A pure fellowship': The danger and necessity of purity in white and African-American Mennonite racial exchange, 1935--1971 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Daily demonstrators: the civil rights movement in Mennonite homes and sanctuaries
Choice Reviews Online, 2011
xiii much more subtle and complex change processes. One couple's interracial marriage prompted some of their co-believers to reconsider folk notions about race, while for others it reinforced stereotypes. Vincent and Rosemarie Harding's activism called their colleagues to courageous action even while complicating the church's theology of nonresistance. The Mennonite church that welcomed African-American members struggled to allow their young adults to socialize across racial lines. As these instances suggest, the stories told in Daily Demonstrators are fraught with contradiction, complicated by imperfection, and indicative of human limitation. Nonetheless, those same stories reveal the messy but no less substantive contributions to social change of personal relationships, theological commitments, and communal boundaries. These richly complex narratives also challenge Mennonite histories of the twentieth century by bringing African-American Mennonites from the margins to the center of historical inquiry. Two of the most comprehensive twentieth-century historical works on Mennonites, Paul Toews's Mennonites in American Society (1996) and Perry Bush's Two Kingdoms, Two Loyalties (1998), refer to African Americans in the Mennonite church only in passing and underestimate the impact made by African-American leaders like Curtis Burrell, Vincent Harding, Gerald Hughes, Rowena Lark, and Roberta Webb. Rather than sitting silently on the sidelines, African-American Mennonites vociferously challenged their faith community to show integrity of word and deed. Only by incorporating stories like those told in this volume does twentieth-century Mennonite history become complete. 12 Choosing among Mennonites Among the many religious communities available for study, I have chosen to examine the two largest denominations of the Mennonite community-the (Old) Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church. The (Old) Mennonite Church was the larger of the two denominations during the period of this study, with 88,947 members in the United States as of 1971. Although not an official designation, the term (Old) Mennonite Church was adopted by many members of both denominations to refer to the larger group. I follow this practice to avoid confusion between the two denominations. 13 By the time this study opens, xiv G preface H (Old) Mennonite congregations clustered most heavily along the eastern seaboard, particularly in Pennsylvania and Virginia, and in the Midwest, in Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa. From these locations, (Old) Mennonites eventually came in contact with African-American communities in northeastern cities and throughout the South. Culturally, white members of this community were predominantly of Germanic-Swiss heritage and tended toward more strict interpretations of church doctrines in the area of distinct dress and practices such as the holy kiss, a gender-segregated greeting given within the confessed community. Similarly, many constituent groups belonging to or connected with the (Old) Mennonite Church employed strong bishop-centered authority structures. Church hierarchy and the subsequent ability to enforce a centralized position on racial matters would prove critical to interracial ministry and church positions. By contrast, the General Conference Mennonite Church counted only 36,458 members in the United States in 1971. Congregations from the General Conference were clustered most heavily in Kansas and Nebraska but were also found in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Iowa. Owing to their concentration in rural communities in the Midwest, General Conference Mennonites came into contact with African Americans far less frequently than did (Old) Mennonites. The denomination sponsored some mission work among Native American communities but had little formal connection with African-American groups, save through the work of Camp Landon in Gulfport, Mississippi. The membership of the General Conference shared Germanic-Swiss roots with the (Old) Mennonite group but also included a large contingent of Mennonites with roots in Prussia and southern areas of Russia. The General Conference polity was more congregationally autonomous, was less defined by distinct dress codes, and, though committed to missions, worked more extensively in rural than in urban settings. A less robust church hierarchy also led to a greater variety of theological positions on racial matters among General Conference congregations. I selected the homes and sanctuaries within these two denominations because the tensions inherent in Mennonite service left a clear record of their motivation for working across racial lines. By the middle of the twentieth century, these Anabaptist heirs of the sixteenth-century Radical Reformation, who eventually, in 1683, found their way to Germantown, Pennsylvania, confronted three primary tensions. First, having
"Repent of the Sins of Homophobia": The Rise of Queer Mennonite Leaders
Nova Religio, 2021
Across North America, Mennonites are widely regarded to be among the most conservative of Christian groups. But in recent decades, Mennonite understandings of LGBTQ+ identity have transformed faith communities, as the engagement of social media-conscious activists such as Pink Menno have contributed to evolving practices regarding sexual minorities in Mennonite churches. Recent ordinations and the growing visibility of queer ministers, chaplains, and theologians have led to recent schism in Mennonite Church USA, with traditionalists departing the denomination in record numbers. The decentralized nature of Mennonitism has contributed to more inclusive policies in the past two decades, although decentralization also allows exclusionary practices to persist in some churches and institutions. This article draws from oral history interviews with thirty Mennonite theologically trained LGBTQ+ leaders from across the United States and Canada. These narratives demonstrate how-in some sectors of the Mennonite community-queer and non-queer people are accelerating changes in historically homophobic spaces.
