Greetings from a not so young Anabaptist radical. Warning: lots of name-dropping ahead!
I have spent 20 years on the road in various denominational conferences, congregations, and colleges. I met a lot of wonderful people, some of whom I’ve disagreed with theologically, and perhaps politically. But the saying, “traveling artists leave their theology and politics at home” is usually good advice. What is odd however is when it’s a Christian event —a conference, church or Christian college or university, where there are commonalities assumed. Again, our theology usually stayed at home. So we felt many times like we were strangers, just mercenaries, or as we like to say on occasion, theater whores, taking the money without ever being emotionally involved with the event. To be fair, this happened more often in conferences, than in churches.
In 2001 in the fall Lee Eshleman and I were guests at a conference in Seattle sponsored by The Ooze.com. It was Solarize: A Conversation. The speakers were Sally Morgenthaler, Brian McLaren, Tom Sine, Leonard Sweet, and Richard Rohr. Workshop leaders included Tony Jones, and Doug Pagitt. Almost for the first time, I felt like I was at home. The theology, the fact that they had a theology pub where someone brought a keg and handed me a beer, the social justice awareness, and the deep appreciation for Anabaptist theology throughout made us feel as if we were home. The whole weekend blew me away— truly a life changing experience. Brian, Sally, Doug, Tony and Richard have all become friends. The reason I bring this up is to illuminate the speaker lineup at the Wild Goose Festival in June. Richard and Brian and Tony and Doug will all be there. (more…)
As I understand them, one of the key arguments that Kauffman and Miller are making is that my focus on social advocacy and confrontation is “cutting [me] off from any word of wisdom that other parts of the Body of Christ might have to offer.” In other words, their claim is that the haunting social advocacy and confrontation, as I am describing it, does not leave room for dialogue.
In January I saw an article in the Wichita Eagle about a woman who was thoroughly convinced that the rapture and the end of the world would be on May 21, 2011.  At 6pm to be exact.  Well, this Saturday is the fateful day and, as one would expect, the story has been picked up by various news outlets.
Now forgive me if I sound a little cynical, but I know my history. Â From the very first moments that Jesus walked the earth people have been predicting his return, and thus the end of the world with it. Â So far, no one has been right.
What’s more, I know what happened at Münster.  To recap, a group of Anabaptists violently took over the town of Münster and swiftly began killing people, running around naked and doing a whole bunch of other things all because they were certain that Jesus was coming back right then and there.
In this month’s editorial in The Mennonite, editor Everett Thomas quoted Mennonite Church USA executive director Ervin Stutzman as follows:
“The experience of Pink Mennos at Columbus in 2009,” Stutzman said, “introduced a new level of engagement in controversial matters … The techniques of social advocacy and confrontation that we have taught young adults in our schools has come to haunt our church’s most visible gathering, to the end that convention-goers feel immense pressure to take up sides against one another on [homosexuality].”
Mennonite pastor Amy Yoder McGloughlin has already written quite eloquently and diplomatically on how Ervin’s words ignore the real ghosts who haunt the Mennonite convention. So I’d like to focus particularly on Ervin’s use of the term, “haunt,” to refer to the use of social advocacy and confrontation by Pink Mennos. As a Mennonite, I find social advocacy and confrontation at the heart of the gospel and at the roots of my Anabaptist tradition. To suggest that those of us who sought to embody this tradition as Pink Mennos at Colombus were “haunting” the convention is highly problematic.
Recently, J. Denny Weaver spoke of his conversion from “passive” non-resistance and two-kingdom theology to an active stance against evil (reflection: can Mennonites use the term “evil”?) in Wisconsin. http://www.themennonite.org/issues/14-4/articles/Protesting_and_the_reign_of_God
While I approve of his stand, I must disagree with the theological conclusions of his article.
In speaking of two kingdom theology, Professor Weaver emphasizes the passive inaction of the theology. That it has nothing to say to oppression, that God is the God who empowers violence and the non-resistant have nothing to respond to injustice. Perhaps this is the form of two-kingdom theology that Professor Weaver learned, and I can see with a title like “non-resistance”, a theology might be prone to inaction. Certainly passivity is a concern among many who are raised “non-resistant”.
But two-kingdom theology is not about passivity. Certainly there is a passive aspect to it, even as Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would be fighting.” So there are actions that those of Jesus’ kingdom do not take. However, the foundational law of the kingdom of Jesus is active: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love isn’t passive, but active. Like the Samaritan in Jesus story, the one of Jesus’ kingdom cannot look at one hurt in the gutter and not act. (more…)
A seminarian contributed this chapter about learning to love her enemies after a direct action at a military base to Radical Peace: People Refusing Waredited by William T. Hathaway. Because of her activism, this piece is posted anonymously to Young Anabaptist Radicals.
