Conspiracy
I am a Mennonite. I am in as much as my name is one of those 369 surnames that go back 337 years, identified as Mennonites. The lack of congregations forced my parents to naturally move to the most common parallel, baptists. I was brought up Baptist, but I am now baptist.
Upon hearing that her grandson was in Canton, OK on a mission trip to transform a home into and Indian Baptist Church, she surprised me with an hour long trip to visit and bring homemade cookies for faspa (a break meal while you work usually at 10:30 and 3:00). The group left me to tour the cheese factory, and after a tour of the new church, I drove my grandparents back to Watonga, allowing us to visit. We discussed the delay of harvest due the rain, my grandfather's health and how she intended on bringing schnetje (a pastry type biscuit), but the cafe had ran out that morning. "So all I brought was some homemade cookies", she stated flatly.
Earlier, conversations with the Friar and other sponsors had centered around pacifism and the role of the Church and the government. I had mentioned that my grandfather was a Mennonite pastor and my father's parents were Mennonites. They are Mennonite Brethren, which are of the most liberal of sects of Mennonites. Order of service and church discipline are similar to Southern Baptist, but pacifism and true separation of Church and State, as pointed out by the Friar, expose a contrasting framework. We discussed that we may want to travel to my grandparent's church for a service. So, while driving down the two lane highway, almost ripe wheat shuttling us towards Watonga, I asked if we could come out sometime for a service.
Thinking that we were curious about the Amish nature of discipleship that some sects still hold to, she suggested another congregation, "where they still wear hats". I responded that the sermon is what we want to hear, we wanted to hear about pacifism and how a community embraces it. Grandma's voice sharpened. A thought out specific voice used to speak about cohabitation or methamphetamine. "We don't hear that anymore. We still say we believe it, but we don't hear it anymore. They are so worried that the church will die and the young people will leave, that we don't hear it anymore. All those who died before in the name of peace and we don't hear it anymore. We have a praise team now. It takes so much money to run the church. Your grandfather paid his own way, he was an electrician. Now they just sit and worry about the numbers. They save people but there is no umphh. What good does it do to save people if they don't bring about the Kingdom? They let recruiters into our private high school. Why would they do that, we are pacifists?" She paused, not because she could not go on, but she realized how long she had gone. Silence. It would be rude to withdrawn my request, but a worship team was not what we had in mind. "You are surely welcome at our church, but I don't think you will hear what you want." Her tone had changed to a low, tired voice, one laced with sadness. I changed the subject, moving on to her cookies and the family gathering we are having in July. As I got out at the cheese factory, I asked her to check and see if any of my grandfather's sermons remained at the church. She smiled, trying hold back a bit, "Yes, I will. I will."
I have begun to believe that the Contemporary Christian Culture Conspiracy actually exists. How else can an isolated community, with its own church, destroy their very piece of identity, all for the sake of numbers. They did not bring it about on their own, the price paid by those who came before is too great, there has to be a conspiracy.
10 comments:
John,
I am impressed by your post, very interesting, and am looking forward to more from you.
So much of the Church has forgotten that the reason we gather is to BE Christian, not to get larger.
thx
Perhaps there is no conspiracy. That would afford to much thinking. I think, just as the Jewish groups before us, there is an odor of laziness. It is much easier to whip people into their places when the curtain goes up. It's an entirely exhausting thing to love the way Jesus commands but one that is far simplier. That ol' curtain of performance driven bastardization of faith that followed rules and loved little was torn in two the night God died. We've killed him again. It's easier that way. None of that blood and death, the paradox of love within the ugly. Indoor baptismals are much cleaner and practical.
Thanks for having teeth when you bite.
Thanks for the kind words.
M-I-T,
My thoughts exactly, too often we get caught up in the machine, I have been guilty all too often, to see those souls around us. Community is all important.
Z,
Not only is it easier to whip people into place, but people enjoy being whipped.
John,
but people enjoy being whipped
This is pretty profound, and I think that bacically what you are saying is that people want certitude, and to not have to do the work of figuring things out themselves. It is easy/lazy to be a fundamentalist, not so much a liberal.
I think there are two distinct fundamentalists, those who lead and those who follow. Those who lead need to keep the status quo to maintain power, those who follow do so to be part of the power. They don't often think about thier position as long as they are told by the leaders that they are undeniable right. If you begin to question as a leader, you will lose suppport due to percieved weakness. If you are following you risk being wrong and ostersized.
Tofflemire: Greg at "The Parish" linked to you, and I enjoyed the post - I even commented on it, back there. Just so's you're in the know, here it is again:
I nearly incurred computer damage, spewing out a mouthful of morning coffee when I read your description of Mennonite Brethren as among "the most liberal" of Mennonite sects. I grew up in a Canadian MB congregation, which considered itself the very epitome of worthy conservatism. Liberal (better to give it the full televangelist sneer: "Liii-brull") was something we called those questionable General Conference Mennonites - the ones with a Swiss heritage prone to heady academic speculation, and not the trustworthy Russian heritage, which stuck to old-fashioned memorization and proclamation of Scripture.
Of course, reading on I realized that in contrast to the Amish, etc., MBs are indeed quite liberal. I think, however, that "evangelical", in the North American sense, is probably the more accurate brush to tar them with. If I understand my father (an MB pastor of many years) correctly, Mennonite congregations experienced a critical cultural stress fracture during the 60s cultural revolution. In my chiefly Mennonite town, close to 90% of the kids were doing the Leary thing, and congregations were scrambling for an appropriate response to the cultural shift. In that environment, American Evangelicalism (the "centrist" movement between Liberalism and Fundamentalism) looked quite promising, because it was seemingly the only church initiative capable of mustering any appeal to the rising youth culture. Pastors and educators (the Mennonites had a tight network of private schools, post-secondary "Bible Institutes" and colleges) rolled up their sleeves and did what they could to mould to their purposes the central tenets of Evangelicalism. The Youth Pastor, which had until then been entirely foreign to Mennonite churches, was now a given, and Mennonite congregations were "saved" from sliding into small numbers and social obscurity.
Engaging the culture at large, particularly the youth culture, is risky but necessary business. In hindsight we can see how church culture has been co-opted by the youth culture, so that most evangelical churches are structured around consumer demands, youth appeal, flash over substance, the expedience of political rhetoric over the hard sayings of Jesus, etc.
In my own experience, I've finally been impressed with the General Conference method of doing church, which is surprisingly akin to (gasp!) "capital-A" anarchy. You will learn more about the heart of a church by attending a business or board meeting than by attending a year's worth of worship services; the GCM meetings I attended were long, drawn-out affairs that were surprisingly quiet. Everybody, young and old, had their say, and only once that was finished were decisions made. The downside: congregational numbers don't usually "grow" in such circumstances, and the youth are driven to distraction. But what's the alternative?
Thanks for the reply. I love saying "liberal mennonite", mainly for effect. In Oklahoma there are a few "Amish-like" Mennonite communities which taint the general concept of Mennonite, thus I use liberal in the entire Mennonite context. Being brought up baptist, my MB expreience is limited. The insights into the 60's is intresting and understandable. The MB church in Corn seemed to withstand the 60's movement mainly due to isolation in Oklahoma, I guess. It is just recently, with the cultural church movement has the changes in the church been so obvious. I don't know the alternative, no one wants the thier church to die. But at what cost do we embrace consumerism and ignore charity.
Moving post. Thanks.
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