there hopefully will be an increase of Mennonites from the Global South coming to North America as missionaries.

Amen.

They’ll bring the Spirit and their own interpretations of Anabaptism, as well as cultural baggage with which we most likely won’t want to identify.

Much like all missionaries throughout history.

Our church has a history of schisms and separation. But we also draw from a story, beginning in the Bible, of God welcoming the unwelcomeable and seeking reconciliation between people. Conversation and discernment in a spirit of community with those who disagree with us seems to me to be much more in keeping with that story than does cutting ourselves off from others to protect principles. And unity is more poignant when it is something that is clung to despite differences that make us want to go our separate ways. The challenge facing us is, I think, to maintain both openness and conviction as we engage others.

Some people in my class expressed fear at what the Mennonite Church will look like in 50 years given the current trends toward biblical fundamentalism displayed in many Mennonite communities outside North America. They look at the global Mennonite Church and see a hostile takeover in the works; “our liberal rationalist Mennonitism will soon revert to their evangelical fundamentalist Mennonitism.” I think this is ridiculous, but it’s an important reaction to pay attention to in North American Mennonite circles when the “global Mennonite Church” is discussed.

In the end, I fall back on what you might describe partially as the effect of post-modernity, but has strong roots in the Anabaptist tradition: a strong discomfort and dislike of Confessions of Faith as our anchors of identity. The Lutherans have the Augsburg Confession, around which they have established a global identity. If you agree with the Augsburg Confession, you’re a Lutheran. If not, you aren’t. In a way, it’d be nice if we had one of those. MWC could use its recently developed “Shared Convictions” as a litmus test for global Mennonites: if you can sign the Shared Convictions, you’re in. If you can’t, you’re not a Mennonite. Boy, that’d be easy.

Instead, MWC specifically states that those are descriptive convictions, and are not meant to be prescriptive for the global Mennonite Church. Interestingly, the same has been said about our North American Mennonite Confession of Faith. Theoretically, we’re a non-creedal/non-doctrinal church.

So let’s embrace that. We aren’t identical to Mennonites around the world, but we hopefully have some things in common. Maybe they aren’t the beliefs or values that we think are the most important, but that’s okay. We want to remain in conversation with the global Mennonite Church, and we need to be open to learning as well as teaching. There won’t be a hostile takeover of our theology, but there hopefully will be an increase of Mennonites from the Global South coming to North America as missionaries. They’ll bring the Spirit and their own interpretations of Anabaptism, as well as cultural baggage with which we most likely won’t want to identify.

The goal of MWC or a global Anabaptist community is not to develop theological doctrines or make decisions for all Mennonites, but to be a place for conversation and communion to celebrate our shared Anabaptist/Mennonite identity (which will mean different things to different people). We have the MWC Shared Convictions as a good description of current Mennonite identity, and it’s okay that it doesn’t encompass all of what I may think it means to be Mennonite. Participation in the global Mennonite community is voluntary and open — if you identify with what you see as Mennonite values, come join us and we’ll be in discussion. One (perhaps negative) outcome of this is that we begin to strongly identify with MC-USA along theological/doctrinal lines, and we should be cautious of this nationalistic division of the Church.

Also, perhaps our Mennonite missions could be more re-connected with our own understandings of Anabaptist history and what it means to be Mennonite. Today, some Mennonite churches in the Global South are saying, “Hey! You just gave us the Gospel — which is nice — but you left out all this good stuff about peace and community and mutual aid!” Discussion only works if we’re willing to say what we believe, and why we believe it.

So I’m basically (rambling, and) agreeing with you, Tim, that we can’t always pretend that we agree on basic theological/religious questions of what it means to be Mennonite. I say why I’m a Mennonite, you say why you’re a Mennonite, and we talk about that. That’s the beauty of being a Church centered around community discernment, not a Church centered around a Confession of Faith.