There’s a weird Anabaptist doctrine I don’t think many millennials understand. It might be one of the biggest obstacles for new believers, and the final straw for those who choose to leave.
This doctrine determines, perhaps more than anything else, how we relate with society at large, the clothes we wear, what we do for entertainment, the music we listen to, what kind of jobs we choose, and even the friends we allow into our lives.
Nonconformity.
Separation from the world.
What every conservative Anabaptist feels at some point in their lives (unless they live on an isolated colony) is that they are distinctly different from everyone else around them.
Even other Christians.
Why are conservative Anabaptist different from everyone else, and why will this difference be felt by every conservative Anabaptist at some point in their life?
There are certainly the theological differences that come out as one digs into his or her beliefs, and there are plenty of cultural dynamics that also affect one’s comfortability around others.
But every religious sect has theological differences. Every subgroup of people have cultural dynamics unique to them.
Other articles in this series include:
The doctrine of nonconformity, however, seems expressly focused on outward appearance and uniquely emphasized today by conservative Anabaptists.[1]
This is where we get the idea that we should not wear jewelry, watch movies, drink alcohol, smoke, have medical or life insurance, wear lay-down suits and ties, listen to contemporary music, have long hair, play organized sports, and so much more.
“Is it wrong to ______?” probably comes from an awareness of the doctrine of nonconformity, even if one wasn’t conscious of such an awareness.
We are not to be conformed to this world, so conservative Anabaptists have done their best to distinctly separate themselves from anything worldly.
The reason I don’t think millennials understand this very well is because we as millennial Anabaptists increasingly do more and more “worldly” things.
I think, in part, we do these things because the doctrine of nonconformity has become a permeation of our greater theology. However, we’re rarely taught how anyone derives this doctrine from Scripture, much less how any scriptural references to this doctrine are speaking of specifically external things.
Rather, we simply throw the phrase “we are to be set apart” or “we are not to be conformed to this world” around whenever making decisions about something external.
It’s a part of our culture—a strong part of our culture. But I don’t think millennials really know why.
And I’ll be honest, if the doctrine of nonconformity is simply suggesting that we should not embrace the fashions of this world or enjoy the entertainment other people in the world enjoy—in other words, if this doctrine is all about being noticeably different from the world—I don’t really buy into it either.
But could there be something more to it? Could there be something deeper and even more biblically profound?
Could it be this doctrine actually leads to something especially beautiful?
You see, there is a growing sense among my generation that it really doesn’t matter what we do.
It really doesn’t matter what clothes we wear, music we listen to, movies we watch, restaurants we frequent, books we read, sporting events we take in, as long as “my heart is right with God.”
In fact, most of us are probably rolling our eyes even at some of the suggestions I’m giving. We’re tired of so much focus on externals.
And I get it. I feel a little awkward throwing these suggestions out there.
But I’m seeing something happen in my generation that concerns me.
So if you’ll bear with me, I’d like to walk us through an evaluation of where we’re at, what the doctrine of nonconformity evolved from, and how it might positively shape the way we live our lives today.
I hear more talk about being “disillusioned with God” among my generation than I did ten years ago. I’d be tempted to brush it off as the result of getting more experience in life. But as I talk with older folks, I get a clear sense that it hasn’t always been this way. According to Barna, only 10% of Christian twentysomethings have resilient faith today.[2]
Not only are people disillusioned with God, they seem to struggle with a lack of clarity about life, have less meaningful relationships, and face a great deal of anxiety over their experiences with church.[3]
It doesn’t stop there. Depression rates in America have been at an all-time high since the turn of the century.[4] According to the National Institute of Mental Health and the World Health Organization, depression is most common in ages 18 to 25 and it’s considered the world’s leading cause of disability.[5]
I’m beginning to wonder if it really doesn’t matter what we do.
Why is there so much disillusionment? Why is there so much depression? And why all this among people under thirty?
In our attempt to correct a hyper focus on externals, have we communicated a wrong message that you can do and get into anything and it won’t affect you spiritually, emotionally, or mentally?
Could it be that we have created a false dualism within ourselves suggesting that one can watch movies with graphic sex or violent scenes and participate in holidays celebrating the dead without it affecting his outlook on life, ability to hear and commune with God, or passion for things that nurture life and disdain for things that harm it?
And could it be that taking in movies (or books or music) that tell stories championing values contrary to those God says is best for mankind scars our trust, hinders our understanding, or dismantles our satisfaction in the gifts and experiences God has designed for us?
Have we lost hunger for God, himself, in our race away from external focus while being subtly influenced by a need for distraction?
Let’s dig a little deeper.
When I choose clothes to wear, do I make my choice based on a gratefulness for who God is and what he has done for me or based on an inner desire to feel admired, appreciated, or just simply accepted by others?
