The Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective was developed in 1995, and is the most recent systematic statement of belief for Mennonite Church USA. 

Over the course of the next several months, we will be releasing “roundtable posts”, featuring two to three members of Mennonite Church USA congregations reflecting on an article from the Confession of Faith and how it impacts their ministry, congregational life and theology. We’ll move through the articles in numerical order. You can read all the past posts online. 

Today’s authors are reflecting on Article 8: Salvation. Writers appear in alphabetical order. 

Meghan Good is Teaching Pastor at Trinity Mennonite Church in Glendale, Arizona.

One of the things I most appreciate about the Mennonite perspective on faith is the holistic vision of salvation. Just as sin for Mennonites involves omissions and commissions, individuals and groups, co-optive systems and personal choices (article 7), so the deliverance from sin that salvation entails must be equally far-reaching and integrative. We are saved from death, from oppressive spiritual powers, from oppressive human systems, from our personal addictions, from our societal compulsions, from the hells we fear and the hells we create.

One of the particular joys of proclaiming salvation in the context of an Anabaptist community is our ability to declare God’s healing intent toward every piece of the world that is broken. There is nowhere we experience pain or bondage that Christ is not actively engaged in the work of deliverance. The promise of salvation is not merely an inward experience but a growing external reality.  This is incredibly good news!

In my own congregation, we sometimes talk about salvation as a “transfer of citizenship.” We transfer our citizenship from an old world of death to a new kingdom of life, under the rule of Christ.  This metaphor helps to emphasize the corporate element of salvation. Individuals make this transfer personally, voluntarily, yet salvation by its very nature involves incorporation into a people—into a new society, the company of citizens of the new world.

In my opinion, perhaps the most challenging part of the Salvation article for many Mennonites is the statement “we are saved by God’s grace, not by our own merits.” While many might give lip-service to this notion, in practice the frequent Mennonite emphasis on service, sacrifice and discipleship often leaves many believers with a secret feeling of spiritual inadequacy or with the burdensome sense that the deliverance of the world rests upon their shoulders.

Our Confession of Faith reminds us that the burden of salvation belongs to God alone.  \We would be able to practice our discipleship with greater joy if we found a way to really embrace the truth that because of Christ we are received by grace and have nothing left to prove. We could practice our healing mission as the church with greater freedom if we embraced the truth that Christ is the guarantor of the world’s reconciliation and that it is by his power that all things will be made well.

Eligio and Juanita Nunez are co-pastors of Iglesia Cristiana Ebenezer in Apopka, Florida.

What stands out to me in this article is the amazing love of God for humanity and what he was willing to do to solve our issue of slavery to sin. He gave his son so that we can achieve the salvation of our souls and the forgiveness of our sins. This ultimately leads to us receiving his gift of eternal life and to an intimate and personal relationship with him. The saving grace of God is unmatched and it is no work for any man to boast or try to bring glory upon himself.

This article is based on our understanding of Scripture and therefore we would consider it the theology that is aligned to the Word of God. It is also our rule of faith and practice.

It helps us stay focused on the correct theology. We can do this with our eyes on the author and finisher of our faith, our Lord, Jesus Christ.

When Christ gave his blood on the cross of Calvary, he redeemed us and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. What a great privilege and a great responsibility for those who have experienced the grace of salvation!

J Denny Weaver is a member of Madison (Wisconsin) Mennonite Church and an emeritus professor of religion at Bluffton (Ohio) University.

In Article 8, I see a smorgasbord of terms and formulas that will enable anyone from the conservative to the liberal end of the theological spectrum to find his or her particular favored term or image for depicting salvation. Atonement images then present various explanations of how Jesus made salvation available.

The commentary lists three traditional images of atonement as though they exist as above history, unquestioned givens that are true in and of themselves. It also claims that each of these assumed-true givens has biblical support.

But these images ought not be given the status of unquestioned givens. They all have a history. They were written by people, actually by men, and historians can discover their first occurrences and the history of how they have come down to the present time. Only when an image is separated from its earliest appearances and its historical context is forgotten can it be given the status of an above-history unquestioned given. And when a statement is granted that status, it is actually quite easy to find individual texts from Scripture that plug into it and seem to validate it.

In actuality, the later images to appear were each developed by writers who wished to refute or reject earlier ideas. To claim that all three images are true and have biblical support is actually to deny a part of the image one claims to accept. Furthermore, God never wrote any theology. No statement written by people should be given the status of unquestioned, assumed-true given. Thus some theories can actually be abandoned without threatening the idea of salvation.

In this regard, particularly questionable is substitutionary atonement, the second image mentioned in the commentary. This image poses Jesus as an innocent victim of undeserved suffering, who was sent by God to die to pay a penalty required by God as the price of forgiveness for sinful humans. When coupled with the idea of following the example of Jesus, this is a harmful image—even a dangerous one—particularly for women in abusive relationships and for people living under colonial or military occupation. It also features the image of a God who uses violence and who bases salvation on violence.

In my understanding, theology should be derived from the story of Jesus. That narrative is the basis of what it means to be Christian. Theology is the words we use to explain and derive meaning from Jesus’ story—his life, teaching, death and resurrection. Salvation occurs when we accept the invitation of the resurrection to become part of Jesus’ story and then live in such a way as to continue to give visibility to his story in our world.