Among the strengths of the church were the desire to do the will of God, a strong theology of the priesthood of all (unfortunately just male) adult believers, and the willingness to be counter-cultural. They are officially non-creedal, but they have collected a set of traditions, especially of which parts of scripture are enshrined and which are explained away that can be at least as powerful as any written creed.

I was baptized when I was 12 and went to college intending to enter the ministry although I ended up with my primary major in computer sciences and a secondary major in vocational ministry. Along the way, my view of the Bible was broadened particularly through a class that taught me to attempt to read the Bible not through my worldview, but by first understanding what the original author was attempting to convey to the original audience in their particular situation—and to only attempt application to our time and our situation with the original context in mind.

The same professor that taught that course used to tell the story of the Good Samaritan with a homosexual in the place of the Samaritan to give the story the same emotional punch to us that it would have to Jesus’ original listeners. He left after my freshman year but he left a lasting impact on my perspectives. If nothing else, I was a lot more willing to say that I might not know the right answer about a fine point of the Bible where Christians differ—that argument and rational discourse might not solve all disagreements.

Hold on, it’s going to get more muddled. I’ll separate these streams out into my faith journey and intellectual journey but each plays into the other—at turns challenging each other and grafting new life onto the other.

I spent my mid to late twenties professionally developing but spiritually dry. When I was 28, I met my wife to be who went to another congregation across town—a more liberal congregation by our standards. After trying both, we switched to her congregation and married the following year. Three years later, our preacher, a couple of other guys and I all started a Friday study/breakfast group which is still going to this day.

We’ve tackled a number of books over the years from Slaves Women and Homosexuals to Borg’s Heart of Christianity to N.T. Wright to Richard Foster’s Freedom of Simplicity to Lee Camp’s Mere Discipleship and The Shalom Project.

I believe it was in reading Foster’s "Celebration of Discipline" and "Freedom of Simplicity" that I really began to glimpse that there might be streams of Christianity that might suit me better. Foster is a Quaker who infused me with such a bright glimmer of hope that I searched out Friends congregations here in town. However, I learned that the only one was of the liberal stripe that considered Jesus optional and didn’t practice communion.

By this point, the major force keeping me Christian was my increasing admiration of Jesus and his teachings. A church without Jesus seemed the worst of both worlds. I thought about looking into Mennonite churches since I was also realizing that we need a huge dose of simplicity, but I wrote that off thinking they were conservative and an egalitarian experience was a priority for my wife and me.

On the secular side of my journey, I had come to reject the anti-environmental view of my youth as I spent extensive time reading about climate change. I was involved in some inner city mentoring through a church small group and realized that all of my "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" answers were incomplete in some contexts and lives. I learned more of the damage that war and our form of capitalism can produce. I had become convinced that the earth was not young and faith must fit within the confines of what is, not the other way around. And I saw that the Christians I was around were often on what I felt was the side of empire, of death, of self.

There were bright counterexamples, but on the whole it felt like Christianity—which had started out pushing people toward agape love, greater equality, to the Two Greatest Commands that should center everything—had become the force that was among the most detrimental to life, let alone "life more abundantly." It was around this point that I wrote my imagined modernized version of the Parable of the Sheep and Goats from Matthew 25. I was coming to view the church not as the heirs of Jesus, but of the Pharisees.

And when the Nickel Mines School shooting occurred, I saw how the Amish responded to the killer’s family. I cried to see such Christ like forgiveness. I remember one commentator writing to the effect that that is only possible when a community spends the years up to that learning peace and forgiveness—it’s not an accident.

I thought: "I want to be part of a community that chooses that kind of investment." Slightly later, I ran into Kurt Willem’s Pangea Blog. I was particularly struck by two posts: one was titled "You might be an evangelical reject" and the second was on the subject of playing the national anthem at an Anabaptist college and why that was problematic. Both of these also resonated with me.

By this point, I was in my mid to late thirties. Into this tangle of thoughts and feelings I ran into Lee Camp’s "Mere Discipleship." Lee comes from the Church of Christ, but studied under John Howard Yoder. His book did a wonderful time of both helping me better see the streams in the Bible that I thirsted for and how some of the common elements of the Church of Christ and Anabaptist models (e.g. adult baptism) fit in. His picture intrigued me about the Anabaptist models.

I then read Stuart Murray’s Naked Anabaptist, which was also very attractive. I read a biography of Menno Simons, as well as some writings by people in the Church of Christ that revealed forgotten aspects of it’s history: the founders’ admiration of Anabaptism, some early leaders that were Christian Anarchists (of the non-violent stripe). One notable preacher who has a university named after him refused to endorse either side of the civil war while living in the south and berated one congregation for refusing to let a black man join the church. But most of all, I was taking Jesus more seriously as a teacher. I was unlearning the ways that I’d been taught to minimize chunks of the sermon on the mount and other passages. I was being exposed to the idea that the kingdom of God is not just for some hereafter, that earth is part of God’s creation, not just another disposable product.

What I seemed to be finding in the Anabaptist, and particularly Mennonite perspectives, was a set of very Jesus like values that I was looking for: reconciliation, simplicity, forgiveness, love, the power of love and innocence over brute force. I conversed with my wife who had her own interest in finding a new church and then reached out the local Mennonite pastor as St. Louis Mennonite Fellowship. We visited on and off for a while, getting our feet wet. We had a little trouble developing relationships in a new group at first, but eventually, we came to love this church and the people.

The Christianity that I grew up with seemed focused on what Christians don’t do. In this body, I see people defined by what they do do. Avoiding the harm to others and/or God that comes from most forms of sin is good but Jesus seems to be calling us to so much more.

A doctor that takes the Hippocratic Oath and then decides to treat no one to make sure he/she "does no harm" is no doctor at all. A Christian whose defining characteristic is to commit no sin is no disciple of Christ at all. In this church, I found a ton of people that care about the poor, the "least of these," the earth that we all rely on and that is the Lord’s. If the Two Greatest Commands and the Golden Rule are supposed to be the summation of the whole Bible, if Jesus is the incarnation of the Word, then this group seems like they’re at least groping around in the right direction.

When my Christian faith first began to radicalize, I became very interested in the Franciscan tradition. The advocacy for radical discipleship, peace, and social and environmental justice that is associated with the ministry of Francis of Assisi naturally appealed to me. At first, I did as many do, and associated the Franciscan tradition with Roman Catholicism, but as I studied more, I found that the Franciscan movement is actually surprisingly diverse.

Back when Francis first started out, there were already a few different sects that identified with his movement, and some were so radical that they were even expelled as heretics. To be honest, I am surprised that Francis was not expelled as a heretic, like so many similar figures were. Even today, there are multiple Franciscan orders in the Roman Catholic Church, and there are numerous Anglican, Lutheran, Old Catholic, and ecumenical Franciscan orders. When I first started investigating the Franciscan tradition, and considered joining it, it was the Order of Ecumenical Franciscans that appealed to me. I actually planned on joining this order. I had spoken with one of their members about it, and even had the application ready to send in, but other events in my life caused me to put that on hold. I started to study other radical traditions, such as the Anabaptists, instead.

It did not take me long to identify with the Anabaptists, and because I did not have an Anabaptist church near me, I sought community through other means, such as joining the Young Anabaptist Radicals community. Recently, however, I came in contact with another ecumenical Franciscan order affiliated with the Old Catholic and Progressive Episcopal communities. That order is the Order of Franciscan Servants. Though affiliated with independent Catholic and Anglican churches, it is ecumenical, and so open to all varieties of Christianity. Fate presented me with another opportunity to be a Franciscan. Instead of letting something get in the way of that like last time, I have taken the opportunity, and now I am currently a postulant, which basically means that I am in training to be a full member of the OFS. While now officially becoming Franciscan, I find that I still identify with the Anabaptist tradition (and similar radical traditions).

A few weeks back, I was listening to a lecture by Mark Van Steenwyk on Christianity and anarchism, called “Jesus and the unKingdom of God,” that he had presented to the Little Flowers Community of Winnipeg. What is interesting about the Little Flowers Community is that they identify with both the Anabaptist and Franciscan traditions. It really seems to be a common trend among many churches that could be described as “New Monastic.”

Despite the Franciscan tradition’s association with a hierarchical ecclesiology, the early movement had a lot of similar characteristics to that of the early Anabaptists. Obviously, there was an emphasis on social justice, peace, and commitment to the gospel that they both shared, but the fact the first Franciscans were layman, that the movement has always been diverse (with both conventional and unconventional strains), simply reinforces any similarities between the two. Really, one could see the Anabaptists as a continuation of the original motivations behind the first Franciscans. One could also include the Waldensians, Diggers, liberation theologians, and New Monastics in a similar fashion.

My journey to Franciscan spirituality is not my leaving Anabaptism. Rather, it is adding yet another flavor to an already complicated Christian perspective. Perhaps I am giving my Anabaptism some Franciscan flavor, or maybe, because I came to Anabaptism after my initial attempts to be a Franciscan, I am giving my Franciscan approach some Anabaptist flavor. Either way, I now comfortably see myself in both the Anabaptist and Franciscan traditions — which really only means that I am seeking to take the gospel seriously.

– Kevin Daugherty

Crossposted from As of Yet Untitled

Occupy Love is an ambitious documentary. In an hour and 30 minutes, it attempts to offer a short history of Occupy Wall Street. It traces the roots of the movement back to the streets of Tunisia in December 2010 and through the plazas in Spain in the summer of 2011. In parallel to these clips from recent history, its interviews plumb the big ideas that undergird the Occupy movement. Interviews with activists, writers and thinkers run the gamut from the gift economy to western civilization’s estrangement from the natural world.

Through this eccentric tapestry, the film traces the thread of love. The filmmaker, Velcrow Ripper, asks everyone he interviews, "How could the crisis we’re facing be a love story?"

