A version of this appeared in Canadian Mennonite in the June 2025 issue.

Nearly 500 years ago, my ancestors might well have been among those who supported the persecution of the early Mennonites. In other words, my ancestors might well have persecuted yours.

It’s true. Pahl is not a Mennonite name. My paternal ancestors were Bessarabian Germans, Lutherans all of them, with roots going back to regions in Germany which were staunchly pro-Luther during the Reformation.

And yet, Pahl is a Mennonite name. I am, after all, a Mennonite—a Mennonite by conviction and membership, not by ancestry or culture.

So what, then, does it mean to be Mennonite?

The very Menno in Mennonite

This question is an especially sharp one in a place like Manitoba, home to a relatively high proportion of Mennonites by ancestry or culture, as well as a good many still by conviction or membership. And it’s an even sharper question for people like me who are unable to play the “Mennonite game,” at least not by naming family relations or schools attended.

I don’t belong. And yet I very much do.

In my experience, Mennonites who have grown up in Menno-saturated regions like southern Manitoba are not really aware of the conflicted experiences of Mennonites like me. This is the water they swim in. Ancestry, culture, membership, conviction—it’s all mixed together in a swirling sea of self-identity.

Not so for me and other Mennonites by conviction, especially those of us from outside these Mennonite meccas. It can sometimes feel like I have a different Mennonite faith than many other Mennonites around me, simply because those cultural markers are not present in my experience and self-understanding.

All this makes me wonder if “Mennonite” is the best word to describe myself. Maybe “Anabaptist” works better. In many circles this word has, after all, come to refer to the general convictions that hold together Mennonites and their theological cousins around the globe.

And yet I’m not simply a “naked Anabaptist,” to borrow Stuart Murray’s phrase—that is, an Anabaptist stripped of all context-specific characteristics. I’m an Anabaptist in a particular setting, with particular clothing. And that clothing is decidedly Mennonite. (And if you immediately thought of literal, stereotypically Mennonite clothing, you’re not really tracking with me here.)

But I’m left with “Mennonite” being an inadequate descriptor of my faith within my specific setting of Manitoba. Sure, I love farmer sausage and vareniki, but that has nothing to do with what it means for me to be Mennonite. I risk sparking some deep misunderstandings every time I describe myself as Mennonite to non-Mennonites—and even to Mennonites—here in Manitoba.

I keep using that word, but I don’t think it means what you think it means.

So, I’ve taken to describing myself with a phrase which feels redundant, but which also feels increasingly necessary: Anabaptist Mennonite. Because I’ve learned the hard way that not all Mennonites are actually Anabaptist. Not all Mennonites by ancestry or culture—or even by church membership—are Mennonites by conviction.

What’s the upshot of all these rambling confessions?

I suppose I would like to see more self-awareness among those of us who are Mennonites by ancestry or culture, more other-awareness toward those who are Mennonites solely by conviction. Consider how playing the Mennonite game feels to these others among us. Think about the ways we conflate different understandings of “Mennonite” that are confusing, even conflicting, for Mennonites by conviction.

I would also like to see us develop a greater awareness of the reality that Mennonites of European ancestry are the minority among the global Anabaptist-Mennonite family. Perhaps we’re aware of the statistics—that two-thirds of Mennonite World Conference’s 2.13 million baptized believers are from outside Europe and North America, for instance—but I wonder how much those numbers really hit home.

Do we Euro-Mennos see ourselves as the norm, the default Mennonites, and the rest as hyphenated-Mennonites who are somehow atypical? If so, we should look at those numbers again, and repent. Doubly so, if we truly want to be an intercultural church.

The typical Mennonite in the world today is not someone named Mary Loewen or John Friesen, living in Winkler or Steinbach, joking in Low German with their Wiebe and Dyck cousins over rollkuchen and watermelon. No, the typical Mennonite today is a young Ethiopian woman named Sitota sharing Jesus with her neighbour over wat and injera.

Not even this Mennonite by conviction, of German Lutheran descent and named “Pahl,” is your typical Mennonite today—and, let me tell you, I’m more than okay with that.