And could it be that there are millions of subtle choices we make each day where we choose the route that seems as if it will satisfy us, help others notice our significance, protect us from shame (or from the disapproval or anger of others) and that we choose these routes because we don’t feel satisfied, noticed, protected, or approved of by God?
There was an era of European history where Christianity held political power and drove social trends.
We taste this in America because American establishment comes from Europe. Furthermore, the political and social influences that dominate today are remnants of this era in European history.
It’s acceptable to be Christian, if not still respected.
Unlike most of the Christians around the world, Christians in America have the freedom and ability to develop and popularize their art (music, movies, books, paintings).
So in a sense, we still somewhat share the era of history where Christianity has political and social power.
However, it’s different today in that if a Christian pastor loads himself up with all kinds of money from the offerings (money laundering) and spends it all on clothing, experiences, or vehicles (self-indulgence) people are fairly quick to call him out. The church will probably fire him.
We even have Instagram pages pointing out the extravagance of many popular preachers today.
The era in which the doctrine of nonconformity evolved from was not this way.
Lay people were not allowed to call out the hypocrisy and immorality of church leaders.
Clergy sold indulgences to the people as a way of decreasing the punishment a person would receive in Purgatory. We know today that Purgatory (and even more, the idea that one could pay off his punishment) is a false doctrine made by men who clearly were not saturated in God’s story.
But in a day when there weren’t personal Bibles (or many Bibles at all), and when church appointed leaders were the only people recognized as having insight on what the Bible meant, Purgatory was a common belief within Christianity.
Pastors made money off of people paying for their sin. The pastors then took that money and made their lives better. They lived lavishly while others lived in poverty.
Not only that, but clergy were known during this era as being some of the most immoral men of society. They would often have mistresses and or groups of young boys they mentored who would sometimes become their sexual partners.[6]
Also during this era, church membership was based on one’s regional location.
Regardless of personally expressing repentance for sin and faith in Jesus Christ, if a person lived in a Catholic region, he was baptized a member of the Catholic church. If she lived in a Lutheran region, she was baptized a member of the Lutheran church.
As a baptized member of the church, people then had the power to sway decisions and help choose who the priest (or vicar) would be. As a result, many of the church leaders were not even born-again believers.
It was within this context that the young radicals began studying the Bible for themselves. As the printing press was developed, more and more Bibles were printed in the common language so everyone could read and study God’s Word for themselves.[7]
What stood out to the early Anabaptists was that the church is to be made up of committed disciples of Jesus Christ.[8]
The more they understood what that meant, the more they realized “the world would not tolerate the practice of true Christian principles in society, and the church (should) not tolerate the practice of worldly ways among its membership.”[9]
The only way to purify a church that had already been so infiltrated with unsaved members, then, was for the church to completely separate into its own Christian society.
Menno Simons wrote,
All the evangelical scriptures teach us that the church of Christ was and is, in doctrine, life, and worship, a people separated from the world. In the great debate of 1532 at Zofingen, spokesmen of the Swiss Brethren said: The true church is separated from the world and is conformed to the nature of Christ. If a church is yet at one with the world we cannot recognize it is a true church.[10]
Conrad Grebel said it this way:
True Christian believers are sheep among wolves, sheep for the slaughter; they must be baptized in anguish and affliction, tribulation, persecution, suffering, and death; they must be tried with fire and must reach the fatherland of eternal rest not by killing them bodily, but by mortifying their spiritual, enemies.[11]
And so birthed the doctrine of nonconformity. How this looked exactly in a believer’s life or in a church community varied from the Mennonites to the Swiss Brethren to the Hutterites and beyond. And even within those denominations, it evolved into different forms.
One thing was sure, however, for one to walk in the way of Christ and live free from the burdens of the flesh, he is to be separated from the world around him.
In recent years, however, it seems the separation from the world has not been so much about accurately conforming to Christ but about simply looking different.
With every generational turnover there have been and will always be new phenomenas forcing Anabaptists to clarify again what it means to live separately from the world. They will be forced to reckon with what it means to be conformed into the image of Christ and not into the image of their own selves.
But have we missed something as this doctrine got distilled throughout the generations?
Who is conformed to the world: the twenty-one-year-old who plays softball every Saturday night, or the old bishop who boasts an eighty acre farm with newly renovated milking equipment on a pristine hillside setting for his perfectly painted house?
What’s being more like the world: to think that good works get you into heaven, or to think that not wearing a covering keeps you out?
You see, I think we’ve lost what it truly means to be “set apart from the world.”
I think we’ve missed what it means to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.”
And I think our generation is suffering psychologically from solving the problems of one extra-biblical conclusion with another.