Ripper’s question brings unexpected responses. Clayton Thomas-Muller, a First Nations leader and an environmental activist, pulls aside his shirt to reveal a tattoo that says, "Love is a Movement."

"When you are born in a community that has been completely devastated by the energy infrastructure that’s been built on the back of our people all across continental North America," Thomas-Muller says, "you don’t choose to get involved in this work. You’re born to it."

The focus on love gives the film a tone of unreasonable optimism: hope against the odds. Perhaps this is necessary, given the alternative. On the very last day of 2007, I wrote a review here of What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire, a look at the four ecological limits we are running into on this planet: peak oil, mass extinction, climate change and overpopulation. The movie delves deep in the suicidal structural problems in our system today but gives no clear answer to the question, "What can we do?"

In many ways, Occupy Love is the exuberant, bubbly daughter of What a Way to Go, which was released in 2007. It, too, is a personal essay with a clear editorial position, but the place in time and history is quite different. In the six intervening years, the global economic downturn has laid bare the silliness and sickness at the heart of the system. While political and economic leaders have battened down the hatches and refused to face reality, grassroots resistance and alternatives have blossomed. For many of us, there is no longer any question of the magnitude and reality of the crisis. The question is one of means, with the ends starkly and, often, mercilessly, in focus.

Love at the center of resistance

The questions of the means by which we resist domination and opression is no small one. There is a long history of embittered, violent resistance to empire from the Zealots to the Weather Underground. Occupy Love embodies a spirit of the age rejecting that paradigm of dehumanization and demonization. This is a movement investing in love.

"It’s not about confrontation," says Clayton Thomas-Muller, "it’s about communities coming together and marching to pray for the healing of the world’s largest and most destructive development in the history of mankind known as Canada’s tar sands."

While unequivocal in naming its opponent, the tone of the central message of the movement portrayed in Occupy Love gives the means of social change as much importance as the end itself.

This transition to a love-centered movement has not been by accident. In the film, womanist writer bell hooks articulates the careful wisdom that guides those in this militantly loving landscape.

"What is justice?" she asks. "The heart of it is really longing for people to be able to grow and develop freely in a positive and constructive way. So what are the conditions that allow for this? So we’re back to this idea that there can be no love where there is domination."

Others interviewed take a dip into the narrative of romantic love. "Great love stories involve yearning to be together and seperation by forces that seek to keep them apart." says biologist Rupert Sheldrake, "and certainly the big seperation that has happened here is the separation of humanity and nature, which has been brought about by a framework of thought and an ideology of development and domination and control and empire."

Sheldrake and hooks use language that dovetails with the Hebrew prophets and the New Testament concept of principalities and powers. At the same time, Occupy Love’s vision for transformation bears remarkable similarity to Jesus’ beloved community vision of enemy-loving and jubilee abundance.

"The lover knows that more for you is more for me too. If you love someone, then there happiness is your happiness." says author Charles Eisenstein. "Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. That’s love. Love is expansion of self to include the other. And that’s a different kind of revolution. There’s no one to fight. There’s no evil to fight. There’s no other in this revolution."

"Having people disconnect and see one another as enemies is so crucial to the maintenance of that dominator system." says bell hooks. "And love comes in and says, ‘There isn’t any difference that can’t be understood. There isn’t any conflict that can’t be reconciled.’ So that love becomes a major threat to the formation of any kind of culture of dominator-thinking and dominator-society."

These aren’t just abstract, idealized concepts for the chommunity behind this movie. They are the force that made it happen. The documentary was crowd funded using the open source fund raising tool Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Between the two campaigns, 903 people gave $80,911 to fund the film. It embodies the new robust face of love that author Clay Shirky names as a key factor in the open source movement: "When people care enough, they can come together and accomplish things of a scope and longevity that were previously impossible; they can do big things for love."

Those of us seeking to embody and live Jesus’ shalom vision have a lot to learn from this movie. Perhaps we can learn something from the way the wind is blowing after all.

If you can’t afford the $4 to watch the movie on-line, you can watch some of the short films that were made during the making the documentary here for free.

Update: You can watch the film for free if you email the makers of the film.

Photo caption: Woman photographs Overpass Light Brigade at Occupy Wall Street 1st anniversary celebration in Chicago, September 17th, 2012. Photo by Tim Nafziger

In one way it seems fitting. The early Anabaptists did not seek to reform the church but to restore it to the way of Jesus—the way in which the community of Jesus was gathered and was taught. This way meant taking the teachings and life of Jesus seriously; to live according to his example. For example, given that Jesus was the Prince of Peace, it was a call for his followers to live by this same peace. When Jesus taught to love one’s enemies, it was a call to not seek ways of killing someone. Jesus, the kingdom that he inaugurated, and his invitation to participate in this kingdom is radical. Therefore to live by his example would be very radical!

There were several particular reasons why the Anabaptists were described as “radicals” in the 16^th century. One reason was that to follow in the ways of Jesus required one to live according to his example. Menno Simons wrote in 1539 that “Whosoever boasts that he is a Christian, the same must walk as Christ walked.” A follower would need to make a voluntary decision to follow the way of Jesus. Second, was the conviction that to follow Jesus, the Prince of Peace, meant also being people of peace. This meant practicing nonviolence even if confronted by violence. “Pacifism” is the word used to describe this path of discipleship. They believed that God’s shalom (peace) would not come through violence. Third, the ways of Jesus, his kingdom, and thus the ways of the community—the church—seeking to be faithful to Jesus and the kingdom would lead to practices that would conflict with the principalities and powers. The focus of these principalities and powers was not, and would not be, the pursuit of the kingdom of God. This becomes apparent in that “the powers” normally use a top-down, authoritarian form of ruler-ship and power, whereas the Anabaptist understanding of church assumes a bottom-up, servant attitude towards the other. Also, the state could not depend on these radicals to participate in the call to war and killing. This was revolutionary. The call of the disciple of Jesus was to follow his will even if that put them into conflict with the will and desire of the state.

Although these attributes of Anabaptism were not thought to be “radical” by those who became a part of this community, the implications of being a community based on such principles proved to be something out of the ordinary in the 16^th century. Because they were out of the ordinary as they sought to return to the roots of what following Jesus meant, they were described as “radicals.” Those within the Anabaptist movement sought to live the way of Jesus even if that led to death—an all too common result for being part of this community.

One trait, however, that often goes unnoticed, but which undergirds all of the other practices mentioned above, is that of gelassenheit. Gelassenheit is a German word meaning self-surrender and yieldedness to God’s will. “No true discipleship, no true following after Christ, was possible without it.” It was this spirit of gelassenheit that shaped the ethos of the community as a non-hierarchical community, based on mutual submission and servant-hood. It was the spirit of gelassenheit that shaped the character of the lives lived in service of God’s kingdom here on earth. Ultimately it was this spirit of gelassenheit that provided comfort to those confronted by persecution and death due to the way of Jesus. Indeed, it is self-surrender to God that enables us to confront greed, violence, and the politics of dominion and oppression with the upside-down logic of God’s power found within and through servant-hood, weakness, the foolishness of the cross, and even the fruit of death.

A community shaped by the spirit and practice of gelassenheit will act and look different. It is a community that seeks to serve others rather than rule over them; it seeks to walk with the least, rather than seeking to be one of the elite; it prioritizes the other instead of the self; it seeks to demonstrate God’s sacrificial love rather than participate in the self-protecting violence and hatred. Ultimately the spirit and practice of gelassenheit pursues ways to live in right relationships with others and with God, thus demonstrating God’s shalom (peace) in the world.

The spirit of gelassenheit, and the pursuit to practice it was viewed as a radical way to live. Surely, that is still as true today as it was then.

Andrew Suderman is a Mennonite Church Canada worker in South Africa and is the Coordinator of the Anabaptist Network in South Africa.

My brother was like me. He was not raised in Christianity, but later converted to it as a teenager. He originally came to Christ through the Pentecostals, then he became an Evangelical. It was when he was attending an Evangelical Free church that I first came to truly appreciate Christianity again. It was also during this time that I got my first Bible, which was the New Living Translation. I did not believe in Christianity during this time, but it was something interesting to study and do on the weekends.

One thing that I learned from Evangelical Protestantism was that everything is personal and private. We are supposed to have a personal relationship with Jesus. We are supposed to personally convert to Christianity, and salvation was all about personal redemption from sin and death. Even the Bible was to be read and interpreted privately. Even in economics, Evangelicals tend to stress capitalism and enterprise over community and charity. Then, I began to study Catholic theology, and I started to use a New American Bible.

When I started to study Catholic theology, I learned that the Evangelical emphasis on privatized religion was not part of the historical church. Many of the things that are considered fundamentals for Christian faith emerged through communal discernment and debate among Christians. A good example of this is the the doctrine of the Trinity, which is still debated among Christians. Another big one is the Bible. The Evangelicals taught me that the Protestant Bible was the Bible, and that there was no other. Then, when I started using the Catholic Bible, I noticed some extra books. I then learned that they were not extra at all, but were removed by Protestants. It turns out that the Bible has never been set in stone, but different communities of believers, over hundreds of years, have developed different Bibles (see the complete list). The Bible is fundamentally a communal project, and even the books of the Bible do not address individuals, but mostly address nations and churches.

This revelation within community is known as sacred tradition in Catholic theology. Many early Protestants also had a similar notion, and the Protestant confessions, as well as traditional Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist teaching, show this. Many Protestants, however, and especially Evangelicals, have lost this in favor of strictly private interpretation. It was such discoveries that pushed me away from an Evangelical style of Christianity, but I was not pushed into Catholic Christianity, but Anabaptism.

Inspired by the New Testament, Anabaptists have always emphasized community. With the Anabaptist tradition, there is a communal way of reading the Bible. For many, this leads us to focus on the communities that we are a part of, but I think the Anabaptist communal discernment process can be much more. Community is not just those who live among us in the present. It is also what is passed down to us from previous generations and what we give to the generations after us. Chesterton wrote that, “Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.” I think that the Anabaptist communal approach is similar. For example, the Anabaptist vision is especially oriented around the New Testament, which was written by communities that are long dead.

