ARCHBOLD, Ohio — Representatives of three Mennonite Church USA area conferences — Lancaster, Franklin and North Central — reported on their processes of deciding whether to leave the denomination Oct. 19-21 at the semiannual meeting of the Constituency Leaders Council.
NORTH NEWTON, Kan. — Western District Conference delegates on Oct. 31 gave pastors the freedom to perform same-sex marriages if their congregations approve. The unprecedented action conflicts with Mennonite Church USA’s Membership Guidelines, which forbid pastors to officiate same-sex marriages, and Confession of Faith, which affirms traditional marriage only.
The Lancaster Mennonite Conference Board of Bishops has affirmed a resolution recommending the conference withdraw from Mennonite Church USA. The proposal now goes to credentialed leaders for a vote.
Though we desire peace and justice to prevail in the region holy to the faiths of Abraham and find the injustices that happen there abhorrent, we believe the “Resolution on Israel/Palestine,” tabled at the Mennonite Church USA convention at Kansas City this summer, is counterproductive to the cause of peace.
How is it that Mennonite Church USA has become lax in its stand against homosexual activity? When Pink Menno activists showed up at the Phoenix convention in 2013, we considered them left-wing radicals. Then came the 2015 convention in Kansas City, and all restraint was gone.
Hal Shrader, the lead pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church in Glendale, Ariz., who spoke at a Mennonite Church USA convention worship service this summer, died Oct. 19 in a motorcycle accident outside of Blanding, Utah.
ELKHART, Ind. — The Discernment Group on sexual abuse, a committee formed by Mennonite Church USA in 2013 to address the painful and complex legacy of sexual abuse by renowned theologian and professor John Howard Yoder and the church’s inadequate responses to it, met for the last time on Oct. 5.
