Nice to hear your reading things you identify with. What are some of the connections you see with where you find yourself?

A general on-line resource is the Who are the Mennonites? page on Third Way cafe site. If you want to visit a Mennonite church in your area, you can use the Mennonite church online directory.

If you have more specific questions, feel free to ask them here and I’m sure folks will take a crack at answering them.

Thank you very much.

Mennonites have no special lock on social responsibility in the name of Jesus. Drive past any Salvation Army on any given day of the week - and they’re feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, clothing the naked, etc. All in Jesus’ name. I once asked my boss if anyone kept record of how many people who were helped by the Salvation Army later joined, and he said, “Where do you think we get our membership from?” The Salvation Army doesn’t practice water baptism at all - they lay hands and pray for the holy spirit, so NOT Anabaptist.

But, it isn’t about Catholic (not Anabaptist by any stretch of anybody’s imagination), Mennonite, Anabaptist, Salvation Army - it’s about Jesus and trying to actually do what he commanded us to do.

Adam, please name the person you’re responding to. Even if it looks like your comment is right after the comment you’re responding to, there are sometimes first time comments that are pending approval in between.

Melissa, I think you’ve got a point there. I was embarrassed by the speakers at San Jose 2007, the bi-annual Mennonite convention. There was one new Mennonite whose message basically boiled down to: “Gee, Mennonites are so great, they brought my family food when we had a crisis.” It would be nice to hear in a conversation, but doesn’t make sense as a keynote address at a major convention.

That said, I think the future of the Anabaptist movement is non-Mennonites drawn to Anabaptism. Whether they are part of the Mennonite denomination or not is irrelevant. And what is that movement about? From what I can tell it boils down to trying to live based on what Jesus actually said and did. Whether you call that Mennonite or Brethren or Amish or New Monasticism or Emergent shouldn’t matter.

“…advocate some new form of state run government”

So what other kind of government can there be? That statement makes absolutely no sense.

And also:

“…Or perhaps they believe that the things that make them mennonite (non-violence, peace, equality) come before their actual religion!…”

So trying to practice what Jesus preached is somehow wrong? That’s not coming before our actual religion it is PART OF that religion.

I’m one of those people from another faith tradition who became a Mennonite — not BECAUSE of the cool name, but because they seem to me to come closest to practicing Christianity as it was originally intended.

Like any group of people, Mennonites are far from perfect, but as a whole, they seem to me to be much better at practicing what they believe than the Christian population at large.

I think it’s a healthy thing for Anabaptists on an Anabaptist web site to point out what’s right about their corner of the Christian world. As long as it stays within the realm of positive reinforcement and doesn’t cross the line into pride. (A fine line I know).

But as human beings we need that kind of encouragement.

HEY LOOK, WE KNOW ABOUT THESE IDEAS!

“It appears to me that Mennonites no longer believe that they’re saved through faith in Jesus Christ but by being Mennonite, and that is nothing short of idolotry.”

Or perhaps they believe that the things that make them mennonite (non-violence, peace, equality) come before their actual religion! I was accused last year of not being a Christian because I didn’t support the US military. But sometimes I get accused of not having Christian beliefs because I’m not a Republican or a feminist or I don’t want to bash in Fred Phelps’ head.

Now, with the Jesus for president anti-empire emergent movement on the rise, again, we are co-opting ideas based on the culture of the day and the fad of the week.

I believe in the Bible, what could more conservative? I believe that putting political or cultural isms in front of Jesus simply creates stumbling blocks for people, what could be more liberal and forward thinking?

No wonder everyone is confused by me.

And as for Melissa, she just pointed something out to me that I never thought of, but now that I’ve read it, it makes an awful lot of sense.

The thing is, there’s an awful lot for Mennonites to be proud of. Their willingness to go and do social justice and not just vote for the right guy or read the right website is what attracted me in the first place. Or, as I put it to my pastor, I was glad that I finally found a church that got it right in my eyes…”relatively conservative theology and relatively liberal politics.”

But, that said, yeah, there does seem to be a mennonite cult of personality. Which is bound to happen in what is essentially a VERY small denomination. Maybe that’s something that we as mennonites need to work on. A lot.

Anabaptists have a strong tradition of operating outside of traditional state based governments. But there is a strong movement within the mennonite church to begin leaning more and more to the left. They believe in compassion and mercy and equality (whatever those things are) and they believe that left politics will grant them those things in some measure. But they are wrong. Just as the evangelicals have been so wrong to place their faith on the empty promises of the Republican party.

They will offer us these things. They will grant few. Our forefathers knew this and stayed out of the meddlesome business of the state. I see the Obama bumper stickers at church. I am not blind. (I saw the Bush bumper stickers at my old Baptist haunt)

The state has never been an ally for our faith. They have either exploited the Rabbi’s teachings, fed us to the lions, or given our faith a bad name.

Jesus’ government is no state run entity, that much I know. When you listen to Bush (or Obama or any other politco) you’d swear Jesus’ second coming is at hand with the pull of a lever.

You’d think we’d learn.