As Anabaptists, I feel that we should not disregard church tradition. There are periods that we would like to overlook, and there are times when the church needs to be whipped back into shape. Nevertheless, these moments make up our past and have affected how we see the world. Tradition is not about having an authority in addition to the Bible or Christ, but it is the living story of how our ancestors lived and believed in their following of Jesus. Tradition is community, but it is a community that takes into account those voices which have been forever silenced by death. We should not forget tradition, as Protestants often do today, but see it as an extension of community.

– Kevin Daugherty

crossposted from As of Yet Untitled

It was five years ago in May 2008 when the Mennonite bishops of Lancaster (Pa.) Mennonite Conference finally allowed minsterial credentialing of women in their churches. Notably, they stipulated that women were still not allowed to become bishops.

I followed this story closely because I grew up in the Lancaster Conference until I was 13. I watched the damaging impact the anti-women culture had on my mother when she became Sunday school superintendent in the church where I grew up. Shortly after my grandmother’s brother left the church as a result of my mother’s new role, my grandmother came to visit. I’ll never forget listening to my mother tearfully explaining to my grandmother why she’d taken on the role. "No one else wanted to do it," she explained. She had hoped that the male leaders in the church would back her up, but they did not. They were both crying by the end of the conversation.

The generational impact of systematic sexism in the Mennonite Church will take an equally systematic and generational effort to overcome. Simply changing credentialing guidelines to include women is not enough. The Women in Leadership project of Mennonite Church USA is one such effort to "name and transform sexism in Mennonite Church USA." The project, co-coordinated by Hilary Scarsella and Joanna Shenk, began after a 2010 Women in Leadership audit found very few women in high-level leadership in Mennonite Church USA:

Currently the Governance Council of Mennonite Church USA, made up of the executive director, director of churchwide operations, agency directors, agency board chairpersons, the moderator and moderator elect, has 10 men and one woman.¹

The audit interviewed some of the women who declined high-level leadership positions in order to better understand their reasons. One woman pointed out the sexist assumptions underlying job expectations: "If I had a wife at home, I could take on that leadership position." Along with a wide range of other input, this led to Women in Leadership project focusing on empowering worship resources, telling women’s stories, mentoring and undoing sexism.

In today’s blog post I’ll be looking at this project and drawing on blog posts from the Women in Leadership blog that is part of the project. This work is crucial for the future of both men and women in our church.

Dumb yourself down and act tame

In A Transformation through the Values Based Leadership Program, Janet Treviño-Elizarraraz powerfully writes about the pressures that patriarchal culture put on women to play dumb and not be assertive.

"When I ran into my girlfriends," Treviño-Elizarraraz says, "I learned how to dumb myself down so as not to stick out." 

This post serves as a sequel to Treviño-Elizarraraz’s earlier piece in The Mennonite entitled "Do I fit in the Mennonite church?" in which she explicitly names a toxic mix of racism and sexism that beset women of color:

I’ve met people in the Germanic Mennonite culture who identify themselves without apology with this personality as well. But the difference is this: Most of those people I’ve met are men. It’s a lot easier to accept a man like me than a woman. Whereas in church leadership positions I may have excelled, in community, we all failed. In a church where community building is a high value, my personality, with its inevitable blind spot of considering others, created an even greater need for conversations that may include confrontation and conflict.

As I’ve processed this, I’ve heard from other minority Mennonites that to be in this church, you must act tame. “Find yourself a small group to be all you are, but while doing church, you’re to be the quiet version of you and not make waves.”

Treviño-Elizarraraz asks whether she can fit in a church that systematically oppresses its members (my words, not hers). What more powerful testimony do we have about the problems in our church? Our strongest leaders are not asking how they are called to lead, but instead whether they are can survive in our church at all. This is a crisis not only for women but for all of us who seek to be the whole body of Christ together. When women are empowered to bring their full, untamed voices to the table, as a community we can better "become agents of healing and hope in the world."²

The Women in Leadership project has led the way in naming not only how sexism, but also racism, affect women. Both of these oppressions are at work in Treviño-Elizarraraz’s story. Drawing on the work of writer bell hooks, Joanna Shenk laid out the challenge in her post Race and Gender: An optional conversation for feminists?

How often have I as a white woman forgotten to recognize race as inextricably linked to the work for gender justice? It’s easy for me to think of myself as only a woman working on “women’s issues,” whereas women of color cannot separate gender from race in their lived experience.

The conversation continued last month with a webinar entitled Women Leaders Engaging Race and Gender in the Church led by Regina Shands Stoltzfus, Linda Gehman Peachey, Joanna Shenk. Shands Stoltzfus began the conversation started with the story of Jarena Lee, the first women in the African Methodist Episcopal Church authorized to preach (although not ordained). Gehman Peachey took a close look at some of the ways those of us with privilege sometimes fail to see it. She reminded the audience of the importance of not putting responsibility back on women but to look at the system. I can’t help but think of the way my mother ended up being blamed for her decision to become Sunday School superintendent while the hurtful, sexist culture of the church went unchallenged.

It is precisely that challenging, that the Women in Leadership project is doing along with like-minded projects like Our Stories Untold and The Femonite.

I will end with a quote from Erica Littlewolf, a member of the steering committee for the project. In an interview by Hilary Scarsella she names the vision of a better world she is working for in response to Scarsella’s question, "What keeps you motivated?":

It doesn’t feel like work! It feels like a part of who I am, and the work I do feels natural and spirit-filled. I am also motivated by my nieces and the realization that I want a different world for them. I always wanted to change the world—the “world” being outside of me. I began to realize the biggest change I could make was through changing myself. Being willing to take on the hard work of self- transformation is the best way of ensuring that my nieces will live in a different and better reality than mine.

May we all come together to make it so!

Notes

1 These numbers are as of 2009. Everett Thomas offers this update: "The numbers will change after the Phoenix 2013 convention to four or five women: Elizabeth Soto Albrecht as MC USA moderator; Madeline Malonado will chair the MMN board; Melissa Miller currently chairs the MennoMedia board; Malinda Berry will chair the MEA board, and, if the delegates approve MHS Alliance becoming a denominational agency, Lee Snyder currently chairs that board."

2 That’s part of The Mennonite’s mission and a goal I hope we all share.

Photo: Pasadena Palm Sunday Peace Parade by Tim Nafziger

For more background on these themes, see my post, Anabaptist Camp follower revisited.

Two of my students have recently found a spiritual home in the radical Anabaptist tradition, having both become disillusioned with conservative non-denominational evangelical Christianity.

For what it’s worth, I’ve had several students over the past several years who have been leaving more conservative churches (Southern Baptist and Evangelical, in particular) for progressive peace churches. I don’t know what to attribute this to, but I certainly welcome it.

Could you share any more about this?

Well, this is a very conservative area, as you can imagine, and the vast majority of students at my university belong to extremely right-wing Southern Baptist and evangelical churches. Since I started working here in 2008, I’ve had something like eight or nine students come to me expressing their deep dissatisfaction with these kinds of churches. In at least two cases, the students were actually expelled from their congregations for questioning the pastors’ teachings.

Of these students, pretty much all of them have turned to various forms of Christianity ranging from the emerging church to UCC. About six of them (that I’m aware of) have been exploring Anabaptist Christianity—which is really hard, since there aren’t any Anabaptist congregations in the area.

The most liberal churches are Disciples of Christ and United Methodist, and neither of them are especially engaged with peace and social justice issues. This is a turn-off to these students, as they really want to live their faith through service to others.

In at least some cases students have changed their views as a result of studying philosophy, particularly the writings of Kierkegaard and other liberal (or just plain "unorthodox") Christian theologians and philosophers. I’ve personally directed a lot of these kids to Yoder, Eller, Ellul and the like.

If they are in any way representative of larger trends in American Christianity, then I, for one, am very heartened.

Can you say more about what they find attractive about Anabaptism?

It’s a combination of things. For one, I believe that students are generally attracted to what they perceive as the inclusiveness, open-mindedness and tolerance of progressive Anabaptism. For another, they are very interested in living their faith by serving "the least of these" and working for peace and justice in the world.

Beyond this, I think they are looking for a Christianity that is more deeply rooted in the Gospels. They are disillusioned with the inordinate emphasis on "salvation without works" that predominates in the conservative churches. They are interested in being disciples. They are not interested in condeming people to hell.

A lot of them have embraced open theism and universalism. A few are flirting with "unconventional" views of the Trinity. I guess Anabaptism is just more amenable to these kinds of spiritual explorations.

Years ago, when I started investigating Anabaptistica the Anabaptists were still the pariahs of the Reformation. Church History texts relegated them to the inquisitional dungeons of Christendom in the form of an obscure sentence or paragraph generally accompanied by the terms “heretic” or “aberrant”.  Now everyone appears to taking on the Anabaptist moniker as mentioned previously principally the Baptists.

Not too long ago Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary held the Anabaptism and Contemporary Baptists Conference in which the speakers praised Anabaptism and they passionately made the claim that contemporary Baptists were descended from this group.

However, many scholars find very little connection between the two groups in any significant sense. Contemporary Baptists originated from two streams or individuals namely John Smyth (c. 1565 - 1612) and Thomas Helwys (c. 1570 - c. 1615) around the 17th century.

Just because the designation Baptist has “baptist” in it that does not signify that, they are associated or originated with Anabaptists. There is not definitive relationship to the “Anabaptists” but the Waterlander Mennonites briefly influenced John Smyth whereas Helwys (Smyth successor of sorts) had reservations about the Mennonites specifically their Christology thus he severed bonds with the group.

