A number of Mennonite churches are leaving their conferences and denominations due to bypassing biblical commandments on the sin of homosexuality. An article in the Feb. 14, 2011, MWR stated that 14 churches had left Mennonite Church USA in the previous two years and that between 2000 and 2007 about 120 congregations exited. These reportedly accounted for the bulk of a net loss of 191 congregations and more than 15,000 members between 2000 and 2010. Lately, some of our largest congregations have voted to leave conferences due to the homosexual issue. What would our former leaders like Walter Beachy, Earl Graybill, Nelson Roth, Sanford Shetler, J. Otis Yoder or George Brunk II think of today’s turmoil? That a Mennonite church would install a committed homosexual as a pastor is unthinkable. Are the blind leading our sheep? Has our church lost its saltiness? Will we become known as the church of the depraved instead of the redeemed?

Ken Yoder
Meadville, Pa.