Young Anabaptist Radicals

Young Anabaptist Radicals

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My Problem with “Opening the Floodgates”

I had a lot of great discussions with Katie (and other YAR’s) this week at San Jose. Katie asked that I write a post about how I, as someone who did not grow up in the church, understand what the church teaches about queer sexuality.

First of all, I will say that, generally, Christian thought about same-sex sexuality appears backwards to me. It seems to neglect our Lord’s commandment to love and instead go around being Satan (which, I learned, is translated as “prosecutor”). And the old “love the sinner, hate the sin” thing isn’t the commandment – love is unconditional, and what you are saying when you say “love the sinner, hate the sin” is “I love you but…”, which is conditional. There are serious pitfalls in this thinking (and, I will admit, even in my own on the subject).

Another problem I find in the teaching of sexuality is what I call Floodgate theory
but which can be identified as the “slippery slope fallacy”. What is Floodgate Theory? (more…)

July 7, 2007 Loyalty, Media, Poll Read more >

San Jose YAR Meetup

I was really excited to meet some of the YAR authors/lurkers at the San Jose conference this week, to hear of the kind of things you are doing inside and outside the Church, and to hear the insights you had about the future of the church.

On Wed, July 4th, several YAR authors and sympathizers had dinner and discussed issues that they felt were pressing in the church. Here are my notes from the meeting. (more…)

July 7, 2007 Church, Community, Meta (YAR), Theology, Travel, Young Folks Read more >

Mennonite Conventions: What Happened to Stewardship?

Let me start with a disclaimer, no I’m not in San Jose at the convention, and yes I would love to be there. I was in Charlotte for a couple days a few years ago and I attended the Nashville convention but I’m no expert on the whole convention model. I think that it is a good and healthy thing for the church to gather in a large body to discuss important issues, worship, and fellowship together. I think these things should all continue to happen at Mennonite conventions (or assemblies, is that the more correct term?). However, I have two main concerns with the current convention model. One, is it really necessary to spend thousands of dollars on renting out convention centers in large cities (where there usually aren’t that many Mennonites) and then having all the participants stay in hotels. Now this could be a question simply of numbers, are there just not large enough buildings to host joint worships of thousands (other than in large cities)? However, would it be totally unthinkable to have a Mennonite convention in an area with significant Mennonite infrastructure? (more…)

July 6, 2007 Stewardship Read more >

Meeting the Church

I haven’t taken much time on this blog to talk about myself. I should say that I am an outsider in this church – my last name isn’t Yoder, Miller, Freisen, or Moshier.

I have only been a Christian for 9 months; the Mennonite congregation I attend (a beautiful place that I hope my new-found YAR friends can come see some day) was evangelical merely by their presence – they were spiritually formative by aligning speech and action and desire and vision. I would not want to be any place else.

I am writing from the convention in San Jose; I have been here since yesterday and will be leaving tomorrow (short time, I know, but I’m a busy guy).

I am coming to learn why it is frustrating to penetrate the Mennonite world: there are a lot of people who make money off of being Mennonite. (more…)

July 4, 2007 Church, Community, Group Identity, History, Tradition, Travel, Young Folks Read more >

Blog from San Jose

I’m writing from the Mennonite Church USA Churchwide Assembly in San Jose. I’ll try to keep some updates coming as I have time and content. I’m here more as a delegate from my congregation than as BMC staff but of course I still have similar concerns whether I’m wearing a BMC hat or just the Katie hat.The speaker at tonight’s adult worship session was Juan Martinez. I didn’t know of him before but you can read a bit about him here. As I listened to him speak, I was reminded once again that the church has a long way to go. The reason I say this isn’t because I disagreed with much of what he had to say, I felt he was right on as he spoke of the need for the church to deconstruct boundaries and break down walls. He spoke of the church needing to able to change and deal with diversity and I was there with him. I wish I took notes at these kind of things because then I would be able to give a better idea of his words to those gathered tonight. I’ll try to get my notebook out more the rest of the week so I can give better synopses.The thing that bothered me was that as he was talking about deconstruction and breaking down walls, and boundaries and such it was clear he was talking about language, race, and culture boundaries (maybe even gender, wish I had those notes that I didn’t take) and anything outside of that gets a little fuzzy. When I hear a good speaker talk about themes like this, I tend to apply the inspiring words to my own experience and think how well it all fits but, as far as I could tell, he wasn’t talking about some walls the church needs to deconstruct (or if he was, he wasn’t making that clear with his words). He wasn’t talking about the boundaries that push lgbt people out or tell them they are unworthy. He wasn’t talking about the walls for heterosexism, homophobia, and transphobia. (more…)

July 3, 2007 Church, Current Events, LGBTQ Read more >

Bible Verse of the Day 07-02-07

This one’s for you, Lora. ;-)

Numbers 1:5-16

“These are the names of the men who are to assist you: from Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur; from Simeon, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai; from Judah, Nahshon son of Amminadab; from Issachar, Nethanel son of Zuar; from Zebulun, Eliab son of Helon; from the sons of Joseph: from Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud; from Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur; from Benjamin, Abidan son of Gideoni; from Dan, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai; from Asher, Pagiel son of Ocran; from Gad, Eliasaph son of Deuel; from Naphtali, Ahira son of Enan.” These were the men appointed from the community, the leaders of their ancestral tribes. They were the heads of the clans of Israel.”