Yet, the biggest group of Baptists that influenced modern-day Baptists was a group called Particular Baptists that found their beginnings with Henry Jacob (1563-1624). This group diverged with General Baptists (Smyth and Helwys). In the work The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness states “General Baptists always represented a small part of Baptist life in England, and an even smaller part in America. Their influence upon the main currents of Baptist life in either country appears to have been slight” (40).

Interestingly enough, the Particular Baptists made it perfectly clear that they did not have any association with the Anabaptists.  The opening of the London Baptist Confession of 1644 asserts:

The CONFESSION OF FAITH, Of those CHURCHES which are commonly (though falsly) called ANABAPTISTS; Presented to the view of all that feare God, to examine by the touchstone of the Word of Truth: As likewise for the taking off those aspersions which are frequently both in Pulpit and Print, (although unjustly) cast upon them.

The Particular Baptists wrote their confession as an expression of their faith and beliefs. In addition, they wanted to make sure that others knew that they did not have any relationship with Anabaptists. By that time in history, Anabaptism was identified with the Mennonites. The Particular Baptists desired to be acknowledged with Protestantism and the Magisterial Reformers specifically John Calvin. They viewed Anabaptism as unorthodox.

The similarities of Anabaptists and Baptists are superficial at best, just because a group is non-Catholic and reject paedo-baptism does not make them one and the same. Even when it relates to baptism, their views differ in a significant fashion. Baptists believe in adult or credo-baptism that generally manifests itself as someone experiencing conversion in one service and submitting to baptism in the following one. The Anabaptists believed in disciples’ baptism that is a person was educated in the teachings of Christ then once obedience through faith was exhibited they were baptized in harmony with the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). An early Anabaptist leading light named Hans Denck wrote in his work Concerning True Love in 1527:

The most important task of disciples of Jesus Christ is to teach and make disciples of the Lord, seeking above all else the kingdom of God. When you baptize before a person has become a disciple you are by that act saying, in effect, that baptism is more important than teaching and knowledge. In the eyes of God this is a terrible error. So if teaching is more important than baptism, let baptism wait until teaching has taken place. To baptize before teaching is saying that baptism is more important, but this is contrary to Christian doctrine. Now some say they give priority to teaching for those willing to listen. But in his commission, Christ did not say to go to the Jews and preach but go to the Gentiles and baptize! One does not baptize Isaac because his father Abraham is a disciple! The commission says clearly, “Go forth and teach, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them (those who have become disciples!) in the name of the Father (who draws them to him) and the Son (who now leads them) and the Holy Spirit (through whose power they are made firm in fulfillment of the Father’s will).” In short, just as Christ is Christ before anyone believes in him, so teaching is done before baptism. Where there is no Christ there is no faith. So baptism without teaching is not a true baptism.

A brief historical encounter, which was later denied, does not make an organic connection. The truth is current Baptist churches trace their history to the English Separatist movement. Now no one is saying that a Baptist cannot adopt some or all Anabaptist beliefs but if one did they could not continue to call themselves Baptists. Theologically and practically speaking there would be too much conflict.  Particularly on the issue of pacifism, Southern Baptists have not been known for their nonresistance.

Some most likely think that this is a good thing, after all others are becoming familiar with that legendary group. Yet I feel that people need to be concerned, particularly when individuals are using Anabaptism for a denominational agenda?

In a blog-post entitled An Anabaptist Infatuation Amongst Some Southern Baptists by Joshua Breland he writes:

There has been an increase of blogging recently regarding how great and wonderful the Anabaptists were/are and how much we modern day Southern Baptists owe to the so called “radical reformers.” Often the Anabaptist “hoorahs” are joined with condemnatory remarks about the evil and oppressive magisterial Calvinist reformers.

The author adds in his opinion, “The narrative seems to be, “anyone but the Calvinist magisterial reformers.”

As of late the Southern Baptist Convention is in a state of fragmentation with the influx of Reformed theology specifically Calvinism or the self-styled “Doctrines of Grace”. It is apparent that the SBC is seeking some sort of Arminian Reformation era link in the same fashion that the Reformed churches call back to John Calvin as their theological forebear.

I just wonder if once all the contention between the Calvinists and Arminians over in the SBC has concluded will the Anabaptists be as popular and will their reputation remain intact. I am going to look into this matter a little more and make a follow up post later.

As I attempt to focus on the death of Jesus today, on Good Friday, I find it difficult. I’d rather check Facebook, read a magazine or stare out the window. Tonight there’s a church service that I’ll go to, but for now the ugly reality of death and violence feels far away.

What happens if I look more closely at that aversion: that sense of yuckiness? Recently, Rachel Halder of Our Stories Untold, shared with me a story that got me thinking about this in a different way. Rachel is a survivor of sexual abuse who has become an speaker and organizer around the issue of sexualized violence within the Mennonite Church in the U.S. She shared this story about an experience working with women in a Mennonite related project:

I brought up the fact that we needed to collect stories of women who have been abused. Again, as they always are, people were very hesitant about this. They were (perhaps rightfully?) worried that older women in the church would be turned off by overt language about abuse and they wouldn’t be willing to talk about any of their stories because of that "yucky" topic.

I too often find myself avoiding the topic of rape, sexualized violence or sexual abuse. These are topics that are extremely uncomfortable. I know they are important, but I’d rather let someone else talk about them. And this is where the yuckiness of the cross challenges me. In Philippians 2:7-8, we read that Jesus "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave… he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross."

Might following Jesus include engaging with the "yucky" topic of sexualized violence? What is behind the way way I and so many others avoid it?

On On March 17, 2013 the verdict in the Steubenville High School rape case in Ohio brought the topic of rape and rape culture into the spotlight. Two days later, Rachel put out a call for submissions on Our Stories Untold. In it, she offered a specific challenges to Mennonites:

Is the church going to examine Steubenville and see it for what it is—an event that could happen (DOES happen) in our communities? An event that points out the way we favor young athletes and charismatic Christians? The way we victim-blame in our institutions, churches, and congregations?

The resulting posts in "Steubenville Reflection Series" are well worth reading. Here are a few of them:

• Your Sexual Morality is Not My Responsibility - Brooke Natalie Blough challenges the way Anabaptist values of modesty are expressed in ways that blame women for men’s thoughts. The message is that "boys that they are sexual animals, incapable of controlling themselves." Instead, she proposes, modesty can be a statement of inner beauty that emphasizes that women are not objects.
• A Mennonite Pastor’s Open Letter to the Youth of Her Churches - Sylvia Klauser distills her wisdom as a theologian, ethicist and chaplain into a pastoral letter to the youth that makes Anabaptist sexual ethics remarkably readable. Starting with the reminder that rape is about power-over, not sex, she challenges the church to talk about sex, not just intercourse. She closes with a challenge young men in particular to "speak up about rape and stop using force in sexual relationships."
• Your Sexual Morality is Not My Responsibility (halfway down page) - Beth Lambier reminds us that 73% of sexual assaults happen with friend or acquaintance. She challenges the conventional wisdom that "only certain types of women are raped" and the tendency to blame victims for somehow provoking the attacks.
• A Call for Gender-Neutral Dialogue - Luke D. Nofsinger looks at the high incidence of sexualized violence against juveniles in detention (12% are victims while imprisoned). The majority of these attacks go unreported and Luke points out that many men and boys don’t report rape because it is seen as a crime exclusively against women and girls.
• Rape, Alcohol, and the Wild West - Melodie Davis looks at the role that "winking at alcohol abuse" on college campuses creates a destructive culture of binge drinking an how this enables and feeds rape culture.
• Finding hope and empathy through Steubenville - Allison Yoder emphasizes the opportunity we have to teach empathy to boys, an attribute rarely valued in teenage male culture in the U.S. She says, "The problem in that is [society] does not foster an awareness of how to be relational and value other human beings." She closes with a hopeful story of a male social work colleague of hers who is doing work in this area at a high school where he visits classrooms "to tell stories about how sexual violence has impacted him and women in his own life."

The number of writers (9 in all) and quality of writing speaks volumes to the need for the space that Rachel has opened. Along with blog posts, Our Stories Untold features stories from survivors of sexualized violence. These are all anonymous accounts. Story 4 – The Ebb and Flow of Healing in particular brought home for me the life long trauma of sexualized violence:

I get angry. I cry. I run home and lock myself in my bedroom. I sob. I run to the bathroom, throw up, come out with a smile and return to the dance floor. I pretend. Because who wants to be friends with someone who is always sad? Who is constantly triggered by sights, sounds, smells of things around her?

The writer goes on to describe the impact of her rape on her relationships with her whole community.

Yesterday, as the sun set on Good Friday, I was reminded that this is the yuckiness that Jesus invites us to face into: the hidden, painful wounds of those on the margins. The case of sexualized violence is particularly important for me as a man, who has the privilege to look the other way: to cross by on the other side of the road. I need to commit to the difficult work of challenging rape culture and the broader sexist culture in which it swims. What will you do?

Roger Olson goes into greater detail regarding this objective in The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform when he explains that the Anabaptists were more protestant than Protestants in the sense that the Anabaptists:

“protested what they saw as halfway measures taken by Luther and the other magisterial Reformers in purifying the church of Roman Catholic elements. Their ideal was to restore the New Testament church as a persecuted remnant as it was in the Roman Empire before Constantine. To them, the magisterial Reformers were all stuck in Constantinianism and Augustinianism. These were the two main diseases of medieval Christianity that the radical Reformers wished to eradicate from their own independent and autonomous congregations, if not from Christianity itself” (415).

The Protestant Reformers desired to reform the Church, according to the above-mentioned dictionary to reform means “to put or change into an improved form or condition”. It also means, “to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses” and finally “to put an end to (an evil) by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action”.

When looking at the two terms highlighted one may wonder what the disparity between the two is since the overall goal is to return something to its proper state.

