Young Anabaptist Radicals

Author Archive: ST

The Next Global Youth Summit

The AMIGOS met last week in Paraguay to plan the 2nd Global Youth Summit (GYS) of Mennonite World Conference (MWC). The event will happen July 10th-12th, 2009, immediately followed by MWC’s 15th World Assembly July 13-19. It will all take place in Asuncion, Paraguay…with independent trips to surrounding countries or regions before or after World Assembly.

At GYS, 50 delegates from 50 countries will meet to discuss the idea/practice of “Christian service”, social concerns, and church politics. Delegates will be given an assignment prior to the Summit to survey at least 50 people about what service means to them, what they see are the major issues in their local and national society, and youth involvement in their local church context. With answers and further questions coming in from all over the world, the delegates will work together to create a comprehensive statement on service and the other topics. They will present it to the MWC General Council, which consists of a church leader representative from each organized Menno/Anabaptist national conference in the world.

In addition to the delegates, the AMIGOS committee is expecting about 700-750 participants. Unlike the delegates who represent the youth (ages 18-30) in the Menno/Anabaptist churches in their country, participants come representating themselves, for their own personal reasons and interests. The participants create the atmosphere of theological debate and discussion, as well as a lot of laughter and soccer playing. In Zimbabwe, GYS felt like a big family reunion with all the extended family…cousins you’d never met but heard about, grandparents who told stories of days past, and lots of email exchanging and promises to “keep in touch”. It was and continues to be all about seeing who was and is part of the Menno/Anabaptist family globally: To learn that what we imagine we have in common, we don’t…and to find sweet connections through life situations that draw us closer to one another. (more…)

August 9, 2007 Church, International Relations, Travel, Young Folks Read more >

Sin and Oppression (part 2)

Does the Jewish tradition include the concept of sin? If they did, wasn’t it was relating to following the law (order of the religious establishment) in order to please God? So, Jesus, who in my understanding did a lot of anti-oppression work, was a big sinner, right? Sunday in church, someone mentioned again that Jesus was perfect.

Jesus disobeyed most of the ways to be a man in society, as a Rabbi he called disciples in an unconventional ways, and he behaved in ways towards women, the unclean and marginalized, in ways that got him rebuked by the keepers of the law. When I follow Jesus, I am led to do anti-oppression work. I am lead to be with the marginalized of this society, and behave differently as a woman than society has dictated. This will cause me to sin against some of the institutional laws of the religious establishment, right? For example, it could cause me to go against what my parents have told me. It could go against general church regulations against homosexuality, women preaching and teachings about reproductive rights. (more…)

March 29, 2007 Exclusion, Gender, Peace & Peacemaking, Power, The Bible Read more >

Sin and Oppression (part 1)

How do you understand the concept of oppression?
How do you understand the concept of sin?

Is the word oppression an academic, general way of saying sin? What I am wondering is how compatible/interchangeable these words are.

For the definition of oppression, I think about the historic and current patriarchal institutions (military/police, education, religion, economy, heterosexual family, law) which systematically include some people at the exclusion of other people and arbitrarily divide public and private space to accelerate the importance of some individuals the marginalization of others. Oppression can manifest on individual, community, and societal levels.

For the definition of sin, I think of much the same picture. On all levels of life, sin exists too. In high school, the Bible teacher defined sin as “using something for a purpose other than it was created.” Most of the time churches deal with sin on the individual level. But if communities or institutions are manipulated so as to exclude many for the inclusion of a few, is not that also sin?

So, what I realize I am accustomed to thinking is that “what is oppressive is a sin, what is anti-oppression is not a sin”.

March 20, 2007 Theology Read more >

Tragic Bus Accident

The Bluffton College baseball team was in a tragic bus accident in Atlanta. They were traveling to Florida for spring break training. From what we’ve learned on the news, we know that 6 are confirmed dead and more than a dozen are injured. The bus was traveling on 75 and apparently went over an overpass.

Susan Gascho, former pastor at Atlanta Mennonite Fellowship is at Grady with some of the injured. AMF is helping by hosting families and friends of the players.

Please be in prayer for the families and friends of those killed and injured. And also remember that while this is the most salient tragedy now, there are lots of other people hurting for a variety of reasons.

Bluffton University Baseball Team
Photo of the Bluffon College baseball team from Bluffton website

March 2, 2007 Community, Current Events, Objective, Young Folks Read more >

Split Youth in the Southern Cone

Bouncing directly from Angie’s latest post… always got to give a shout-out to Dorothy! But Last week the passion for exclusion came not from the institution, but from the people themselves, YOUNG people, and a student in seminary…

At the Southern Cone Mennonite Anabaptist meetings in Uruguay last week, there was a large division among the Chilean, Argentinean, Paraguan and Uruguayan youth about what was important about church and our lives as Christians. After a large time of dialogue together as young people, a small group of youth got together and wrote a letter (which was read in front of the whole assembly) about the fact that they were worried about a few themes (of the many that were mentioned in the youth meeting and throughout the conference). They took an anti-dialogue stance towards the mention of issues such as homosexuality, abortion, sex before marriage, and referring to God as Mother and Father/inclusive language. In the letter they invited everyone to do further study of the bible so that it is clear that all these practices are sin and they condemned anyone who practices or teaches these things. (more…)

February 2, 2007 Bias, Change, Church, Current Events, LGBTQ, Politics, Power, The Bible, Tradition, Travel, Young Folks Read more >

living tribute

I learned of Martin Luther King, the hero of the Civil Rights Movement, in school.
I learned of Martin Luther King, the peacemaker, at church.

In both cases I learned about King as an icon. He was like an angel-man, superhuman. King became a real person when I moved to Atlanta.

It was a fall from a pedestal of sorts, when I learned about all of the trials, the fractures, the tribulations, the anguish, and the arguments that went on behind the scenes of the marches and the committee meetings. To listen to lectures by the veterans of the movement, (Former Ambassador Andrew Young, Rev. Joseph Lowery, R. D. Abernathy, Rev. James Orange) all still involved, but some bitter, some who have appropriated the movement…whew! I learned about the hundreds of sidelined and under-recognized women who laid the groundwork for so many of the church meetings, boycotts, and potlucks (Septima Clark, Montgomery Women’s Council, Ella Baker, Ruby Doris Smith Robinson). Most of all, when I saw the struggle of his immediate family to know how to live out the legacy of the father they lost when they were young children, it all became so tangible. (more…)

January 15, 2007 Biographical, Change, Church, Current Events, History, International Relations, LGBTQ, Nonviolence, Politics, Power, Race, Tradition, Young Folks Read more >

NEW Year

It’s January 2, so I’d like to write an entry for the NEW year.

Growing up, I learned that “the blood of Jesus washed me white as snow” (It confused me, since I’m bi-racial…but that’s another blog entry). Anyhow, there was emphasis put on the fact that an acceptance of Jesus “made you NEW, CLEAN,” You were born again (Like Peter, I was the kid in Sunday School who asked the anatomy question, but I get it now). Today, I recognize that I still cling to this concept and feeling state because I remember that I did feel NEW and different when I accepted Jesus.

I thrive in NEW situations, but sometimes begin to trip up as the NEW situations become routine. Sometimes I feel sad or angry at my inability to maintain the special NEWness feeling. At these times I turn to the meaning of faith to get me through, but I crave the NEWness again. That is partially why I love the coming of the NEW year and New Year’s Day so much. (more…)

January 2, 2007 Change, Church, Current Events, Poetry, Theology, Tradition, Young Folks Read more >