To celebrate Armed Forces Day the military base near my seminary held an open house, a public relations extravaganza to improve their image and boost recruiting. They invited the public in for a marching band parade, a precision flying show, and a sky diving demonstration. They even offered free lemonade and cookies.
A subversive seminarian, namely me, decided to disrupt the festivities and remind people that the military’s job is murder. I bought a jump suit and dyed it orange like the uniforms the prisoners in Guantánamo have to wear. I bought two U-shaped bike locks, three diapers, and a pair of rubber underpants.
All suited up, I had a friend drive me onto the base before people started arriving for the celebration. She dropped me off at the traffic circle just inside the main gate, kissed me on the cheek for good luck, and drove back out the gate. In the center of the traffic circle stood a flagpole flying the Stars and Stripes. I ran to the pole, fastened my foot to it with one bike lock and my neck to it with the other – pretty uncomfortable – and started shouting, “Close Guantánamo! No More Abu Ghraibs! Free the Prisoners!” People gawked as they drove by, some laughing like I was part of the show, some waving, some giving me the finger.
One of the things I’ve noticed in my work as outreach coordinator for Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) is that the least well known project is CPT’s work with aboriginal peoples here in North America. So this spring I decided to spend time on the Aboriginal Justice team in order to support the team better and understand the struggles of our indigenous partners.
I just returned from Kenora, Ontario, home of one of Ontario’s major paper mills and supply town for many indigenous communities in the area. We also spent a week at Grassy Narrows, also known as (the reserve of the) Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabe.
During my time at Grassy Narrows, for the first time in my life I saw first hand the continuing effects of the 500-year history of colonization and genocide on this continent. It’s a testimony to the effectiveness of white settlement and ethnic cleansing; I had never come face to face with these realities before in a personal way.
This request arrived in the YAR inbox last week. I hope YAR readers can help.
I’m a member of a young women’s (mid to late 20s) bible study group. We are sick of the “regular” bible studies and I’m writing to see if you can recommend anything a little more non-traditional, thought provoking and discussion encouraging….we are looking for something that would involve questions being asked in order to encourage/help focus discussion.
What we are looking for is something with a short text section that could be read by the leader for the week, based on something in the bible, or even just an issue in Christian culture, current events – we’re pretty open. We then would like to have questions which would help facilitate discussion on the topic presented in the text. Most of us don’t have lots of time to do readings/prepare ahead of time, so we appreciate sessions that allow us to focus on one topic the night we meet and then move onto a new/related topic the next week.
Post your suggestion of books or on-line resources to this comment thread or email them to admin@young.anabaptistradicals.org
This post is a followup to my thoughts on the controversy that preceded the release of this book. You can read those thought on the wandering road here, and on YAR here. This post is also on the MWR blog here.
An artist is, first and foremost, someone who sees the world differently than other people and helps others to see the world in that way.
Rob Bell is not a theologian; he’s an artist.
Bell’s new book Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of every person who ever lived should be first and foremost understood as a work of art. From the vivid imagery and stories that he uses, down to the careful arrangement of words on the page for visual effect, Bell does a masterful job of evoking questions, providing insights and causing the reader to see age-old questions in new ways. (more…)
The other day we held one of our regular Anabaptist Network in South Africa (ANiSA) discussion groups. We began to tackle the book entitled Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing written by the co-directors of the Center for Reconciliation at Duke University, Chris Rice and Emmanuel Katongole.
We began to talk about the title of the book. What is reconciliation? Do we need to reconcile all things? Is this realistic within the South African context? Is it realistic in general?
Is reconciliation realistic? A story that was told about a group that came together for a training event to explore themes of ecology and faith. As part of the process, this group underwent an intensive time together, working to build trust with one another so that they would be able and ready to delve into topics that waited to be explored. Building trust in this group was, at first, particularly difficult. The group was racially mixed, bringing together people who had particular assumptions about the other racial groups. This group, however, ended up coming together like no other group had as they broke down the barriers and assumptions that had been constructed and learnt about one another, about each other’s story, and ultimately gained a level of trust for one another.
Is this relationship, this trust, sustainable? This is a valid question. After such a workshop the participants will head back to their different contexts and re-integrate into the community they left; the same community that continues to hold the assumptions that they too held before coming together for this training. Is reconciliation realistic given that people will return and reintegrate into the contexts that continue the life inherited within an unjust context and system, which continues to be socially, racially, and economically segregated? Will the participants of this training event, where racial barriers were broken down, continue to feel part of the reconciled community when they head back to their given context?
