Comments on: living tribute http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2007/01/15/living-tribute/ let's activate something Sun, 20 May 2012 21:23:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Brian Hamilton http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2007/01/15/living-tribute/#comment-326 Brian Hamilton Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:16:59 +0000 http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2007/01/15/living-tribute/#comment-326 Thanks for these beautifully and powerfully put reminders. You've penetrated precisely the ways we have already domesticated so recent a movement. Thanks for these beautifully and powerfully put reminders. You’ve penetrated precisely the ways we have already domesticated so recent a movement.

]]> By: ST http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2007/01/15/living-tribute/#comment-322 ST Mon, 15 Jan 2007 18:23:54 +0000 http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2007/01/15/living-tribute/#comment-322 thanks. our church was located in an impoverished part of the city. the blacks and latinos i was talking about were people who lived out some of the distinctive tenets you mention, in their everyday life. grannys made choices that reduced violence by helping to entertain grandchildren while parents were still at work. young adults used their common sense to intervene in fights between young teenagers going on in the alley behind the church. reconciliation, and community action by neighbors who were competing for the few resources there were in the social service pot was visible. there was and is still room for all of these expressions of peacemaking, whether they were in vietnam or at home. our neighbors were doing it, but not in ways in which my church wanted to collaborate. the message at home is sometimes harder to implement then supporting a message of peace abroad. also, when i studied the civil rights movement in school, i learned that overall, white mennonite churches did not participate in active support, and so were part of the silent majority, or the white moderate as king noted. i believe, the way we "keep our core values secure" is by sharing them and witnessing them with our daily lives. thanks for your comments! thanks. our church was located in an impoverished part of the city. the blacks and latinos i was talking about were people who lived out some of the distinctive tenets you mention, in their everyday life. grannys made choices that reduced violence by helping to entertain grandchildren while parents were still at work. young adults used their common sense to intervene in fights between young teenagers going on in the alley behind the church. reconciliation, and community action by neighbors who were competing for the few resources there were in the social service pot was visible. there was and is still room for all of these expressions of peacemaking, whether they were in vietnam or at home. our neighbors were doing it, but not in ways in which my church wanted to collaborate. the message at home is sometimes harder to implement then supporting a message of peace abroad. also, when i studied the civil rights movement in school, i learned that overall, white mennonite churches did not participate in active support, and so were part of the silent majority, or the white moderate as king noted.

i believe, the way we “keep our core values secure” is by sharing them and witnessing them with our daily lives.

thanks for your comments!

]]> By: Hootsbuddy http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2007/01/15/living-tribute/#comment-321 Hootsbuddy Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:55:56 +0000 http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2007/01/15/living-tribute/#comment-321 Your message is an encouragement to me. It is good to know that young people are still digging deeper into the history of the Civil Rights movement than just the surface. It is easy with the passing of time to gloss over the human part of what took place, the conpromises taking hours, days of argument before any direct action could take place. Even then there were elements of both "sides" that said things were moving too fast, or too slow. The assasinations of King and the two Kennedies in the short span of a few years were together a wake-up call that solidified the movement. In those cases, tragedy begat faster results. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was, if anything, a tribute to the memory of JFK, and the subsequent killings of King and Robert Kennedy only a few months apart four years later galvanized the political will as nothing else might have done. In the case of your own Mennonite tradition, it is good to broaden awareness, even participation of a broader range of people. But handle with care the core values of your faith. We live in a time when small congregations are in danger of being swept into oblivion by a swollen and growing number of mega-churches with little theological depth. Peace, non-violence and reconcilliation are practiced and taught by traditional "peace churches" which have always been an endangered species, so do all in your power to keep those core values secure. Others may pay lip service, but those who live those values are few and far between. Your message is an encouragement to me. It is good to know that young people are still digging deeper into the history of the Civil Rights movement than just the surface. It is easy with the passing of time to gloss over the human part of what took place, the conpromises taking hours, days of argument before any direct action could take place. Even then there were elements of both “sides” that said things were moving too fast, or too slow.

The assasinations of King and the two Kennedies in the short span of a few years were together a wake-up call that solidified the movement. In those cases, tragedy begat faster results. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was, if anything, a tribute to the memory of JFK, and the subsequent killings of King and Robert Kennedy only a few months apart four years later galvanized the political will as nothing else might have done.

In the case of your own Mennonite tradition, it is good to broaden awareness, even participation of a broader range of people. But handle with care the core values of your faith. We live in a time when small congregations are in danger of being swept into oblivion by a swollen and growing number of mega-churches with little theological depth. Peace, non-violence and reconcilliation are practiced and taught by traditional “peace churches” which have always been an endangered species, so do all in your power to keep those core values secure. Others may pay lip service, but those who live those values are few and far between.

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