“I wanted to tell you personally, before you found out from anyone else,” my friend said over the phone one day. “We’re not going to be ‘Mennonite’ anymore.”
Okay. What does that mean? I wondered.
“Our values haven’t changed, we just don’t feel it is necessary to be Mennonite.”
I listened patiently, my mind running with questions. I get you. Totally. But how is that any different than what you before?
“We just simply feel it’s time we’re true to ourselves. That we follow God and not a cultural norm. Although we fear being judged and misunderstood, this feels like the right next step.”
Are you suggesting anyone who doesn’t leave the Mennonite church only remains because it’s cultural? Do you think I am only following a tradition and not God? And now I can’t ask you any questions because you’ll think I’m judging you. What am I supposed to say?
“Yeah… I understand,” I said.
*This is Part 3 of a 5-Part seres called “What’s the Big Deal about Being Mennonite?” Catch up with Part 1 and Part 2.
While this particular conversation is fictitious, I have heard many versions of it in the last number of years. One by one, different people I know of, respect—even some close friends—are stepping away from the Mennonite “tradition” and letting go of “Mennonite baggage.” I find myself left with some gut-wrenching questions.
I have deep respect for everyone I have personally spoken with about this. I truly do understand the frustration, the tension of trying to participate with a church I don’t always feel on the same page with. What I share in this post is the most vulnerable thing for me to put online to date, because I am going to be wrestling with questions I have that people close to me may be affected by. I seek to do so as lovingly and gently as possible. I don’t claim to know the heart and motive of anyone leaving or having left the Mennonite church. But I have reservations about what I’m seeing. There’s another side that I feel needs to be told that can’t be told because it will be lumped in with the “traditional mantra” or misunderstood as “rebellious antagonist.”
Most people who have commented on this series so far (especially on the Facebook threads) have strong opinions one way or the other. Either they are totally done with the Mennonite church, or they can’t understand in the least what is being talked about in this series.
There is a wide vacuum of people who are silent. People who don’t want to cause conflict. People who, like me, have had a good experience in their Mennonite upbringing, but also see areas of weakness that need radical change.
Only, they’re at a loss for how to change it because either they’re written off as a rebel, or their questions and comments are hijacked by people with an agenda for the opposite of the Mennonite tradition.
Allow me, if for a moment, to wrestle aloud with the questions of someone who identifies with his friends who are leaving, but is concerned with whether we’re finding anything better.
What does it mean to not be “Mennonite” anymore? What did it mean to be Mennonite? And how does one “leave the Mennonite church” and not change their values? What are Mennonite values? And does a change in physical appearance demonstrate a change in one’s values? Does the physical appearance have anything to do with one’s values? What are values?
The reason I always get a tight knot in my stomach whenever I hear the opening conversation is because I am not Mennonite only because my parents are Mennonite. I have no qualms admitting that if my parents were something else, I would likely be that as well. I think it’s rather silly to try denying that reality. Just as it is silly to suggest that reality is faulty reason to stay whatever one has always been. It’s not a faulty reason if someone has wrestled through heart and faith questions and found what he has always believed actually does provide the most compelling answers for those questions. Just as it is not faulty if someone realizes what he has always believed does not actually answer deep questions.
We all follow what seems to answer our questions best.
We also all wrestle with different questions, because we all have different experiences.
There’s nothing wrong with questions. There’s nothing wrong with questioning one’s belief system. It doesn’t mean someone is rebellious or badmouthing.
It means someone is searching.
And if we’re going to cultivate people who are deeply confident in truth, then we need to be okay with and provoke people to search out truth.
And by the way, confidence in truth doesn’t mean one has answers to all the questions. Trying to answer every question can actually shake one’s confidence in truth.
Developing confidence in truth means figuring out which questions are most essential, and then seeing who has an answer for them (and which answer is most compelling).
We could debate over the definition of compelling, but I’m using it as a word to describe an answer that makes sense within the worldview it prescribes to, and that the worldview it prescribes to jives most cohesively with what I experience. Naturally, then, what is compelling will vary from person to person. The goal isn’t that one answers solve everyone’s questions, but that we each are allowed to seek out compelling answers and share them with each other so as to help each other grow.
And if we’re going to pursue truth at all, and if we’re going to dabble in “religion,” we must consider the reality of a Creator. I believe the Christian worldview (that there is one God represented in three persons who made everything and inspired men to write His design, His story into books which is now compiled into one book known as the Bible) provides the most compelling answers for our origin. I realize there are many nuances within what I just described as a “Christian worldview,” and that’s fine. This post is not about the Christian worldview, much less origins. I am simply laying the base from which I understand truth.
A base I am sure most of my readers have as their starting point for truth.
And if that is true, then shouldn’t any of our decisions, whether to leave one denomination for another or to stay, be founded upon becoming more faithful to God and His Word?
Where do we get the idea that following Christ is about being “true to ourselves”? I realize authenticity is a buzz idea for our generation, an idea I believe is quite biblical. God does not want sacrifice if it is not coming from a heart who truly longs to do as He wishes (Ps. 51:16-17).
But true authenticity, true peace with oneself, and with God, comes from confessing with my mouth and believing in my heart that what Jesus did on the cross actually fully reconciled me with God, so that I am now free from myself to live for Him (Ro. 5:1, 6:17-18 Gal. 5:13-16).
If being “true to myself” means living a life that is not true to God’s Word, then I am not any more in the right.
