urban).

Originally Posted by Howard509

If not, how does one go about growing a church?

I'd really like myself to learn more about how MC are growing. I understand that in some countries, they're growing by leaps and bounds. You see, until quite recently, to be Amish or Mennonite was to be a specific ethnicity -- in fact, all members in the U.S. could trace themselves back to about seventy Swiss - German families. All that's changed since the Seventies and I really am ignorant of the details, I'm ashamed to say.

[Howard509]

Please keep in mind, I do not intend to defame the Orthodox church in any way. Besides the Roman Catholic Church, it is the world's oldest and largest Christian denomination. Orthodoxy has rich traditions, liturgical and theological, that all Christians should appreciate. I just no longer desire to be the exclusive member of any church.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH04hj1Q_IM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRcv9u9x3z8

I'm tired of intolerance in churches. I fully agree with the idea behind this ad. If anyone disparages the United Church of Christ, I'm offended. I feel this way regardless of one thinks of Jeremiah Wright.

I told my mom that I visited the Mennonite church and she didn't seem bothered by it at all.

[jcquivers]

JESUSpeople

a denominational building is not church. Nor is the liturgy or format the way the ecclesia is to meet. We can have lectures and intellectually study the Bible and the Nature of JESUS but when we turn our attention from reason to spiritual practice, fellowship takes place when CHRIST, Jesus is central to the meeting. When HIS bride, the church, gazes at her HUSBAND, JESUS in practiced affection and shares the experience with one another, fellowship takes place. Lovers of JESUS in group discussion about the bible focus on JESUS, sharing music that loves JESUS, break bread and share a meal. Pray, Pray, Pray.

As believers we have the spirit of JESUS in each individual, in HIS new testament temple. The spirit of JESUS is the HOLY SPIRIT so he guides us daily in the Nature of JESUS.

The idea of going to church" is "sacred location" centered.

Just be the church, fellowship with lovers of JESUS.

my intention is not to bash, but to share liberation and freedom from this world's systems synergizing and holding captive the bride of JESUS, HIS ecclesia.

any thoughts?

grace and peace

Greg

ps

I don't want to be dogmatic and say that the LORD does not work in denominations he's alot bigger than me but I have seen splashes of this koinonia in seasons of the Hippie Church Denomination I've belong to, But as most big movements a distinctives catechism has risen to calrify the form of "church" which is external and systematically driven.

question? when your in the meeting do all the believers get to share what JESUS is doing in their walks. Are they allowed to bring a psalm/song or a personal teaching? Men and Women in the same room? Are kids present to experience their parents practice? Is this collective being controlled by the Holy Spirit whom always points to JESUS? No human facilitator guiding the theme of the message from many?

[Porter Doran]

"Church" as it's used today and "church" as it was meant in Scripture are only homonyms.

[Elpolloloco]

Seeing as there is already a thread on this, I'll just resurrect it.

Recently, I've been considering joining a Mennonite church (specifically the Mennonite Church USA--there's one near where I'm going to college). Quite a bit of their doctrine seems to line up with my belief. However, I am aware that what a web page says about a church does not always line up with reality. Thus, I'm wondering about the general feel of MCUSA churches, especially ones in smaller towns. I'm trying to avoid fundamentalism (I'm quite moderate, with a few progressive leanings. That is excluding my belief in pacifism).

[GrahamS]

I don't know much about rural Mennonite congregations, but I have attended suburban and urban Mennonite churches for the last few years. I think it's quite likely that you would feel at home and find fellowship at a Mennonite church, but it's really impossible to say without visiting. Go for it.

[Andy Alexis-Baker]

With Graham, you have to go there and visit. But keep in mind that attending and being a member of church is like marriage. You want to get to know them, but you should be prepared to find out their flaws only after you join and made vows, which you should not break. Good times, bad times, sickness and health. You'll have to be prepared for all sides.

Overall, I have found that many things Mennonites stand for I do as well. Thus despite my disagreements with some things in my own church, speaking broadly about MCUSA, not any congregation, I am committed to staying.

I have no clue what the nashville Mennonites are like. Noble, who posts here, is a Mennonite minister from your area, relatively new. Maybe you should contact him.