:-D

July 2, 2007 History, Israel, The Bible Read more >

Time and Place for YAR gathering in San Jose

For YAR writers and readers out there who are attending San Jose 2007, we’ve decided to gather for supper on Wednesday evening at 5:30 pm at the Tandori Restaraunt at 109 S. First Street (link to a map of the location on Google). This will be an opportunity to put some faces with the names we’ve been seeing on this blog for the last 10 months. See you there! If you need to get in touch with me you can call me at 312-505-7461.
Feel free to invite people who are interested in writing for YAR.

July 2, 2007 Meta (YAR) Read more >

What’s happening in Gaza?

This is another proxy-post by Rich, written for CPTnet and copied here with permission:

North American media have again found one of their favorite stories in the fighting between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza — Palestinians bent on killing, incapable of arranging their political lives without massacres. Without claiming to have the complete story, I can at least interject some additional perspectives that call for deeper interpretation. For example, I saw Fatah and Hamas legislators in Hebron walk arm-in-arm down Ain Sara Street, on a day when five of their colleagues died in a gun-battle in Gaza. OK, at least that says that Hebron is not Gaza. But what is behind the fighting in Gaza?

Last week in Gaza, Hamas fighters finally drove Fatah fighters out of the Office of Preventive Security — that’s a police headquarter building, basically. Maybe North American reporters have forgotten that there was an election in Gaza and the West Bank early in 2006 — by all accounts a free, fair, multiparty democratic election. The voters chose new government, Hamas, by an overwhelming majority. Now, another way to describe this result would be to say that the electorate “sent the Fatah incumbents packing.” At least, in most places, it would mean that. But in this case the United States government objected to the choice of the Palestinian voting public, and acted in a variety of ways to stop the incumbent party from handing over the institutions of government to the winning party. So the Fatah legislators, bureaucrats and officials did not pack up — they stayed. That’s why they were still there in control of this police station more than a year later.
(more…)

July 2, 2007 Foreign Policy, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Media, Palestine, Peace & Peacemaking Read more >

The Emerging Church and Anabaptists


A few weeks ago, Dave over at the Mindful Mission posted out a number of blog posts by members of the Emerging movement looking at the similarities between the Emerging church and Anabaptists. Dave attends Living Water Community Church, an energetic urban Mennonite congregation that Charletta and I have been attending since January.

Since reading Dave’s post I’ve become more and more aware of some of the connections between the emerging church movement. Two weeks ago, Encounter, a program on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National did an extensive radio interview with Jarrod McKenna, an emerging church leader and Anabaptist leaders in Australia. It’s well worth a listen. (more…)

June 29, 2007 Emerging Church, submergent Read more >

an ordination sermon

I attended the ordination service this past Sunday at James Street Mennonite Church. I recorded most of the service with a hand held digital recorder and thought some of you might find the sermon interesting. A little background first: Elizabeth Nissley, who has been an associate pastor at James Street since 2002, was ordained; Lancaster district bishop Linford King also received the ordination credentials for Kathy Keener Shantz. (Her credentials had been held by Pacific Southwest.)

The sermon was preached by Jane Hoober Peifer, pastor of Blossom Hill Mennonite Church, and it can be downloaded here. Thanks to Denver for uploading it for me.

June 29, 2007 Change, Discipleship, Faith, Gender Read more >

Young Anabaptist Radicals in The Mennonite

Since the middle of May, we’ve been publishing weekly summaries of Young Anabaptist Radicals blog posts in TMail, the new weekly email of The Mennonite. In exchange for a years worth of summaries (written by various YAR authors), next year in May The Mennonite will be making a $1000 donation to the AMIGOS fund to help Mennonite, Brethren in Christ and Anabaptist-related young people from all over the world to attend the Global Youth Summit (GYS) in Paraguay 2009. Read more about this effort on the Mennonite World Conference web site.

If you’d like to subscribe to TMail, you can do so from the front page of The Mennonite in the green box on the right hand side of the page. Along with the blog summaries it includes a selection of articles from the print magazine and some weekly columns.

Finally, if you’re a YAR author and interested in helping to write a few weeks worth of summaries, email admin@young.anabaptistradicals.org

June 25, 2007 Meta (YAR) Read more >

Our hopes and dreams for church

Hello YAR internet community,

A quick plug for “BikeMovement the Documentary — A young adult perspective on church” that will premiere at San Jose 2007 Mennonite convention and be available for sale on-line in about a week. For those of you who don’t know, BikeMovement was a group of young adults who biked across the United States last summer talking about young adults and church. (BikeMovement involves more then just this, including a recent biking trip through Asia, but for the purpose of this post, I’ll focus on young adults and church in North America.)

BikeMovement has been asked to share 5-7 minutes during the delegate session on the topic, “What are hopes and dreams of young adults for the future church.” While we’ve conversed with young adults all across the country, finding an answer to that question is a rather daunting task since it sometimes feels like we are all over the board on that question.
(more…)

June 23, 2007 Change, Church, Emerging Church, Mennonite Church USA, Young Folks Read more >

Welcome to the Gaza Zoo

For all who have been trying to follow recent events in the Gaza Strip–and for those who haven’t, for lack of any intelligible point of entry–direct your attention to Tabula Gaza, a blogger living in the area. The blog is full of incisive political commentary, ground-level observations, and stories about local folks. I’ve found it much more helpful than news reports in most cases (though he’s not attempting to ‘report’ anything), since it’s so much easier to understanding what’s happening when you hear what’s happening to the police officer down the street or the children next door.

June 23, 2007 Blog, Current Events Read more >