And what about values? What values are we talking about when we say, “our values haven’t changed”? Because there are a lot of changes that happen when someone leaves the Mennonite church. Many physical, visible changes in dress or activities of one’s lifestyle. Isn’t it true that we behave according to our values? So, either we were faking values all along, or our values actually have changed. And if they have changed, are they now more aligned with God’s Word?
If they haven’t changed, who’s to say we’re still not faking? How do we know we’re not just trading in one ideology for another?
Let me be clear, I am not asking these questions in condemnation of anyone. I don’t claim to know the motive or heart of people, even if they have made choices I don’t agree with.
I’m simply writing down the questions that run through my heart and mind as I watch many people leave.
I believe most people who become disgruntled with the Mennonite church are so, originally, because of the churches bad theology or an inability to live out the truly radical life Christ calls us to. In other words, their being disgruntled is “well justified.”
But I wonder, sometimes, if somewhere along the line it doesn’t move from wanting to be more biblical to wanting to no longer be Mennonite. I wonder this because there are actually large swaths of evangelicals that are beginning to adopt more Anabaptist theology. People who are coming from evangelical backgrounds and are open to God’s Word seem more open to Anabaptist interpretations of Scripture then some of those who are leaving their Anabaptist church.
To be sure, I am not suggesting that if one is truly open to God and the best interpretation of Scripture he will end up Anabaptist. Rather, I’m asking if when we leave the Anabaptist church, we’re not actually more concerned about getting away from Anabaptists then we are with becoming more faithful to God and His Word.
Hear me out a little further, I don’t know that we should be concerned with someone who wants to get away from the Anabaptist church. I’m not sure that’s wrong.
Whenever anyone wants out from something so badly they want nothing to do with it again, it signals deep pain or confusion. Maybe even abuse. They need the space to take a journey. And they need to be allowed to end up someplace that isn’t necessarily where we are. As they find healing from whatever pain or clarity for whatever confusion is back there, they will better be able to embrace whatever truth may have been there as well.
Some of you who are most desperate to defend the Mennonite (or Anabaptist) church will likely get distracted by some of my illustrations that aren’t true of your experience. But please don’t miss the greater message. The fact that it’s not true of your experience doesn’t mean we can ignore those for whose experience it is true.
If we truly do care about walking in faithfulness to God and His Word, if we truly aren’t simply holding on to some cultural lifestyle, then we must get to the heart of these issues. We must gently seek to understand people’s stories if we hope to maintain any kind of influence in their life. Sticking our heads in the sand because “It’s not our experience” isn’t going to help anyone.
Unless what we’re wanting to help them with is leave the Mennonite church.
At the same time, I am left in a quandary with what is really going on when someone leaves? Take the veiling, for instance. If someone chooses to no longer wear a head veiling, what does she do with 1 Corinthians 11? If her goal really is being as most faithful to God and His Word as possible, how can she explain away something that is in God’s Word?
Now, I realize there are many dynamics that go into the best interpretation of Scripture. We need to understand cultural and historical contexts in which each book was written. But unless the text indicates a direct cultural distinction to what is being taught, to write it off as cultural is to essentially say “I’m not going to go where the text leads.”
I’m all for letting go of the head veiling if the text in 1 Corinthians 11 isn’t actually saying women should cover their heads. But no matter what angle I seek to understand that passage, the most obvious conclusion I can find is that Paul is saying women should in fact cover their heads. I have yet to hear a compelling explanation saying that isn’t what Paul is suggesting.
Furthermore, it’s only been in the last hundred years women of any denomination have quit covering their heads. But that’s another post for another time. My point is, if “no longer being Mennonite” means you no longer cover your head, are you leaving because you’re wanting to become more faithful to God’s Word?
But I’m also beginning to wonder if this isn’t actually secondary. While many of us want to be faithful to God’s Word, I think at a deeper level we’re not even sure if we know God.
I think most of us leave because we’re wanting to discover God. And in far too many Anabaptist churches there is no place to discover God, unless He clearly fits into our Anabaptist tradition.
But then I guess I wish we were more honest about that. I wish we didn’t try spiritualizing why we’re leaving and, instead, simply say, “I’m not sure I know God.” I wish we were more open to people walking alongside us who are still Mennonite. In my experience, those who leave do more pushing people away than the one’s they are leaving. I realize this is just my experience, but it is something I have noticed.
People who leave in search for life, even some of those who claim they have found life, don’t necessarily demonstrate to me greater life. They can sometimes actually be some of the most exclusive, graceless, narrow-minded people around. Have they truly found something better?
Why such formal announcements when people leave? Why is this something we have to sit down and talk about? You expect me to be upset? What if I’m not upset? What if I want to walk with you?
In fact, what if I have never considered myself “Mennonite” but “a disciple of Christ” even though I still believe things pretty much only Mennonites believe? And if nothing major is going to change, why do you have to tell me about this decision. Something must be about ready to change.
And again, because you’re announcing a change, I am going to have several questions. Only, you’re going to take my questions as if I’m being judgmental or don’t understand or am only brainwashed by culture. You don’t even give me a chance. Do you even want someone like me to have a chance at a word with you? Or are you simply wanting to be able to do what you want with your life and have nobody question it?
These are the questions I have when people leave the Mennonite church.
I love my friends dearly. I realize some of the things I’ve written may sting, and I don’t intend to push anyone away or condemn what anyone has done or said. Some of my questions probably expose that I don’t understand the whole story.
But I’d like to understand. I’d like to walk with people who struggle with church. I care about God’s people, especially those confused and disillusioned.
I hope that by sharing my questions and thought processes on paper we can all grow closer to God together.
Because we desperately need Him.
Again, feel free to share any thoughts you have in the comments below.