The divergence being that Martin Luther desired to reform the church, not divide it for to him the Roman Catholic Church was the actual Church but it had lost its way. He felt that some aspects of its practice and doctrine in the area of salvation for instance were incorrect as depicted in his 95 Thesis. Luther wanted to bring the corrupt Church at the time back into what he envisioned the Church to be. For Luther this was to be accomplished within, not through the establishment of another entity. In other words, he selected the aspects of the 16^th century Church he preferred while doing away with those things he felt lacked scriptural and apostolic license. This did not solely apply to Luther but Calvin and Zwingli as well; the Magisterial Reformers in essence did not possess any yearning to forgo exhaustively every facet of the Roman system whether political, practical or theological.

The problem with this is that the Reformers was attempting to reform a contaminated and unethical institution whereas it is apparent that the Anabaptists saw the futility in trying to reform something that was far too large, powerful and unbearably unhealthy. Every facet of the Roman Catholic Church was tainted and beyond renovation. The Anabaptists recognized that the only solution was to begin afresh. Not that Christ’s ekklesia had perished from the earth but that the manifestation of it during that period was something other than what had begun in the first century and so the Anabaptists carried with them the essence and disposition of the unadulterated apostolic ekklesia, one that was detached from the Constantinian Church (Cf.  Matthew 16:18; 28:19-20).

Presently in Neo-Anabaptist circles, you encounter much talk on the subject of Anabaptists carrying the message of the group into Christendom as to enact some form of positive influence that in principle could be considered some sort of reform. But then again would this embody the spirit of Anabaptism? In many respects contemporary Protestantism and Roman Catholicism is a carryover of the exact same sullied Church that existed in the 16^th century.  Reconstitution is needed not reform, the first Anabaptists saw this and modern-day followers of the movement needs to recognize this as well.

Not long after my older brother had converted to Christianity through the Pentecostals, he had persuaded me to go to church with him. I did not believe in it, but I respected the teachings of Jesus and the community, so I gave it a try. The church that we attended was an Evangelical Free church (which really appealed to me since they only baptized those who voluntarily chose Christ). Despite the wonderful, lively way of doing church, the Evangelical faith that I was being exposed to was only a facade. On the surface, they appeared to be non-hierarchical and modern, but just beneath the surface was Christendom. Behind the rock bands and charisma was the backing of coercive missionaries, Republican politicians, and war. I had to leave.

Despite having only negative experiences with church growing up, the Bible — especially the gospels — made a profound impact one me, and still wanted to find a way of expressing a Christian faith. I traveled all over the place at this point. I tried out various churches: Methodist, Catholic, Acts 29 (think Mark Driscoll), and even Gnostic!  Eventually, I even felt a very strong pull to be a pastor (and I still do). Also, I came back to my family’s old denomination — the Presbyterian Church (USA).

My return to the Mainline Protestants was, as before, met with failure. My individual congregation was hijacked by fundamentalists, which made it a hostile environment, but I also felt something missing in the Mainline churches in general. The Evangelicals had a post-Christendom facade with a Christendom faith. Basically, they had this nice contemporary and voluntary way of worship on the surface, but they went on supporting state institutions, war, and so much other evil. What I have found in my personal experience with Mainline Protestant churches is something similar.

Where the Evangelicals are currently fusing themselves into the United States government and military, the Mainline churches are direct descendants of the colonial European governments, and still have institutions and big church buildings that reflect this. Mainline churches do not seem to have the activity, the charisma, of the Evangelicals. There is a kind of assumption that people will just regularly attend church by default. Basically, I have found the Evangelicals with bad theology and good practice, and I have found Mainline churches with good (or better) theology and bad practice. (Of course, this is only based upon my personal experience.)

I was (and am) stuck. I could not fit into either dominant expression of Protestantism. Both of them just felt empty and co-opted in some way. Then, over the last couple of years, I have found pockets of Christianity that were in a similar situation. The first such example that I found was the emerging church, but the one worth mentioning here is Anabaptism.

While I do have my criticisms of Anabaptism (as I do with all things), it is something that I think really has potential, and it could be very appealing today if it was more familiar to the general population. We have the Evangelicals being rejected by many in this generation and future generations, and then we have the Mainline churches which are in horrible crisis. Today, as with the Reformation, Anabaptism acts as a “third way” — one between the historical-institutional behemoths and the evangelical reformers. I have certainly found Anabaptism appealing to me for this reason.

– Kevin Daugherty

A sermon on Isaiah 43:16-21; John 12:1-12; Philippians 3:4-14 at Bally Mennonite Church on March 17th, 2013. The audio version can be downloaded by clicking here.

A question for you:  What are some of the things we do that we consider righteous things to do?  Can you list them?

There are certainly things in this life that we consider to be righteous things to do.  Worshiping, justice issues, caring for the poor, advocating for peace, morality and purity issues, ethics of life and nation, love of neighbor, etc., are all things that we consider righteous.  I categorize them into three categories.

First, we have those things that are things of ritualistic practice, things that we do that are part our ritualistic practice of our religion.  These include church attendance, ordinances and sacraments (e.g., baptism, footwashing, communion), liturgy or the pattern of life or worship, scripture study, and other such things.

Then there are the justice issues, and these are things that in our Mennonite denomination and other Anabaptist groups that we stress as important.  The peace issue and avoidance of conflict and non-violent mediation.  There is care for the poor and disadvantaged that is considered a justice issue.  There is justice for the oppressed and marginalized such as human trafficking victims, immigration issues, etc.  The sanctity of life is also, in some cases, considered a justice issue.

The third category, issues of morality, may also include some of this sanctity of life issues.  Things that are right and wrong, or things that mark out purity and impurity.  Sexuality, personal health, and pretty much anything in the ten commandments would be morality issues.

The thing about all these things is that they ARE good things.  It is very good to consider all of these items. Any of these things could be referenced in the Scriptures as things that we should consider when we are aiming for righteousness.  It is good to follow a rhythm of life and a pattern that re-centers yourself. This is a very good thing. It is good to be aware of and work towards justice for others. This is a very good thing.  It is good to live purely and morally and even be passionate about that.  This is a good thing. No where in scripture does it say any of these things are things that are to be avoided in our conversations and in our lives.

But then we have Paul, in his letter to the Philippians.  He had something to say about all that.

Garbage.

Rubbish.

There are stronger words which could be used to translate the word from the original language but, for politeness sake, I won’t use them.  But it’s just all trash.

We all know that works won’t save us.  We know that by grace we are saved.  We know it’s not the works that save us.  But Paul is going one step further here in saying that even these acts, as good as they are, are not righteous acts.  At least, they are not righteous if they are missing one thing. The hints to this one thing goes back to the Old Testament.  If we look at the first commandment, it’s there within the first few words.

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” Exodus 20:2

The 10 commandments start, not with something we do, they start with something that he did.  We have all these commandments about these things we should do.  We should worship God alone.  We should keep the Sabbath holy.  We should not have graven images.  We shouldn’t steal, we should not lie, we should not kill, etc.  But God, in his words to Moses, started off, with what he did.  This is the history of God’s interaction with the people of Israel.

If you think about the people of Israel, they really weren’t very important people, weren’t that special.  But God chose them.  God got this group of strangers and set them aside and said, “I’m going to make you a righteous people”.  Not something that they did, but something that God did.

If you think about the stories of the good people of the Old Testament, it started with what God did, not with what they did.  If we go back to Noah, we only know that Noah was a righteous person because God said he was.  God declared it.  Whether or not Noah was doing good things or what good things, it doesn’t matter because it was God who said he was.  With Abram, if we look at his geneological history, they weren’t the best of people.  They weren’t the greatest folks in the world.  But yet God told Abram he was going to make him someone special, a great nation.

It is the act of God choosing people that makes them righteous.  And then when he starts working with them, then they really become righteous.  Abraham started as a nobody out of Mesopotamia but became a great figure.  Isaac started out not so good but God changed him as well.  Jacob was no winner, and yet God made something good there.  And Jacob’s sons were also not the greatest and yet God did something good there.

Our Isaiah passage continues with that.  The writer invokes the story of the crossing of the Red Sea and God bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt.  ”There were all these armies coming after you.  I made the dry land.  You crossed to safety and they all got left behind because I chose you.” (my paraphrase).  He formed them for himself.  He picked these people and made them his own.  He transformed and changed them.  God is the one who chose and decided to make them righteous.  It’s not part of the focus passage, but in verse 25 of Isaiah 43, we hear about what God did.

“I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” Isaiah 43:25

God is the one who makes people sinless and makes them righteous… his sovereignty, his choice.

In our John passage, in the midst of Jesus ministry, Jesus recognizes the importance of this relationship.  We have a woman. In other  re-tellings of the story in the gospels, she is actually given a name.  This is Mary, the sister of Lazarus.  We know this Mary as the Mary who chose to sit and learn at Jesus feet while her sister, Martha, was in the kitchen doing good things.  She was being hospitable and being a good host.  These are good things according to the law.  And there’s her sister Mary being a lazy bum sitting at Jesus feet.

In this story, though, Mary is doing something even more.  Lazarus has been raised from the dead and Mary is realizing that this man Jesus, whom they call their friend, there’s something much more going on here than what I know.  It’s more than just sitting at his feet and learning.  There’s something special happening here.  I have to do something about this.
Judas points out in our passage that the money could be used to feed the poor.  The gospel of John ascribes a motivation to Judas about his crooked nature.  But all the gospels do mention the idea of “Why didn’t you sell it?  There’s poor people that need to be taken care of. We gotta take care of the poor people.”

But Jesus says, “No… that’s good, but there’s something more important going on right now.  We need to recognize who it is that is sitting before you.  Do you realize who I am?  She does.  She has hold of something that you guys need to grasp.”

Mary knew what was more important.  She knew it was more important to get in contact with this guy and start relating to him than it is to go and do good things.  In other words, how are you supposed to know what it is you are called to do if you aren’t in a relationship with the guy sending you to do it?

