4 course corrections for the Mennonite church

Asked to give a talk on “the years ahead,” felt daunting. I’m in my mid-80s, and I was speaking to a class of 1948 high school graduates celebrating their 60th anniversary. What does a class adviser say to gray heads of his own generation that might be relevant to what is ahead? How do I assess a future that few of us might live to see?

I used the metaphor of a kayak trip down a swift-flowing river—the James River, since I had grown up at its mouth, where it empties into Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Not only does the river begin swiftly as a mountain stream and end up pushed back by the ocean’s salty tides, it has its share of rapids and portage points along the way.

But another, perhaps more consequential aspect of the metaphor comes to mind. The trip begins with shallow rapids and obvious shore lines; the challenge is to keep the kayak afloat in the stream. As we proceed downstream, the shoreline recedes, and we are no longer propelled by the force of rapidly flowing water. Indeed, unless we want to stay close to shore, we exchange the kayak for a more substantial motor boat, and the task of steering is to follow the buoys that mark the channel. Then at the river’s mouth we find ourselves in the ocean, where no shoreline or buoys are visible, only the horizon, which stretches as a circle surrounding us. Now we must look to the stars for direction.

The ocean in which we find ourselves is called “global culture.” The boat we sail in is far more complicated to operate than our original kayaks and rowboats and requires a much more sophisticated technical navigational system than we began with. The waves of nuclear and ecological crises that threaten to overwhelm the political and economic strategies for navigating remind me of the hurricane winds, treacherous currents and unknown shorelines that finally defeated Columbus’ fourth and last voyage seeking to find a way to reach the Pacific Ocean. Or, to change the picture, we can no longer catch a comforting glimpse of Mount Fuji, as the Japanese fishermen caught in the tsunami wave are depicted in the famous print from the series “Thirty-Six Views of Fuji.” We really are dependent on the stars.

The Mennonite reality is that we are beyond the shorelines of tradition that provided navigation points for our ancestors. We have completed our institutional development, begun at the start of the last century. We have publishing, mission, media, education and social service organizations that function with technical competence. We have a trained professional pastoral ministry—something that made even our recent forebears apprehensive. We have a professional public media of superb quality that was unimaginable at mid-19th century. We have universities and seminaries, small though they are, and a relief and development organization, all of which are known around the world for their peace and service witness.

We have moved ahead gingerly, but the tide of history has relentlessly swept us into the depths of the global culture. Perhaps the amazing growth and development of Mennonite World Conference in the past 50 years is the best single reflection of these changes. The Mennonite church has become a multi-national, multiethnic, multilingual, multi-institutional, global cultural movement. Is it any wonder minor organizational crises occur in the management of this worldwide, institutional tsunami? We have developed an institutional presence in modern global society that calls for a theological rationale and political (in the good sense of that word) strategy beyond the traditional biblicism of our 19th-century forebears.

Reading between the lines, one can trace these theological and ecclesial developments in our doctrinal statements from 1921 to 1995, which move from biblical literalism to a more nuanced theology of spiritual discernment. One of the most obvious shifts of emphasis in the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (1995) is its movement toward a more spiritual reading of the biblical text as the basis for church discernment. There is a far more nuanced understanding of the relation of the Holy Spirit to the writing, interpretation and application of Scripture to our modern culture.

What might this indicate for the years ahead? What course corrections or refocusing might be called for? What areas of concern require priority attention? I suggest four for consideration as we plot our future course.

1. Our institutional strategy for church growth. Growth should not mean only a larger, better-organized and financed denomination but the global cross-cultural dissemination of what Clarence Jordan called “the God Movement.” This suggests that it should be focused on the multicultural, multinational brother/sisterhood that is becoming reality in Mennonite World Conference. MWC should be thoroughly integrated with Mennonite Mission Network and Mennonite Central Committee, not in competition with them. This cannot be expected to be a smooth, well-ordered procedure. Cross currents and contrary winds may require tacking from point to point against the wind, but we need to set our compass by the stars, not by the winds of change.

2. The vision for mission will need to be more focused on a consistent agapeic witness exemplified in the crucified Christ God raised from the dead. As we are reminded again and again by those attempting to witness for Christ in the Muslim world, it is Christlike compassion and genuine respect that opens the possibility for communication and reconciliation. The missional goal must be understood as a ministry of reconciliation and peacebuilding, not institutional church growth. The goal is not multiplying worship centers, much as one enjoys praise and fellowship. Neither is it a matter of perfecting the spiritual lives of church members. Rather it is introducing the transforming power of God’s shalom offered in Christ as the salvation of the world.

3. The strategy for social witness must focus more on Jesus’ metaphor of salt than on the metaphor of light from a city built on a hill. Our traditional concentration on the metaphor of light has suggested withdrawn communities of piety to be examples of the kingdom of God. If we are to concentrate on the metaphor of light, then at least it should be the metaphor of not keeping our light hidden under a bushel basket (Matthew 5:14-15).

Today the Mennonite community finds itself embedded and immersed in the professional, business and even political spheres of society. The salt metaphor suggests not withdrawal into pristine communities but positive involvement in the life of the society where we find ourselves.
In the words of Jeremiah (29:7) to the Israelites who were taken captive to Babylon, we are called to “seek the welfare of the city” where we live as “resident aliens.” In the years ahead we must discern new strategies of accommodation and witness that reflect the spirit of Jesus.

4. At the beginning of this new century, finding ourselves too far beyond the visible shoreline with its lighthouses to warn us of shoals and shallows, we are compelled to rely on a new guidance system. We must reassess our framing and use of Scripture as a guide and give more prominence to and trust in the Holy Spirit to fulfill its role in guiding the followers of Christ. We have rightly been wary of a Pentecostal understanding of the Spirit’s role as an antidote for biblicism, but we must not allow tradition to inhibit our trust in the Spirit to reveal “truth as it is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:21) for our present situation. Jesus himself recognized the historical limitations of conveying “truth,” and he promised that his “Spirit of truth” would stay with us to guide us into “all truth.” To close with the metaphor, the stars—or must we update and say satellites—symbolize the Spirit of Jesus that beyond the shoreline of sacred tradition must be our navigational guide.

C. Norman Kraus is a member of Park View Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, Va.