The story of scripture is all about God inviting people into a relationship with himself where all their security, all their joy, all their hope, all their inner peace, all their identity is found in Yahweh and the life he designed mankind to experience back in Eden.
It’s a story of the human struggle with constantly looking for security, joy, hope, peace, and identity in things the gods of this fallen world have provided. Often times, these things are perversions of good gifts Yahweh intended for humanity.
But we’re not sure Yahweh’s gifts will actually fulfill.
We don’t trust he can actually supply our need for acceptance, happiness, and peace.
So we get a little more stylish haircut or put on a little more makeup.
We drive a nicer looking car or build a more admirable house.
We work and work and save and save so we’re never left with the hallow feeling of not being able to possess whatever we might lay eyes on that seems to promise a deeper sense of release, a fuller sense of rest, or a greater sense of self-confidence.
The apostle Paul tells us to “not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of (our) mind, so that (we) may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God” (Ro. 12:2).
Back in Eden, Yahweh presented Adam and Eve with the choice to trust his goodness or try and decide for themselves what is best.
He gave them everything they needed for life and warned them that choosing good and evil for themselves would lead to death.
And to understand the significance of Adam and Eve’s choice between the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil we need to understand the Old Testament paints the picture that life comes through walking in a trusting relationship with Yahweh and death comes through trading in that relationship for fellowship with the gods of this world.
Adam and Eve chose the gods of this world.
They chose to carve a path toward a new good and a new evil. Only, it simply led into utter chaos (Gen. 3).
Cain chose the way of the world and murdered his brother out of jealousy instead of trusting Yahweh had his best in mind even though Yahweh did not show regard for his offering (Gen. 4).
Ham chose the way of the world and used his father’s nakedness for his own pleasure instead of trusting Yahweh’s design for sex and properly covering his father again (Gen. 9).
Even the good guys, Abraham and Isaac, chose the way of the world by lying about their wives instead of trusting Yahweh’s promise to bring them safely into the land (Gen. 12 & 26).
This story goes on and on.
Saul sacrificed a burnt offering when his men began to flee instead of trusting that Yahweh would deliver them if only he walked in Yahweh’s design and waited for the priest to offer the sacrifice (1Sam. 13).
David raped Bathsheba, taking sexual pleasure in another man’s wife, instead of trusting Yahweh and gratefully delighting in the wife Yahweh had already given him (2Sam. 11).
Solomon made alliances with kings of foreign nations to build an empire of wealth and prestige instead of trusting Yahweh would protect and fight for them as his chosen nation (1Kings 3:1).
These stories became our stories.
The same plague that haunted Adam and Eve haunts all of humanity through the ages to each of us today.
We become slaves to our work, trusting the stability of steady income instead of accepting our Father’s care for us if we only seek first His kingdom and righteousness (Mt. 6:33).
We immerse ourselves into the noise of media, looking for entertainment instead of spending time in God’s Word embedding the Gospel message deep on our hearts.
Why? Because the quietness of meditating on God’s Word brings to surface all the insecurities, doubts, and emotional and relational conflicts we face on a weekly basis. We’re unconvinced God actually cares, actually is involved, and actually will bring good and peace out of the inner chaos we feel.
The cosmic struggle throughout scripture is over man’s allegiance to Yahweh or gods of this world.
We face depression, anxiety, disillusionment, or lack of clarity because creation is wrought with the reality that the very ones commissioned to rule over it bearing their maker’s image have chosen over and over again to rule bearing their own.
To be conformed to this world is to take on the mindset that we can be God. It is to reach for the idea that we can decide for ourselves what is good and what is evil.
To be transformed by the renewing of our minds is to acknowledge we are not God, we do not decide what is good and what is evil. Yahweh does.
We are not transformed by refusing to wear certain clothes.
We are not transformed by saying spiritual prayers.
We are not transformed by adhering to a strict set of beliefs.
We are not transformed by abstaining from particular foods, activities, or entertainments.
We are transformed by accepting as reality what God calls good and what God calls evil, and allowing it to shape the way we think about this life.
How do we know what God calls good and what he calls evil?
By knowing his story so well that as we go throughout life we can discern what is true, just, and pure (Phil. 4:8, Ro. 12:2).
As we think on these things, we have Holy Spirit ability to recognize truth versus lies, whether we’re having a conversation among religious friends or watching a nineteen second commercial during Monday Night Football.
We can spot misplaced values within our own family contexts or the context of a fictitious drama on screen.
One cannot fake a transformation of the mind. He cannot discipline himself into thinking like Christ. It requires Holy Spirit intervention as he immerses himself in the story of God, hearing the Gospel and believing that Jesus is the anointed son of God (Eph. 1:7-14, 1Co. 1:18-31).
