New Voices: By and about young adults

I just finished teaching Mennonite studies to some of the most motivated high school seniors you could meet. At the beginning of our course, I challenged them with what I thought was the most important and difficult question we face: What is a Mennonite, really?

After much discussion, small group deliberation, and a vote, here’s what they gave me:
1. Mennonites believe in peace/pacifism/nonviolence.
2. Mennonites are frugal.
3. Mennonites like farmer sausage.

Did I mention that these young intellectuals also have a sense of humor? Luckily they clearly do because I’m going to poke some fun at them for a moment. They voted for farmer sausage as a major Mennonite distinctive in my well-meaning assignment, so I’m going to criticize them for it in an internationally distributed magazine. Seems fair to me. You’ll have to trust me that they would laugh and agree.

First, let me point out that I had to convince them that peace, pacifism and nonviolence should be combined as one point. If I hadn’t, the entire list would have looked like a thesaurus entry.

Second, while I thoughtfully offered the term “simple living” to temper their second descriptor, they reluctantly chose to “meet me in the middle” by changing the word cheap to frugal. How thoughtful of them.

Third, they chose farmer sausage as their third Mennonite descriptor. Farmer sausage? Need I say more, except to point out that this Manitoba-Mennonite delicacy is completely unknown to a significant portion of this magazine’s readership—let alone our other Mennonite brothers and sisters all over the world.

I could point out that this list is a classic example of “cultural” Mennonites losing sight of true Anabaptist theology. I could also point out that when this happens, some of the most dedicated Mennonites are excluded. And I’d be right, but you already know those things. Though we haven’t overcome these questions, we’ve wrestled with them explicitly for years now.

Instead, here’s what I’ve concluded: Part of why we’re still wrestling with perceptions like these is that, like me, we’re starting our study with the wrong question. We keep asking each other to nail down a Mennonite identity, but when is the last time that we first asked ourselves if Mennonite identity is even worth something in the first place?

Let me redeem my students by telling you that they’re the ones who taught me this lesson. After receiving their doomed descriptors, I threw what I think is a great list of Mennonite distinctives at them, one I stole from Terry Schellenberg at Canadian Mennonite University. They are: peacemaking, discipleship, following Christ’s teachings, simple living and community. Then I had them evaluate the list in small groups.

As I circulated, I heard one group diligently changing the assignment. They didn’t touch the list. Instead, they started asking each other: “Why does it even matter if we have Menno­nites?” In doing so, they reminded me of a basic truth about learning: If we don’t know why something is worth learning, we’re never truly going to learn it. It finally hit me: Maybe we’ve all been starting with the wrong question.

So allow me to present what my students and I believe to be the new essential question for our classrooms, conventions, sermons and small groups: Why does it matter if we keep Mennonite identity? Or, to put it another way, why should Mennonites exist at all? I’m working on my own answer, but—at the risk of using my teacher voice on you—I think it’s most important that we all work on this together.

One word of caution. When I’ve heard this question come up before, I’ve heard us quickly say that we’re distinct as a peace church and that the world needs that. Then we pat ourselves on the back and move on. I think we can do better than that. Because that’s the type of response that prepares our young people to list peace in three different ways, then pad the list with frugality and farmer sausage.

If we don’t explore whether Mennonite identity is worth it, significant portions of our church will never care to remember what it means. So we need to ask ourselves: Do we want to be defined by sausage, or do we want something more? Describing ourselves may feel like the meaty part of the process, but we first need some bones for that meat to cling to.

Peter Epp teaches Mennonite studies in Gretna, Manitoba, a land overflowing with the bounty of farmer sausage.