On another matter, it’s interesting to me that you quote Andrew Sullivan from a piece where he’s basically laying out how Niebuhrian Obama is, and how much he likes that. Given your comments here and on the GC national anthem issue, that seems slightly ironic. (Also, on a practical corrective matter, I think you have some of your text in the Sullivan text box. At first I was amazed that Sullivan was referencing Mennonites!)

It seems that The Mennonite doesn’t keep the comments up for very long, eh? I don’t see any with Levi’s article at the moment. I didn’t actually know about his piece until I saw your blog piece today. Yes, I’m a little behind.

Thanks for replying!

Regarding “peace and justice” versus “compassion and generosity,” what I mean to say is that the latter refers to a specific way of acting while the former merely refers to an ideal condition of society. Yes, we want peace and justice, but how do we get it?

I read the comment thread at “The Mennonite” and see that you’ve elaborated on what peace and justice means to you; clearly these words carry specific connotations for you but to me their popular usage often rings hollow.

I agree that the Gospel is about more than being nice to people but also resonate with Steve Dintaman’s comment saying: “While a passion for structural change is part of the gospel mix, my concern is that so often that passion takes on a kind of Messianic certainty that simplifies the complexity of structual issues and turns the gospel into a fixed and utterly predictable political ideology.”

And regarding marketing of Mennonites: I heard Miller to be saying that in popular culture Mennonites were known for “peacenjustice.” Since this was a very narrow (not to mention highly interpretive) representation of the total Mennonite package, many people found in Mennonites something different than what they expected, particularly in “heartland” churches where structural change was not on the radar. In other words, these people were not “drawn to the Anabaptist tradition” but were attracted by the (unintentional) marketing of a cliche.

In your post you say that Miller, “blames the new converts for unrealistic expectations.” I heard Miller blaming the Mennonite congregations for not doing enough. To be sure, there are many newcomers to the Mennonite church who are closer in spirit to the Anabaptist roots than many “cradle” Mennonites.

Thanks for your perspective on Miller’s article and my piece. Miller’s December 22nd comment on my post on the Mennonite site confirms your claim that he would “support a sturdy, Christ-centered effort to create Shalom” and does not want to divide personal salvation and peace and justice.

However, I disagree with your suggestion that peace and justice or shalom inherently have less substance then compassion and generosity. If our experience of peace and justice is limited to anti-war demonstrations, then we are suffering from a lack of imagination. The last few decades have seen a blossoming of diverse and creative movements around the world working for peace and justice. While compassion and generosity can also be powerful and transformative personally, they don’t really address structural injustices in our society. I wrote more about this theme in one of my comments on the other version of this post, so I won’t repeat it all here. Suffice it to say that I think Jesus ministry was grounded in a manifesto significantly more radical then just being nice to people.

Your comments on the “marketing” of Mennonites brings up some big questions for me. You suggest that some drawn to the Anabaptist tradition don’t have “a sufficiently broad understanding of Mennonites.” Who owns what it means to be Mennonite? Is it Mennonite Church USA? Is it a certain grouping of people connected by ethnicity and blood? For me is it a set of values that many “cradle” Mennonites are drifting away from. For us to look us to tell cradle Mennonites that their understanding is insufficient is deeply problematic.

Finally, I don’t believe that peace and justice work can only be done by people of faith, and I didn’t mean to give that impression. I do think that within the Anabaptist movement we would benefit from a stronger synthesis of peace and justice and personal redemption.

I didn’t understand Levi to be deriding “peacenjustice” Mennonites. I understood that he is one and that he feels they never accomplished enough. I expect he would support a sturdy, Christ-centered effort to create Shalom. Also I didn’t notice him throw up a dichotomy between personal salvation and peacenjustice.

He’s right that peace and justice are both buzzwords that get over-spoken (and I actually know a late-90’s EMU student who did run a peacenjustice meter on professors…not that that proves anything). These words are uncontroversial and in a sense substanceless compared to words like “compassion and generosity.” Peacenjustice gets represented mostly through anti-war demonstrations, which is a far weaker witness to God’s Kingdom than living compassionate and generous lives.

I know that peacenjustice evokes much more comprehensive and concrete ideas to many of us than represented by anti-war demonstrations. That is a good thing. I think Levi is reflecting on what he was a part of and what he noticed. I appreciated that he mentioned the Mennonites contribution to Conflict Resolution literature.

Also, I had a different understand than Tim of Levi’s comment on “Anabaptist camp followers.” I thought he was noting that peacenjustice became a sort of marketing label that attracted people to Mennonite churches without giving them a sufficiently broad understanding of Mennonites. The reality of Mennonite churches–especially conservative (sorry Alan) “heartland” Mennonites–disappointed them, he says.

I guess I just resonate with the notion of “peace” and “justice” being cliche words that have gotten too attached to a particular political philosophy. Obviously I want the world to be peaceful and full of justice…we all want that, which is exactly why those words are so easy to throw around without it amounting to anything.

And finally, may I ask Tim and Alan, why do you believe that peace and justice work needs to go along with personal faith? Do you specifically mean faith in salvation through Jesus? Can an atheist not play a role in creating Shalom on earth?

Thanks for your thoughtful and well written response to Levi Miller’s post. As I read Miller’s entry I was surprised by a couple of things. First, it seemed poorly written & edited for a piece by a former editor (I mean, seriously, doesn’t he know the the impotence of proofreading?)! Secondly, and more importantly, he didn’t seem to say much that was constructive or useful. I found myself wondering, “What was his point?” I think you did well gleaning from the chaff(and constructively challenging in turn) his main points.

I also like the food for thought from AlanS regarding the utility of the terms “conservative” and “liberal.” It was a beautiful illustration of the limits of our language! However, I think TimN did not miss, and in fact argued, the point that peace and faith are not at odds (AlanS’s “false dichotomy of peace vs. faith”).

I’m a pastor in a small town in South Central Kansas. Out of about 12 churches total, there are two Mennonite churches in town, let’s say #1 and #2. At 90 people on a Sunday morning, #1 is the biggest church in town and, at times, draws a wide swath of people, along with some “traditional” Mennonites. It’s also the church where I work. #2 has about 15 people on a Sunday and, outside of one couple, is mainly made up of traditional Mennonites. Between the two Mennonite churches #2 has always been considered the more “conservative” of the two churches. However, Church #1 would have a much higher percentage of political conservatives.

I am a staunch pacifist. For many in church #1, that puts me squarely in the liberal camp. For church #2, it puts me squarely in the conservative camp. So what am I?

When people I come across use the term “conservative” I usually ask; conservative like Amish or conservative like Pat Robertson? But really that definition is too weak.

The term Conservative is only helpful in relation to that which someone is trying to conserve. It merely means a preservation of a belief of practice as opposed to acceptance of a new one. Perhaps the issue that both Tim and Levi seem to miss is that neither the “liberals” or the “conservatives” that they are referring to are actually conserving the Mennonite tradition. Both camps are at fault for setting up a false dichotomy of peace vs. faith. The early Anabaptists managed to both reject the sword and be so spirit filled that they would give the Pentecostals a run for their money.

Both Tim and Levi have made some great points, but are we talking about the right thing here?

As always, this is food for thought. I might be completely off base too.

Grace and Peace

Thanks for your comment. It’s nice to hear a conservative perspective on peace and justice. I’d be interested in hearing more about what constitutes bringing politics into the conversation. Does that mean party politics for you or something broader?