Paul was a good Jew, doing all the right things.  He gives his entire pedigree in our Philippians passage here.  He was a great Pharisee.  The Pharisees get a bad rap in the Bible stories.  These evil, conniving Pharisees like the old movie villains.  But if you take a look at your Jewish history and at who the Pharisees were, they were trying to do their best.  They thought, “Israel is so messed up.  We have to figure out what we’ve been doing wrong and start doing it right again.”  They thought it had do with doing the right things like keeping proper Sabbath, keeping the proper separation between clean and unclean, we need to keep the outsiders at arms length because there may be bad influence there.  They are trying to do it right.

And Paul was one of the best at that.  He was REALLY good at being a Pharisee.  ”Hebrew among Hebrews”.  He knew all the right rituals, all the right Jewish things.  He was really good at being just because, according to the law, that is what you do.  You give your alms to the poor.  Paul knew all this stuff.  He tithed his cumin, mint, and thyme.  He was doing everything he knew what to do to be a good, just Jew.  He was morally pure.  He knew all the codes about how to keep himself ritually and morally pure.  He knew all the commandments about morality.  His writings to Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Colossians are full of calls to moral purity.  He was a stickler for keeping within a particular moral line: no lying, no gossip, no slander, no impurity, no immorality.  There’s at least 3 or 4 passages where he lists out all these things.  But Paul considers it all rubbish.

“That I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.” Philippians 3:8b-9

All the actions, all the deeds, all the purity, all the rituals, as good as they are, they are nothing.  What is most important, what is most critical, what is the absolute goal of every God-fearing person is to grab ahold of the righteousness that is in Jesus.  Connect to Jesus first, become one with him, take on his character, his purpose, his power.  And how are you going to do that if you don’t spend time with him, if you don’t connect with him, if you don’t sit at his feet and learn from him, if you don’t take the time to pour out the perfume at his feet and say “Jesus you are more important than a year’s wages, I’m just going to pour it all out to you”.  That is the priority in our lives.

If we want to do all these other righteous things, we need to first connect to the source of righteousness.  This is the goal that Paul was pressing on to. He is aiming towards the end of the journey.  There is an end that he’s trying to get to.  The end of the road is to become like Jesus.  Doing the good things is part of the walk.  The end is being Jesus, being so connected to the righteousness that that Jesus already gained for him that it would be simply natural for him to do the right things.  Everything must start, first, with connecting to Jesus.

This is not a concern just for us.  There are other churches around the world studying these same passages.  Perhaps not all of them are taking the same approach I am.  There is more than one way, perhaps, to connect the dots of scripture.  But in our world today there are a lot of people doing good things.  There are all sorts of charities and organizations doing ritualistic, justice, and purity things.  They are a dime a dozen.  If you want to do good things there are plenty of opportunities out there to do good things.  But doing good things do not make you righteous.  They may be doing good, but their foundation is shaky and the good they do will crumble, like a house built on sand.

I’m not the only one saying this this kind of stuff.  One of the MennoNerds, Justin Hiebert, of a USMB congregation in Colorado gave a sermon on the Beatitudes and said the following:

When we hunger for nothing more than ‘doing things right” and not for the justice of God, we are in danger of becoming legalistic and trumpeting goodness and rightness over holiness and grace.

Justin is saying it is the righteousness of God we need to grab hold of, not our “good deeds”.

Now, I have a relationship with Justin so I trust him but you guys probably can’t take that step.  But there is a more important person than Justin who said something similar recently.

“When we walk without the cross, when we build without the cross, and when we confess without the cross, we are not disciples of Christ.  We are mundane; we are all but disciples of our Lord” - Pope Francis, homily at the Sistine Chapel, March 14, 2013

If the Catholic church thinks that doing right things is not enough, I wonder what we are doing?  This, I believe, is something that the church needs to focus on.  We need to focus on getting back to who Jesus is and the righteousness that is found only in Jesus.  We need to get back to the basics of Christianity.  We can do all these right things, all our arguments over how we do things, but we really don’t need that anymore.  We need to get back to being followers of Jesus.  It is Jesus who makes us righteous.  And we will only get to that when we grab ahold of what Jesus has already provided for us.  In our season of lent, as we prepare for the season of Easter, perhaps it’s time to get back to what is important.  Everything else is just rubbish.

First of all, I think that I am more than just an Anabaptist. Yes, I believe in the priesthood of all believers, voluntary believers baptism, the centrality of Christ, and I love the first few generations of Anabaptists, but I also love the Diggers, Unitarians, Universalists, Congregationalists, modern progressives, and so many other groups. I could be defined as an Anabaptist, but then there is also a lot more to it that I love. The fundamental difference between these other radical groups and the generic Anabaptist today seems to be one of theology.

The Anabaptist tradition has always been critical of how church is done in both established Protestant and Catholic churches, but the other traditions that I list are also critical of how theology is done in established churches. In the other traditions that I draw from, some “fundamental” of traditional Christian theology is called into question (hell, the trinity, patriarchy, etc.).

My major issue with Anabaptism is that I do not see this. There is a proud critique of imperial ways or practicing Christianity, but I have not seen very much criticism of the imperial theology that produced the Christendom paradigm. I have seen Anabaptists who will gladly reject the partnership of church and state, but then go on using the Nicene Creed, which is the product of a state-church partnership. In many expressions of Anabaptism that I have seen, the prophetic reviving of the gospel just does not go far enough.

My Anabaptist Christianity then seems to be a mix of two strains of radical Christianity: the first is an Anabaptist praxis that is critical of traditional ways of doing church, and the second is a Unitarian and Universalist Christianity that is critical of traditional ways of thinking about God. In many ways, this puts me into the same place as the first generation of Anabaptists. Some, such as Hans Denck, were both Anabaptist and Universalist.

I wholeheartedly feel called to the Anabaptist tradition. However, I am also cautious of it because I identify with other radical traditions too, and because I see a lot of the same Christendom theology present within some expressions of Anabaptism. On the other hand, many theological radicals then went on to have the Christendom state-church paradigm when it came to church (e.g. the Puritans). Perhaps what is needed is a mix of the two, a revival of Hans Denck’s kind of Anabaptism — one that is both radical in church structure and theology.

– Kevin Daugherty

In the sermon, he relates to his listeners how Woodland Hills Church identifies itself with Anabaptism. He provides a short history lesson on Anabaptistica and he focuses on the nature of the universal Ekklesia from the perspective of the Anabaptists. Eventually he addresses how post-first century Christianity in due course allowed the world to squeeze it “into its own mould” (Romans 12:2 J.B. Phillips). Resulting in the aligned Constantinian Ekklesia to become analogs of Roman and Grecian worshippers of pagan gods even adopting elaborate temples to worship their god, in other words they started to build elaborate cathedrals. Boyd goes on to admit that the Anabaptists met in homes to worship and that they viewed “the people as the Church” or God’s temple in place of a building in the same fashion as the first-century Christians (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Now we come to the problem, Woodland Hills is a 2,500-member church; technically this church would be qualified as a megachurch. A 2,000 + capacity facility hardly qualifies as someone’s living room. A megachurch is not someone’s home; it is a few marble statues or one ostentatious mural away from being called a cathedral. Just because you are not a member of some form of the Catholic Church that does not give you, a free pass if you know the truth of the matter.

This is one of things that really vex me about contemporary Anabaptism, even those that claim to be fully aligned with the renowned group of 16^th century radicals treat the movement like a buffet in Vegas. They walk along and select the things they want but reject those things that may hamper his or her preferred religious lifestyle. In my opinion, it is all or nothing or just let it go!

A page from the Martyr’s mirror depicting Geleyn Corneliss, who was hung by his thumb while his torturers played cards. Modified illustration from Third Way Cafe

Crossposted from As of Yet Untitled

Yesterday, March 6, 2013, we in the US learned in The Guardian that our government put torture and death at the center of our policy in Iraq. According to the article, Jim Steele, who was heavily involved in the El Salvadoran death squads, was called in to replicate the model in Iraq in 2004 with millions of dollars at his disposal. This strategy, known as the “Salvador Option” was apparently known and discussed at the highest levels of the US government and supervised closely by General David Petraeus. These actions are consistent with US policy since the end of World War II: torture and mass murder in support of US economic interests.

This is no aberration: it is the norm for empire. Nevertheless, many will hem and haw, rationalize and suggest this is still a few bad apples, albeit 4 star general apples. Tragically, most in the United States will simply ignore it. But what about us, as Mennonites: as Anabaptist Christians? What will we do?

Throughout our 400 year history, Mennonites have said no to war. But our “no” has been a passive, quiet one: over in the corner, tending our flocks and fields. We have not placed ourselves in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets with their unmistakable, angry indictment of injustice and violence in their community. We have often missed the connection between the stories in the Martyr’s Mirror and the ongoing torture of those outside our walls. Instead, the message we took was: resistance will be crushed. Redemption or not, our foremothers and fathers died horrible deaths. We were loath to follow and instead focused inward: protecting our own.

Gradually, over the last 50 years, Canadian and US Mennonites have been pulling our heads out of the sand. Our commitment to service put Mennonite Central Committee volunteers in contact with those most brutalized by US foreign policy. These volunteers have brought these stories with them to existing Mennonite organizations and structures, but they also helped to form new initiatives, like Christian Peacemaker Teams.

Yet the majority of Mennonites who voted in 2004 chose George W. Bush, mere months after the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse broke. John Kerry would unlikely have been better and President Obama promoted General David Petraeus. However, that vote for Bush in that particular time and political space signaled a profound blindness on our parts to the same practices and patterns of this world that tortured and killed the early Anabaptists.

