New Voices: By and about young adults

If a stranger asks you about your religion, what do you say? Do you tell her you’re Mennonite, or do you prefer to say Christian?

Most of the Mennonites I know have a clear preference, but they don’t all have the same one. And they often have strong opinions about those who answer differently. Do you tell strangers you’re Mennonite? Well then, maybe you’re ashamed of Christ. Do you tell strangers you’re Christian? Well then, maybe you’re ignorant of your roots.

They’re loaded answers, and they reveal a fault line in our identity. It’s not just different semantics; it’s different ways of seeing ourselves. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, if our youth and young adults aren’t sure how to see their identity either. Do they focus on what Christians have in common, or do they focus on what makes them unique? As a church body, we don’t give them a consistent answer.

For most of my life, our differences have kept me in the church. In high school, Anabaptist history convinced me that I belonged to something important. At my public college, peers and professors showed an interest in my “Mennonite-ness” that they never showed in Christianity. Throughout both stages of my life, whenever I was ready to give up on mainstream Christianity, I didn’t turn from faith. I just nestled deeper into our Mennonite expression of it.

Those experiences laid the bedrock for how I teach Mennonite studies. In fact, they’re probably why I teach Mennonite studies. But recently, through the prodding of a thoughtful colleague and a committed student, I’ve felt God nudging me toward the crack in that bedrock. They’ve challenged me to ask myself, Can we pass on an identity that is Mennonite and ecumenical?

I’m now wondering if the following threefold approach might help us as we pass on our faith:

1. We nurture a longing for common ground.

Even though I’d failed to notice it, this one should be obvious. In fact, we probably all learned it in Kindergarten. When we interact with others, we should start with what we have in common. The same goes for how we define ourselves. When Terry Schellenberg, the vice president external of Canadian Mennonite University, visited my school, he used two lists to define Menno­nites. The first established basic Christian beliefs that would be held by all Christians. They were obvious, which may be why I’ve usually skipped them. But now I’m feeling called to breathe new life into them. What if we consistently reminded our youth and young adults of the beautiful connections they can make outside the Mennonite community? And what if we helped them start building those connections?

2. We nurture a passion for our uniqueness.

Terry’s second list included many of the descriptors we’ve traditionally used to emphasize how we’re different. These were Anabaptist classics such as nonviolence, social justice, simple living and community. Though Mennonites don’t hold a monopoly on any of these, they are undoubtedly tied to the unique way we interpret our past and present. They are the faithful discoveries of a particular path that only we are on. As such, we need to remember that our faith tradition brings something valuable to the Christian body. We may not have all the answers, and we may have much to learn from others, but we’d do a disservice to the broader church if we neglected our particular gifts and contributions.

3. We nurture vigilantly critical minds.

While a longing for common ground and a passion for uniqueness are essential, both can become a problem if we don’t approach them carefully. You don’t have to study our history for long to recognize that the Christian majority isn’t always right. You also don’t have to study it for long to recognize that we aren’t always right either. Whether we’re embracing others or taking pride in ourselves, we need to do so with a constant awareness that both have pitfalls. It’s easy to follow the crowd, and it’s easy to feel self-satisfied. But if we approach ourselves and others with a healthy criticism, we’ll all have more integrity because of it.

In short, I’ve become convinced that we need to make the next generation proud and critical of Christian commonality as well as Mennonite uniqueness. If we do, we may find that choosing to identify as Mennonite or Christian isn’t so divisive anymore. Instead, we’ll all recognize that we need some of both to fully articulate the breadth of our convictions.