"Mista Midnights": Mennonites and Race in Mississippi
Mennonite Quarterly Review, 2004
The racially charged atmosphere of Mississippi in the 1960s saw Mennonites respond by defending segregation, by warning against the dangers of civil rights demonstrations and by increasing evangelism among both ?colored? and white nonbelievers. But a growing voice was also heard among a small group of Mennonites appealing for racial integration, social protests and active social service. These diverging responses were both shaped by Anabaptist and American Mennonite historical and theological antecedents, including egalitarianism, nonconformity, separation, activism and quietism. By the early 1970s Mennonites in Mississippi as a whole began speaking out and acting in support of African-Americans. This trajectory from quietist nonconformity to engaged activism, however, belied a deeper fragmentation among Mennonites within the state and the nation.
Revivalism and fundamentalism were significant forces that greatly influenced the life and theology of North American Mennonites during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After World War II, the (Old) Mennonite Church began to made a significant shift away from fundamentalism. The Conservative Mennonite movement began in the 1950s in protest against the theological and sociological changes taking place in the Mennonite Church, particularly the loss of fundamentalist doctrines. This thesis traces the influences of fundamentalism as they were adopted early in the twentieth century by the Mennonite Church and came to fulfillment in the founding of the Conservative Mennonite movement. By looking at the history of the (Old) Mennonites in North America and the development of Protestant fundamentalism, this thesis provides a theological analysis of the influence of fundamentalism on the Conservative Mennonite movement.
We Bear the Loss Together: A History of the Mennonite Aid Union
Journal of Mennonite Studies, 2009
This collection of essays aims to discuss "in depth the ways in which ethnicity and Christianity sometimes work together and sometimes are at odds in the overall project of determining and communicating individual and group identities." (xii-xii) Between a thoughtful introduction and conclusion by the editors, nine authors seek to fulfill the above aim by examining Allophone and Anglophone Catholics, Francophone Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians and Reformed, United, Lutherans, Eastern Churches, Mennonites, and Evangelical groups. Although the authors come from a variety of disciplines, all the essays generally follow the same template, offering a history of the subject group, its demographic challenges and prospects, and the place of ethnic identity in its religious and social expression. The editors' introduction surveys Christianity in Canada while skillfully outlining the choices made and problems that will be addressed in the book. The introduction points to the dichotomy of "believing without belonging" that characterizes many secularized Canadians of Christian origin, while many who are members of Christian churches are the opposite: "belonging without believing." (14-15) A recurring theme in the articles, also elaborated in the editors' introduction and conclusion, is the 'discourse of loss' that permeates mainstream Christian congregations in Canada. Some denominations have lost members at an alarming rate, particularly after the mid 1990s. According to census data the Presbyterian Church, for instance, lost 35 percent of its members between the 1991 and 2011. (186) For Anglicans the loss of charter members has meant the only real numeric growth has come from newcomers to Canada. These newcomers have tended to be more conservative with respect to many questions that had seemingly been overcome, such as the role of women in ministry, and homosexuality. Their increasing presence in the Canadian church has meant that these issues have again come to the forefront. (153) Readers of this journal will be most interested in two chapters of the collection, one by Royden Loewen on Mennonites and the other by Bruce Guenther on Evangelical Christians, a broad category that includes, or is attractive to many ethnic Mennonites. Loewen's article offers a careful analysis of the nuances of the 'state of ethnicity' among Mennonites in Canada. The task is daunting because of the
The Evolution of Mennonite Sexuality: How John Howard Yoder Got Away With It
In recent years, it's been made clear that sexuality is an important conversation in the circle of Mennonites around the world. Discussions of sexual morality, homosexual relationships, and sexual violence are plenty. If one knows anything about Mennonite dress, it's clear that sexuality, both pure and impure, are thought to be implied by how one chooses to dress themselves. Youth, in any culture, are seemingly always stuck in the center of the conversation of sexuality and sexual curiosity. It's clear that in the years between about 1890 and 1930, the youth of the Mennonite community were treated no differently, though in years prior to 1890, it is unclear exactly how much of a focus there was on the youth and sexuality. Enter here a few men who had a thing or two to say about sexuality and how Mennonite circles should approach the discussion in a Bible-influenced way. Sexual roles, in the home and in the church, changed and men were seen to be at the top of the pyramid in all things, even sexually. With modernity came the conversation on purity and the man's role in the relationship to decide what that means. In the course of this paper, the transition from free-will and love to clamp-down and white prayer caps will, hopefully, give insight into how a horrible misconduct, such as that done by John Howard Yoder, could possibly have happened under the dome of Anabaptism, seemingly without recourse.
PhD, Dissertation, 2017
While Mennonites are known for their peace stance, Mennonite pacifism and peace theology have tended not to address internal forms of violence within the community of faith and among people who identify as "Mennonite." Two illustrations of this include the case of Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder's methodical perpetration of sexual violence against upwards of 100 women, specifically his theological justification of them as acts of "familial love" within the body of Christ, as well as Mennonite Church Canada and Mennonite Church USA's discernment processes regarding the morality of same-sex marriage and the membership of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer persons. In both of these examples sexual and gender based forms of violence within Mennonite institutions and understandings of Mennonite ecclesiology and reconciliation processes were overlooked and/or ignored. This thesis addresses such significant failures. It considers the potential of Mennonite peace theology and discipleship ethics for the construction of a feminist Mennonite theo-ethics of embodiment and sexualityone that is committed to the well-being of the most vulnerable members of the community of faith (i.e. those with the least access to ecclesial and social power).