Writers in the June 16 issue talk about “the both/and nature of faith” and loving Jesus. I affirm these dimensions of unity but would add one that undergirds the others: theology. Our Anabaptist forebears had high ethical standards but did not substitute ethics for theology. We have departed from their path. We have left profound claims like the two natures of Christ aside for fear of arguments that distract us from living an ethical life. The foundation of the church is not one or the other — theology or ethics — but both.
The outcome of our one-sided emphasis on ethics is that candidates for ordination and baptism are seldom introduced to claims like that of Jesus’ identity. This is the backdrop for traditionalists’ mistrust of progressives. Because we have given up a commitment to find theological common ground at the most foundational level, people grasp at issues like homosexuality as the test of faithfulness to the gospel. If our faith were grounded in the Triune God and in the experience of Christ as both our teacher and Savior, we would have enough in common to trust one another in differences like those we have about sexuality.
The irony of this failure is that Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada have a Confession of Faith that models a permeable orthodoxy: It is Trinitarian, with a high view of the Bible, and takes different approaches to the Bible seriously. It holds together evangelism, peace and justice. It passed in 1995 with the support of progressives and traditionalists. It offers common ground to trust that lesser differences will not break our unity.
John D. Rempel, Niagara on the Lake, Ont.
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