More recently I have anecdotal experience of this attitude. The Guardian clearly traces their investigation on these torture centers back to the release, by Wikileaks, of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables. In November 2010, On the day of that release, I wrote a post naming the tactics of Wikileaks as “cutting edge peacemaking” I said:

I believe the work they are doing is on the emerging edge of resistance to U.S. imperialism. The releases not only unmasks the powers in meticulous detail, but threaten the very mechanisms through which empire seek to influence, control and coerce.

Most of the comments in response focused on the personal ethics of theft and hypothetical lives put at risk by the leaks. There was a strong sense of “us” identified with the United States government and its policies and a remarkable unwillingness to discuss the unhypothetical deaths of Iraqi civilians and many others around the world by US empire.*

We, as Mennonites in the US and Canada, are unwilling to look systematically at the evil of our rulers, the authorities and “the cosmic powers of this present darkness.” (Ephesians 6:12, NRSV). Instead we focus only on the personal sins and our piety. The whole armor of God becomes a cutout for the felt board in Sunday school rather then a road map for resistance to the domination system.

Jesus’ whole life, death and resurrection was a witness against the project of empire and domination, both personal and social. We are inheritors to a tradition of dissent: of refusal to play by the rules of that game. If we let them, our faith can be our guide in challenging the colonization of our minds, our communities and our country by the principalities and powers. The same powers that set up the torture centers where Iraqis were beaten, shocked and raped in the name of our security and economic prosperity.

There was one hopeful note in this story. Neil Smith was the only US solider willing to go on camera to discuss US involvement in the torture centers and he did so because of his faith:

He now lives in Detroit and has become a born-again Christian. He spoke to the Guardian because he said he now considered it his religious duty to speak out about what he saw. “I don’t think folks back home in America had any idea what American soldiers were involved in over there, the torture and all kinds of stuff.”

I pray that these revelations today will wake us up as Smith woke up. Our slumber is destroying the dreams of millions.

P.S. For a related discussion of the ways that communities, including Mennonites, have responded to repression by creating redemptive narratives, see my comments at the end of the Iconocast interview with Noam Chomsky

*The most troubling response, because of its source, came from the editor of a mainstream Mennonite publication, identified publicly in his comment as “managinged” who also emailed me. He offered an article by Canadian Christian ethicist Margaret Sommerville. In an email to him, I pointed out that her arguments were from a Constantinian just war perspective that saw the US empire as a fundamental good and responded in detail to the way she so strongly identified with the apparatus of empire. He did not respond to any of my points, but instead asked me whether I would publish a leak from a Mennonite church institution - implicitly refusing to make a moral distinction between the institutions of the church and state. He concluded by asking whether Wikileaks wasn’t trying to “play God” by putting their hope in human judgement rather than trusting God as they should.

This originally appeared on my own blog Abnormal Anabaptist. Tim has posted his article here so I thought it would be a good idea to put like with like.

Fellow MennoNerd Chris Lenshyn posted this morning an article presenting the tension that exists between those of us who are ethnic Mennonites (like me) and those of us who have found their way into the Mennonite denomination from other traditions (through various methods and such).  Let me quote a little bit of what Chris shared (the full article can be found here):

Today, as people continue to wonder and explore Mennonite Anabaptist faith, ethnicity as part of a rich, earthed history, is both gift and burden.

Mennonite Anabaptist practice which facilitates a deep radical’ism’ tends to come face to face with the ‘way things have been done before’ of ethnicity.  It appears that to be an ‘ethnonite’ is to carry an unrelenting commitment to a past that is not informing the present.  Rather it is a past that is losing it’s grip on the present by carrying on with what Van Steenwyk calls, ‘cultural hang-ups.’

It’s tragic really, to think that in some circles, to not be Mennonite by ethnicity is to not be slighted in community.

Chris goes on to ask a few questions:

Where do you see the implications of this dynamic of “Mennonite or Ethnonite?”  How can the joys and baggage of the past inform the practice of Mennonite Anabaptist faith today?  How can newness, or new people rejuvenate current Anabaptist Mennonite praxis?

I originally wrote a long response as a comment on his blog but I thought it would be better to let the comment space be available to a lot more folks without being intimidated by a long comment and to offer my reply via blog.

First of all, the “ethnicity” of being Mennonite within a congregation has a serious danger of creating cliques of those who are “in” and those who are “out”. I’ve seen it happen. People who are not ethnically Mennonite but have found something good within a Mennonite congregation end up, for the most part, on the outside looking in. They are accepted warmly, invited in, but those close ties and connections don’t happen easily because you cannot play the “Mennonite Game” of family connections and such and historical rootedness. Especially in congregations of a long history with very strong family roots, non-ethnic Mennonites have a hard time breaking through that wall. You end up with a divided congregation with two groups that are at odds when it comes to preserving historical traditions and breaking out in new ways. At worst, you end up with a congregation where those who are not “ethnic” slowly fade and peel off the outside. They never get the roots and so end up moving on to someplace where they can find that community they desire.  This is the obvious “con” of the ethnic Mennonite church.

However, there are some historically ethnic Mennonite congregations that some how have broken free of this trap. I’m not entirely sure how it happens, but they end up being able to enjoy and celebrate the stories of the past while still allowing God to bring in “new blood” and new people. Perhaps it is a matter of the general honesty of recognizing that there are important things to hold on to (radical discipleship, service to others, living a Jesus centered gospel, etc.) and things that are just temporary (family ties, worship styles, German/Russian/Swiss culture, etc). It is, I guess, a bit of wisdom that permeates where people are honest about their ethnicity and realize that it is just another culture like someone from Puerto Rico or someone from Korea. We have a Mennonite Culture that can blend with puertorriqueño culture and with Korean culture.

What we need are stories from all the cultures. Chris asks about blending… we need people who can tell the Mennonite ethnic stories in ways that don’t come across as “this is the way things are and that is the end” but more on the lines of telling the stories as just threads in the larger tapestry. There needs to be a hospitality where people from other cultures can weave their own threads of their cultures into the tapestry of Anabaptism and Mennonite churches to be able to reveal how those streams of Christian theology inform and inspire people of other cultures. Swiss/German or Russian Mennonites are only one little piece of the larger picture. If we who are ethnic Mennonites (of which I am one) can set aside our cultural pride, can wash the feet of those who come from other cultures, can even sacrifice our own culture to allow someone else space, then I think we can see how those “new” people can add to our communal experience of Christ.  This is the pro.  That we bring into the tapestry a thread of history that becomes part of the larger whole but where we, because of the Anabaptist conviction of sacrificial service, give up our place of “status” to allow others to grow.

How would you answer Chris’ questions?  How can that ethnic culture benefit a congregation and how can it create problems?

Along with Chris, I’d encourage you to read the original article that started this all by Tim Nafziger over at The Mennonite, Revisiting Anabaptist Camp Followers.

The other day I had a good conversation with Mark Van Steenwyk, a writer and activist who lives in the Mennonite Worker community in Minneapolis, Minn. The conversation brought me back to concept of Anabaptist camp followers (ACF’s) that I first dealt with in December 2009, in Levi Miller, peace and justice and the Mennonite chattering class, a response to a piece by former Mennonite publish Levi Miller that took a jaded look at “peacenjustice” as a fading marketing ploy and coined the phrase Anabaptist camp followers. In the last paragraph of my article, I offered a challenge to Mennonites to welcome this generation’s ACF’s:

Today, we are seeing a new wave of “Anabaptist camp followers.” As with the earlier wave, many of them come from evangelical backgrounds looking for the missing peace and justice. I’ve heard many first and second hand stories of young evangelicals walking into Mennonite churches longing for the whole gospel only to find a church doing its best to blend in with all the other Christian churches in town. Will we once again blame them as naive idealists and turn our back on them as we focus on keeping those inside the fold happy?

Since then, the importance of ACF’s has become even clearer to me. I was part of the conversation that led to Widening the Circle: Experiments in Christian Discipleship, which is a conversation between ACF’s who have been drawn to the Mennonite church over the past 50 years and cradle Mennonites drawn to radical discipleship. From California to Georgia, the book looks at the seeds that have grown when ACFs have interacted with the Mennonite church.

Unicycle demonstration at Papa Festival at Plowcreek Fellowship in Tiskilwa, Illinois on June 20, 2008

I talked with Joanna Shenk, editor of Widening the Circle. As someone who grew up with parents who were former Mennonite, she’s embraced the Mennonite church as an adult, and so falls into both the ACF and cradle Mennonite camp. In an interview for this blog post, she said:

And I found that in many cases (but not all), my peers who had grown up Mennonite (”cradle” folks), weren’t that energized by the theology that had given me so much hope. It was just old hat to them… or a reason to be arrogant toward other Christians. That was disappointing.

I think those new to Anabaptism and those who have been around it for awhile need each other as conversation partners–the potential is for all of us to be challenged to look at our faith and commitments in new ways. In what ways have some of us taken the tradition/theology for granted? In what ways have others of us idealized it? What does it mean to learn from the complicated history of Anabaptism and allow it to shape the church/us today? We need each other for those conversations.

Joanna is continuing the conversation through a Widening the Circle mini-series on the Iconocast. She’ll be interviewing chapter authors about their journeys since contributing to Widening the Circle. Her questions include: What has changed? How has their thinking deepened around the themes they wrote about? What do they see happening in the discipleship community movement currently? What is taking shape in their community/organization? What have they let go?

I’ve also come to understand better how inhospitable Mennonites have been to ACF’s. In November of 2011, I wrote here about the cool reception Vincent Harding received when he challenged Mennonites to become more involved in the civil rights movement. Mennonite leaders were dismissive of any responsibility to become involved:

Mennonite voluntary service director Edgar Stoesz compared the civil rights struggle to World War II, in which Mennonites didn’t participate, but showed up afterwards to clean up. Mennonites “decline to participate in the interracial conflict but seek rather to bring reconciliation and goodwill.”

Harding incisively named this clean-up-afterwards strategy as Mennonites commitment to being the rear light rather than the front light.