Some circles have made an identity out of being plain and opposite of the world.
They mistakenly call this being transformed by the renewing of their mind.
Jesus taught that a person is not defiled by what comes into her body, but what comes out of it (Mark 7:18-23). If we’re not careful, we can focus on keeping bad stuff out when trying not to be conformed to the world, all the while allowing bad ways of thinking, relating with people, and talking about others to spew out of our innermost being.
We can wash the shell so it’s perfectly clean, mistaking it for transformation. But if it’s hallow and rotten, it is still defiled (Mt. 23:27-28).
When our thoughts, words, and actions begin to reflect the goodness and beauty of God, then we know we are being transformed from the inside out.
Each of us face the choice every day whether we are going to accept by faith that Yahweh’s good is good and his evil is evil or reject it and try deciding things for ourselves. We face the choice of whether we will accept by faith that Christ has given us peace with God (Ro. 5:1), or reject it and try attaining peace through obedience and good works.
What’s most devastating about obedience and good works motivated by an attempt to gain peace with God is that it warps them into superstitious rituals instead of letting them be genuine acts of worship.
Movies, fashions, and activities conform us to the world not because they exist and we partake in them, but because we have bowed to them as the satisfiers of our soul’s deepest needs. But plain suits, homemade jam, and black cars will also conform us to the world if we are thinking that through a simpler way of life God bestows a greater blessing.
You and I are broken at the core of our being.
We default to anything other than God when we’re feeling anxious, lonely, and afraid. When we don’t understand why life has turned out the way it has, when we aren’t sure who to trust, when we don’t feel cared for, we tend to increase the noise, dress-up the physique, and satisfy our bellies (Phil 3:17-21).
This is why movies, fashion, sports, work or anything we turn to becomes dangerous. If we are more immersed in them then we are in God’s Word, we begin believing their truths, thinking thoughts aligned with their thoughts and not thoughts aligned with God’s.
What we really need to do—all of us, every day—is stop and hear the truth that whom the son sets free is free indeed (Jn. 8:36).
Jesus has given you peace with God, do you believe it (Ro. 5:1)?
Jesus has transferred you from a realm of darkness to the kingdom of light, do you embrace it (Co. 1:13)?
Jesus has empowered you to walk in the way of truth and life, will you obey it (Phil. 2:3-13, Eph. 2:1-10)?
Jesus cares so deeply about your wellbeing that he’s given you a letter of how life works best, will you read it (2Tim. 3:14-17)?
This is what it means to have one’s heart right with God. It’s what it means to not be conformed to the world, but transformed by the renewing of the mind.
Question: What comes to your mind when you hear the word “nonconformity”? How does it change your perspective to think in terms of it having to do with whether you evaluate all of life through God’s lenses or through a human/earthly lens and not with whether you are wearing store-bought clothes? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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[1] To be true, I ought to broaden my definition of “conservative Anabaptists” for the purpose of this statement. Conservative Baptists (or many groups within the fundamentalist movement), Holiness, and others would also emphasize separation from the world with a highly external focus. However, each of these groups come to different conclusions on what “separation from the world” looks like. Even within conservative Anabaptists, we differ on how to apply this doctrine.
[2] See https://www.barna.com/research/of-the-four-exile-groups-only-10-are-resilient-disciples/ (accessed October 11, 2019).
[3] See https://www.barna.com/disenfranchised-youth/ (accesses December 20, 2019), https://www.barna.com/research/global-connection-isolation/ (accessed December 20, 2019), and https://www.barna.com/research/what-millennials-want-when-they-visit-church/ (accessed December 20, 2019).
[4] See https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/facts-statistics-infographic#6 (accessed October 11, 2019) and https://www.everydayhealth.com/hs/major-depression/depression-statistics/ (accessed October 11, 2019).
[5] See https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/facts-statistics-infographic#6 (accessed October 11, 2019).
[6] To better grasp the state of the church and its leaders’ morality leading up to the Reformation and the rise of the Anabaptists, I suggest reading chapters 22-25 of Bruce L. Shelley’s book Church History in Plain Language and chapter 1 of Rodney Stark’s book For the Glory of God. Chapter 18 of Marcus A. Yoder’s book Cathedrals, Castles, and Caves gives some perspective as to why lifestyle is so important to Anabaptists.
[7] Yoder, Marcus A. Cathedrals, Castles, and Caves (JPV Press: Winesburg, 2017), pp. 85-100. Shelley, Bruce L. Church History in Plain Language (Thomas Nelson: Nashville, 2008), pp. 247-255.
[8] Bender, Harold. The Anabaptist Vision (CrossReach Publishing. Kindle Edition., 2014), 20.
[9] Ibid., 27.
[10] Ibid., 27-28.
[11] Ibid., 28.