In the first article of this series, I did a broad overview of the bureaucratization trends in the Mennonite Church. In the second article, I looked specifically at the philosophy of institutions put forth by J. Lawrence Burkholder and practiced by James Brenneman and Howard Brenneman as presidents of Goshen (Ind.) College and Mennonite Mutual Aid respectively. In this third part I’ll look at the history of this thought in the Anabaptist tradition as well as Mennonite and feminist critique of Neihbur and Burkholder. I’ll continue to draw heavily from The Limits of Perfection: A Conversation with J. Lawrence Burkholder as well as The Feminist Case against Bureaucracy.
This Sunday, I just couldn’t bear church service any longer.
These last days, I followed the horrible news from Japan closely: First, the strongest earth quake, in recorded history causing a tsunami that swept away half a city. Together these two disasters already took at least ten thousand lives. Then comes the nuclear melt down, or not melt down, the news and officials contradict each other, but even the most harmless descriptions of what happens in Fukushima sound horrible.
And then there’s also still Gaddaffi, who slaughters his own people and injustices we don’t even see anymore because we’ve become so used to them. Oh, and I have my Abitur (final German high school exams) coming, which doesn’t really scare me, but should actually have all my attention right now.
So this Sunday morning I’m watching the news and again I’m praying for Japan, praying for the nuclear plant not to melt down but I’m also just f*&%ing afraid of what the speaker is saying next, because all he’s saying conjures a worse and worse picture in my mind. The speaker of the German government talks about how we can’t have a tsunami in Germany and that nuclear power is only a „bridge technology“ meant to be replaced by alternative energies in a few years, but does not say how we ever get passed nuclear energy if we allow the owners of these plants to take all the profits while the state pays for the damages and for the development of alternative energies. The opposition is being critized as „lacking sympathy for the dead and politicising this catastrophe because of the near election“ for demanding we finally shut down our own nuclear plants.
Devastated and looking for solace I went to church — where we sang praise. Songs glorifying God for his awesomeness. (more…)
Is Gandhi in hell?  What’s more, what is hell?  Or heaven, for that matter?
These are some of the questions that have sparked a bit of a firestorm around Rob Bell’s new bookLove Wins: a book about heaven hell and the fate of everyone who ever lived.  This first came across my radar screen when I read a post on Tony Jones’s blog late last week about the growing attention and criticism about this book.  Then I did some searching and saw that it has even made a splash on the national news scene from CNN to ABC.
Here’s the book promo video:
Controversy in and of itself isn’t surprising with Rob Bell.  That’s happened before.  What is striking is that judgment has been leveled by a number of people who haven’t even read the book yet because it has not yet been released!
Ultimately the controversy stems from the fact that Bell is raising core questions about issues that are central to the Christian faith.  He has posed the questions in ways that have led some to conclude that Bell is promoting something called Universalism; a doctrine where everyone gets saved, no matter what.  Again, these are all assumptions because none of his critics have actually read the book yet.  The only worthwhile critique I’ve read so far is Greg Boyd’s, namely because he actually has read the book.  (As a side note, as an Anabaptist, it’s worth paying attention to Boyd partly because he’s grown very close to Mennonites in recent years, even flirting with the idea of joining MCUSA.) (more…)
When we left the first part in this series, I promised that the second part would look specifically at Mennonite educational organizations and the case of James Brenneman and J. Lawrence Burkholder. However, I’d like to start by giving some background on J. Lawrence Burkholder and his influence with another Mennonite institution: the institution formerly known as Mennonite Mutual Aid (MMA), now Everence.
I first became familiar with this story in Keith Graber Miller’s piece “Mennonite Mutual Aid: A Margin of Difference.” In it he tells the story of MMA adopting the practice of underwriting. The practice meant that healthier people would pay less for their insurance policies and sicker people would pay more or be denied coverage all together. It was seen by some in MMA’s leadership as necessary for the survival of the institution. Underwriting had become the norm among most insurance companies at the time. But in practice, it would have a painful impact on sick or at-risk people who would be denied coverage, and it was difficult for those in MMA who were responsible for denying them aid in their time of need. In 1988, an MMA task force went so far as to say that strict underwriting was “contrary to the mission of MMA.” The report also said, “We are caught between those conflicting needs of serving the church and being a sound business.”
A child dying in the streets of the crowded Warsaw Ghetto, where hunger and disease killed 43,000 in 1941 alone.[92]
You told me that:
“This is your house and you can say whatever you want in it.”
Indeed it is your house
&
You can say whatever you want in it.
Last night
You went on
about
The International Jew
&
how they and the Freemasons
are secretly plotting
on how they
can take over the world
&
how Hilter must’ve
killed all
those Jews
for a good reason…
because no one kills six million
people for no reason. (more…)
Greetings from a not so young Anabaptist radical. Warning: lots of name-dropping ahead!
