It’s easy to think that the gay issue is the only issue that has divided the Church, but it seems like Mennonites have something of a “culture of division,” accord to Neu Bruderthaler’s recent post, “A Divided Kingdom?”
Mennonite Legacy of Division
Posted by randallblog on October 24, 2012
http://gaymennonite.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/mennonite-legacy-of-division/
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Churches leave MC-USA for not being anti-gay enough
Churches leave MC-USA for not being anti-gay enough
Neu Bruderthaler
/ October 30, 2012Great blog. Thanks for the link.
While Anabaptism is all too often defined by ourselves and by others in regards to its apparent divisiveness, we have continually over the last 600 years found greater strength in the things that unite us. Regarding the context of the churches leaving MC-USA for other ties, it is yet encouraging to note that the Illinois congregation joined the former Evangelical Mennonite Church conference (FEC). Several other churches who had been formerly separated from their original conferences, including St Paul Fellowship in Minnesota, have found new church conference homes within the Mennonite tradition. At the same time, I also find it encouraging that “independent” churches such as Inter-Faith Mennonite in Calgary, AB, and Germantown have chosen to and been able to retain their distinctive Mennonite identity and ties.
One of the great questions remaining is whether the former pan-Mennonite organizations such as MCC and MWC will be able to reclaim or remain representative of an increasingly polarized cultural and ethnic faith community, and if they will demonstrate the necessary leadership in this direction. Secularism, the ordination of women clergy, economics, recognition of LGBT rights, nationalism, the acknowledged maturity of former mission station churches and urbanization all threaten the basic unity we once assumed as a unified faith and cultural diaspora. Will we continue to allow varying positions on these substantial issues to dis-empower our united culture, or will we continue to work things out and strive to accommodate difference within the church as the Apostles instructed?
Keep up the good work.
‘tag
Neu Bruderthaler