Photo: Members of a panel discussing shifts in the international Anabaptist community included, from left to right: Harriet Sider Bicksler, Emerson Lesher, Samuel Lopez, Leonard Dow, and Alain Epp Weaver. Photo provided.

In an evening full of change, a panel of Mennonite and Brethren in Christ leaders assembled by the Lancaster (Pa.) Mennonite Historical Society and The Brethren in Christ Historical Society gathered at the Lancaster (Pa.) Brethren in Christ Church on Nov. 9 to discuss major shifts in the Anabaptist community around the world.

Harriet Sider Bicksler, editor for the Brethren in Christ Historical Society, led the panel entitled, “How in the world have we changed?” The panel included Emerson Lesher, chair of the Brethren in Christ Historical Society board; Samuel López of the Spanish Mennonite Council; Leonard Dow, pastor of Oxford Circle Mennonite Church in Philadelphia; and Alain Epp Weaver, director of planning and learning at Mennonite Central Committee. They were charged with answering two rounds of questions: first reflecting on the journey Anabaptists have had over the last 50 years and secondly on what it means to be an Anabaptist in the world today.

The story they told was of a community moving from plain to integrated, uniform to diverse, and insulated to global.

Fifty years ago, Anabaptists were very predictable in their dress and their background.

“In my lifetime, we moved from plain to fancy—my grandparents were plain, my parents grew up plain, but in their

young adulthood they took off the covering and plain coat, and that was never part of my experience,” reflected Lesher. “I grew up with a minority mindset; if the majority believed something or did something, they were probably wrong. We were a separatist people, and that has changed.”

The Anabaptist community, including Brethren in Christ, Mennonite, and beyond, saw a broad change, not just in dress, but also in the people coming to church. Dow reflected on seeing this shift in the neighborhood around Oxford Circle. Twenty-five years ago, it was predominantly Irish-Catholic and Jewish; now it is a diverse community where seventy percent of residents are new immigrants.

This increased diversity did not come easily. When Mennonite churches were being established in the area, they were not integrated. “We were part of the same church, but we were separated,” said Dow.

Even where people recognized they were part of the same faith family, there was a struggle as the Anabaptist community became more encompassing. López told a story he heard from Ron Collins, who pastored a Spanish Mennonite church in Chicago: “Some Ohio conservative Amish Mennonites wanted to meet the Hispanic Mennonites in Chicago, so one day he invited them to go. After the service, [and] after they experienced the charismatic worship, they asked Collins, ‘Are you sure these people are Mennonites?’ But later when the conservative Amish Mennonites left, the Hispanics asked, ‘Pastor Ron, are you sure they are Mennonites?’”

Increased diversity was a touchstone of the evening, especially noting how the growing body of international Anabaptists is reflected in growth among North American Mennonites. Dow noted, “The global south is already here in our urban settings, and from what I hear, it’s coming to a county near you.”

Epp Weaver echoed the sentiment, saying, “We have already heard how the growing church in the global south is the growing church here in the United States—immigrant churches from across the world, they’re in Philadelphia, they’re in Los Angeles. They are not they; they are we.”