Leonide Begly talks with Mark Van Steenwyk at a workshop at Papa Festival in Tiskilway, Ilinois on June 21, 2008

This leads me back to my conversation with Mark. In the paper issue of The Mennonite JoannaShenk interviews Mark and he shares both affirmation and critiques of Mennonites. He names the dynamic in which cradle Mennonites make everyone else feel like forever outsiders:

I’ve met folks who have been Mennonites for decades who still feel like outsiders. We welcome folks with our words but often push them away with our actions and cultural hang-ups. To be a Mennonite, for me, means accepting the reality that I’ll never be as Mennonite as other people.

In preparing this blog post, I asked Mark to share further thoughts about the relationship between ACF’s and others in the Mennonite church:

Regarding what Mennonites can learn from ACF’s … I think that newly emerging Anabaptists understand the points of tension between Anabaptist values and cultural trends. Legacy Mennonites, however, are still defined by the tensions of previous generations. For example, Vincent Harding understood the direct conflict between racism and Anabaptism in ways legacy Mennonites did not. They already determined that their role was to helpful stabilizers–because that is a role they had adopted over centuries.

Today, you can see this with younger radicals who see the violence of globalization, banking, sexism, heteronormativity, but Mennonites tend to be so focused on the predefined issues that they tend to be blind. The only reason homosexuality is an issue discussed by Mennonites is that it threatens unity, and is not seen—by many Mennonites—to be an issue of justice.

I look forward to the conversation between ACF’s and cradle/legacy Mennonites continuing.

PAPA Festival was one such space for conversations between ACF’s and Mennonites since it was hosted by a Mennonite community. For more of my photos and thoughts from that gathering, see my blog post from July 2008: PAPA Festival: A Report.

For more on the conversations between Mennonites and the emerging church from YAR see the submergent category archive.

There is a group from England that many people do not know of, but more people should — the True Levellers or Diggers. As Anabaptists or other radical Christians, I think that this short-lived group of English radicals has a lot to offer us, and it is a shame that they have been largely forgotten. So, I wanted to write a short blog on here so that people can get to know this wonderful group.

The Diggers were one of the many nonconformist Christian groups that arose in seventeenth century England (like the Baptists, Puritans, or Quakers). They were largely centered around Gerrard Winstanley, who also went on to become one of the first Quakers and Universalists.

What makes the Diggers so interesting is their radical economic polices. The Diggers strongly emphasized the Christian ethic expressed in the Book of Acts, and building off of Acts 2:44 and 4:32, they practiced communism. Specifically, they sought to do as modern Marxist and anarchist communists do, and eliminate private ownership of real property (what Marxists and anarchists call “private property in the means of production”). In many ways, the Diggers were a sort of precursor for the Catholic Worker Movement or Bruderhof Communities, because they hoped to achieve their vision by using pacifism, charity, and working of the land (hence the name “Diggers”).

Unfortunately, this wonderful reinvention of the church as described in Acts chapters 2-4 was short lived. Much like the early church and its Anabaptist brethren back on mainland Europe, the Diggers were horribly attacked by the powers that be. They were evicted from their colonies multiple times until the movement eventually disintegrated into others like the Quakers or died out completely.

While they were short-lived, I think that the Diggers provide a much needed example of how to put the Gospel into action, and their relationship with various nonconformist and radical churches shows the possibility of being ecumenical and radical (like many Neo-Anabaptists are today).

Some excellent writings left from the Diggers include: The True Levellers Standard Advanced, A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England, and The Law of Freedom in a Platform.

– Kevin Daugherty

“Most men in their lives will not commit sexual violence,
but most acts of sexual violence are committed by men.”

Joe Campbell from Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse

In order to end sexualized violence against women, children and men, we need men.

To end child abuse, domestic violence, verbal and physical abuse, we need men.

To end misogyny, we need to look to our young boys, teens, and husbands to assist in the fight for women’s rights. We need men.

It is when we see rape as only affecting the female victim that we’ve lost an important truth in the world. When we view the physical and psychological repercussions of abuse as damage only impacting the victim, we are missing a vital point. Rape and sexualized violence—whether it’s being committed against a man, a woman, or a child—destroys our collective humanity. It destroys our communities and institutions, even when we turn a blind eye or don’t admit that it’s there. Sexualized violence seeps into the cracks of our consciousness and it wiggles its way into our understanding of the world, gender roles, and where the blame should fall when such violent and horrible crimes are committed. This unawareness of rape is what allows rape culture to thrive. It’s what allows situations like Steubenville happen. And when we ignore it and act like we are separate or somehow different from these crimes, we are lost.

Last Wednesday evening I spoke for the first time at a Mennonite church about Our Stories Untold, as well as my experience with abuse and what needs to be done about sexualized violence. Becoming a public speaker on topics of sexualized violence is my goal, so speaking Wednesday was a successful test-run. Though nervous, I was able to deliver compelling statistics and dispel common rape myths within churches that only point to the obvious: sexualized violence surrounds us no matter what community or religion we are a part of.

Everyone in attendance agreed on the fact that men are necessary in the movement towards stopping violence against women. Rather than excluding men or making men out to be only perpetrators, we must embrace their presence and encourage them to use their strength in positive ways by taking a stance to eradicate misogyny, fear, and sexualized violence. We need their help to transform shame and guilt into support and love.  As a collective whole we can all stop violence before it ever happens.

Poster from www.VoicesofMen.com

I posted this poster on Our Stories Untold Facebook page about the “10 Things Men Can Do to End Violence Against Women,” created by Voices of Men, a one-man play working to end male violence against women. Through expanding on these points I hope both men and women can find several points that resonate. Then, start practicing them today:

1. Break out of the “Man Box”: What are the traditional images of manhood that keep you from taking a stand? This question depends on the age and background of the male identified person reading this question, yet there are some general male expectations that men and boys feel pressured into fulfilling. For example, children who use the word “raped” on the playground—as in “Oh man, he totally raped me when he stole that ball away!”—may not understand what they’re saying. If they do, then they may be afraid to correct others using their word in fear of being picked on. Adult men often let their pride and ego get in the way of taking a stand. They may be reluctant to speak up in a church about how women who wear “provocative” clothing when raped still deserve support. Break out of the traditional “man box” and take a stand.
2. Ask how you can help if you suspect abuse or an assault. And, if you are abusing others in any way, stop and seek professional help immediately. I wouldn’t leave it here, either. You should also ask those involved in movements on how you can assist them. When I spoke at church I had a lot of people tell me what I should be doing with Our Stories Untold. All these ideas were great and supportive to the movement, but I already know the direction I want to take Our Stories Untold. Therefore, rather than suggesting someone to take on your own ideas, what if you owned those ideas and created projects out of them yourself? Acknowledge the abused.
3. Teach your children that “no” means “no” and that “stop” means “stop.” After speaking the other evening I had a woman tell me that when her children were young she always taught that if they were tickling someone, and that person said “stop,” then it was absolutely necessary to immediately stop. After watching her sister in an abusive relationship she understood it was important, if not vital, to explain these rules to children. Providing clear guidelines early on will assist in these types of situations as children, young adults, and parents.
4. Don’t buy the argument that sexual and domestic violence are due to mental illness, lack of anger management skills, chemical dependency, stress, testosterone, or other excuses. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had people say to me, “Well her husband had some major anger management issues.” That is just an excuse, and it means accepting such behavior as inevitable.  It’s the whole “boys will be boys” mentality that we cannot let continue any longer. This argument also feeds into the idea that “all men rape,” which is a horrible viewpoint to take. The fact is that one in three women in the world will be raped, beaten, sexually coerced, trafficked or otherwise abused in her lifetime. But the average rapist has attacked 14 times. Do you see the disconnect?
5. Stand up and Speak out! Silence affirms and supports sexualized violence. We need to amplify voices, and the way to do that is to speak out–always and everywhere. This means when you hear a friend make a misogynistic, sexist, or hyper-sexual comment, you call it out. In order to create change, we must be willing to swallow our ego and speak out. Remaining silent allows rape culture to thrive.
6. Look in the mirror: Do your own attitudes and actions help support the objectification and de-valuing of women and girls? What kind of jokes do you make with your friends? What comments do you make about “scantily dressed” women? How do you view women in your life? Do you treat all women the same way you would treat your sisters, aunts, or mother? If you don’t, then you should work on changing your attitudes.
7. Be a model for youth. Mentor a boy. Teach boys with your words and actions that being a man means respecting women. Again, when I was speaking the other night I had a lot of people comment about how we need to teach the boys how to be respectful towards women. I agreed. But you don’t need me to stand in front of your church for you to do this. YOU can do this every day you interact with a child. YOU can do this by teaching a Sunday School class. This is collective action – we need YOU.
8. Educate yourself. Listen to and learn from women. Attend programs and events and learn how to end sexualized violence. I think the “listen and learn from women” component of this point is extra important. A dilemma I often see from feminist-minded men or organizations like the Good Men Project, is that “male allies” often end up using their male power to dominate the scene and take away the voices of women themselves. Without intending to, they perpetuate the shaming and dis-empowerment of women. What women need are men who support them, not men who speak for them—there’s an important differentiation.
9. Step up to create a culture shift that doesn’t tolerate disrespecting or degradation of women. Make this a HUMAN ISSUE. I reiterate what I stated before: Rape and sexualized violence—whether it’s being committed against a man, a woman, or a child—destroys our collective humanity. This is a human rights issue, not just a women’s issue. We need men to make a cultural shift in rape culture and violence against women.
10. Host a video discussion or presenter through work, school, church, service club, sports team, or other organization. Same as I said in point #2, own your good ideas about what to do about this topic and create the projects yourself rather than expecting someone else to do the work for you. Think of how much change we can create when everyone starts believing in themselves.

We need men to eradicate sexualized violence. Join the collective movement. Ask how you can assist with Our Stories Untold. There’s no better time than today.